Volume II, Issue IV
SUMMER 013
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HbMAG.CA Volume II - Issue IV - SUMMER 013
Words
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KAITLYN BOIS NAHTE G. SAHAR GOLSHAN ADAM LEWIS ERIC MOULDS R. SCHULTZ & E. GREAVETTE VINCE STRICKLAND
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Mark Ciesluk
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E. GREAVETTE & R. SCHULTZ JONN GOSSELIN AMANDA HORDYK LAUREN STALLARD DAVID THOMPSON
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Cover: Danielle McCrorey Back cover: E. GREAVETTE & R. SCHULTZ
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
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Graham Engel
Special Guest Editor: ZOE FARRELL JOHNSON Website Editor: Samuel tisi Copy Editor: R. SCHULTZ Creative Consultant: ETHAN GREAVETTE
HBRADIO.CA
ZED DR. MARK INTERSTELLAR SAM
DJ CONAN DJ SAVIOUR BLOODY MARY
THE OFFICIAL SIX MONTH PLAN* *Submission/Publication dates are projected, not confirmed. Please contact us for more information prior to contributing at
Statement of artistic ownership: All words and images submitted to Highbraü may be posted on the website and/or printed within the magazine and sold by us in order to cover the cost of producing the magazine and to fund other projects. All contributors are credited and thanked. You retain all other rights to your own work.
submissions@hbmag.ca
#9 - DRUGS
#10 - HARVEST
For better or for worse, no society in history has ever had our level of 24/7 access to the truly bewildering variety of natural and artificial uppers, downers, and in-betweeners that we make use of every single day. Highbrau wants to know about your relationship to coffee and cigarettes, marijuana and ritalin, bath salts and opium. Tell us about your mother’s percocet addiction, your first time on LSD, or your latest close call with Johnny Law.
Autumn is harvest time, and Highbrau is interested in the traditions, stories, and moments of reflection that come with this annual milestone. As you enjoy nature’s bounty and the changing of the seasons, stop a while and share with us what this blessed time of year means to you, your family, and your community.
Submissions Due: Immediately! (August)
Submissions Due: Early Autumn (October)
HIGHBRAU SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Words
Images
We are soliciting any and all opinion pieces, analyses, stories, poetry, and other original written works. Please send all submissions as a .doc file.
We are soliciting any and all photographs, drawings, illustrations, comic strips, and other original visual art. Submit images and photographs in the highest resolution possible as .png, .jpg, or .pdf files.
Submit 500-750 words for one page with title and picture, 1500-2200 for 2-3 pages. Submissions may be edited by our staff for formatting & clarity.
Remember that we print in black and white. We can and will transform any colour submissions into B&W images.
We do not print essay-style annotations, but we encourage you to submit websites, papers, books etc. as a list of further readings, if you wish.
Images, photographs, and other visual submissions will be lightly edited (brightness, contrast, etc) in order to optimize them for appearing in print.
Send all submissions to submissions@hbmag.ca by the deadlines above. Please contact us early to announce your intent to contribute, if possible.
WATER (A.K.A. LIFE)
tate at. This forest, in the east end of Kitchener, is less than 2km from the Grand River. The water that sustains this forest, the water that sustains me, comes from the Grand River.
BY VINCE STRICKLAND
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hen I was a very young child, possibly 4 or 5 years old, I remember having a conversation with my father. In this conversation, I was describing to him the importance of water and I stated, very confidently, that water was the only liquid on Earth and any liquid we see has to be made from water. At this young age I was not educated in the existence of the Periodic Table of the Elements - my experiences in liquids included only water, milk, and apple juice - but I seem to have understood, at some base level, water’s importance in our lives. As I grew, I learned about the existence of atoms in science class and that each element has a liquid phase dependent on temperature. This little story of my childhood highlights where my vision has always been focused – looking at the world around me, theorizing, and trying to determine how it works.
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hroughout my childhood I spent a lot of time outdoors in the forest behind the building I grew up in. I loved playing in this forest and some of my most cherished memories lie within the history of this forest. I remember building forts, climbing trees, digging up worms, watching all sorts of bugs go about their day, chasing rabbits and squirrels, and I also remember playing in snow up to my waist, with cheeks cold as ice and wiping snot off my nose with the back of my mittens, all in this forest that I grew to love. One of my favourite activities was to wade in the tiny streams, and try and catch the minnows swimming in the small pools created by the slow moving currents. To this day, this forest holds a special place in my psyche. I no longer chase minnows in the streams, but I do have a special spot that I like to medi-
The Molecule of Life Water is a very interesting molecule. It’s composed of two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded (a very strong bond involving electrons) to one oxygen atom at an angle of 104.5°. This angle contributes to an important property of the resulting water molecule, that of dipole polarity. Dipole polarity means one side of the water molecule is negatively charged, while the other side is positively charged, and this allows for water molecules to attract each other, much like little magnets, and form hydrogen bonds. These hydrogen bonds, although much weaker than the stronger covalent bonds holding the water molecule together, contribute significantly to the energy properties of water. Water has a specific heat capacity of 4.18 J/g C° in its liquid phase and 2.11 J/g C° in its sol-
OF FLUORIDATION, DENTAL HEALTH, & MORE: HIGHBRAU CONSIDERS MULTIPLE IMPRESSIONS On October 25, 2010, the residents of the Region of Waterloo went to the ballot box to answer a question: Should the region continue to fluoridate our drinking water? After years of public lobbying on the issue by concerned community groups such as WaterlooWatch, the final result was split by the barest of margins: 50.3% of those casting votes (13,363 residents) voted against continued fluoridation, while 49.7% (13,216) voted in favour. Because of this result, the Region shuttered the doors of its fluoridation operations on November 1, 2010. Consequently, hexafluorosilicic acid is no longer being in-
tentionally added to our drinking water, and so is no longer being eventually introduced into the groundwater of our watershed. As you could expect given the razorthin margin of the referendum vote, the issue of artificially fluoridating drinking water in hope of benefiting the dental health of our population remains controversial. Highbrau received two different takes on the purported utility and potential side effects of this practice, and we invite JOHN GOSSELIN you to consider them both while educating yourself on this topic of national debate. Expand your mind! Learn more at hbmag.ca/fluoride.
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id phase. Specific heat capacity is the amount of energy in joules (J) needed to raise 1g of, in this case, water by 1C°. Water’s specific heat capacity is very high compared to most molecules, for example, oxygen on its own is 0.918 J/g C°, and sodium is 1.23 J/g C°, and this means water can absorb a lot of energy before a temperature change is experienced. Water’s latent heat of vaporization, or the amount of energy needed to evaporate liquid water, is 2257 J/g at 100°C, and its latent heat of fusion, or the amount of energy needed to be removed from liquid water to turn it into ice, is 333 J/g at 0°C. These two numbers also speak to the large amount of energy water can absorb before a change of state is observed. This is the energy it takes to break the hydrogen bonds holding the water molecules close to each other and these chemical properties of water play a crucial role both within our bodies and in Earth’s water cycle.
Fluid Bodies Our bodies, depending on age and musculature, contain anywhere be-
tween 50-80% water by volume. Water is found in the intracellular fluid compartment (the body’s trillions of cells) and in the extracellular fluid compartment consisting of the blood plasma and interstitial fluid (fluid between cells), and various other fluid compartments, like the eyes, spinal column, etc. Water is often referred to as the universal solvent, and the body’s chemical reactions depend on this property. Because of water’s dipole nature, the magnet-like property allows the water molecule to dissociate, or break apart, some weakly bound ionic and reactive compounds. For example, table salt, or NaCl, disassociates very easily in water into Na+ and Cl-. Water will also form hydration layers around larger charged molecules, like proteins, which protect them from coagulating out of solution. These solvent properties make water the body’s major transport medium, carrying molecules in and around the body, and allowing metabolic wastes to be excreted. Water can also serve during metabolic reactions, either splitting apart in hydrolysis reactions or forming in dehydration synthesis. But the true magic of wa-
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ter in the body relates to its high heat capacity and latent heat of vaporization. As we have seen above, water can absorb a large amount of energy before a change in temperature is felt, and, in order to maintain a body temperature of 36.8°C, the body’s water content absorbs extra energy by external forces (sun, wind, etc.) and internal forces (metabolism, muscle activity, etc.), inhibiting a change in body temperature. Perspiration on the other hand, is the body’s cooling mechanism, and uses water’s latent heat of vaporization to remove 3large amounts of heat from the body. Water at the surface of the skin absorbs heat energy in the body to the point where the water turns from a liquid to a gas and evaporates off the skin; this removes the large amount of heat energy needed by the water molecules, effectively cooling the body. Biological systems require water to survive.
The Earth’s sobriquet of the “Blue Planet” is a fitting one as, the world’s oceans cover 71% of Earth’s surface.
The water system on Earth is called the hydrosphere and the salty oceans make up 97.2% of all Earth’s water, with the remaining 2.8% consisting of glaciers, groundwater, freshwater lakes, saline lakes, inland seas, soil moisture, stream channels, and the atmosphere. The water in the hydrosphere is estimated to be 1.36 billion cubic kilometers and is circulated around the globe by the hydrological cycle. As water evaporates from the oceans, and to a smaller degree from inland lakes, streams and plants, clouds form and move this water over great distances, to then be released in the form of precipitation. Most of this water is released over the oceans, but what is released over land is vitally important for all living creatures and has helped to shape the land as it finds its way back to the oceans. This cycle is powered by the sun and the atmosphere plays the crucial link, cycling 380,000 cubic kilometers of water around the world every year. It has been likened to the circulatory system in a body, one that moves nutrients around this massive body of Earth. Water’s unique ability to hold large amounts of energy plays a critical role in the movement of this system. The equatorial zones, between the Tropic of Cancer in the North and the Tropic of Capricorn in the South, receive the most amount of the sun’s energy throughout the year and this energy concentration is what drives the oceans and the atmosphere. The energy from the sun evaporates large amounts of water into the atmosphere at the equator, which creates large storm systems and air movement through pressure differentials, moving weather systems from the equatorial regions to the polar regions. Heating of the equatorial oceans also
allows for movement of the ocean water towards the poles through massive oceanic currents. These two forces of water movement balance the heat energy of the Earth, by transferring the energy taken up by the water in the equatorial regions to then dissipating that energy as the water moves towards the much colder, polar regions.
The Connection I am not a static being; the water molecules I ingest move around inside my body, helping to nourish me and to keep me alive. As those molecules exit my body they reenter the Earth’s body and are moved around the planet, only to be rained back into the river I drink from. There is no beginning and no end to the movement of water between me and the Earth; I am part of the hydrological cycle. This understanding of the natural world, that has brought to me by my scientific education, has surpassed a reductionist scientific view and has allowed me to develop a deep, spiritual connection to the Earth that nourishes me. If my body is made from the same atoms found throughout the Earth - in a constant state of entering and exiting my body - and I am a part of the various Earth’s cycles, where does my body end and the Earth’s begin? Is the thin
layer of skin encapsulating all this water in my body really the defining line between me and the world around me? As these boundaries melt away in a new definition of who I am by understanding how I work and fit into the larger picture, I have a difficult time separating the effects. Changes in the Earth’s water cycle and pollution of the Earth’s water is ultimately just as intimately tied to changes in my body’s water cycle and pollution of my body. The forest that I grew up in, the forest less than two kilometres from the Grand River, is not what it used to be when I played as a child. Over the many years I have lived here I have seen a change in the water and it doesn’t flow the same as it once did. The streams don’t flow as high as they once did, some of the smaller ones are just dried up rock beds now, and I haven’t seen a minnow in a very long time - certainly not the numbers I once experienced swimming around my ankles as a child. Every spring, before the forest floor growth starts, I clean up garbage. I used to do this after the snow had all melted, but for three seasons now there hasn’t been much accumulation of the white frozen water. I wonder what the effect of this will have on this forest’s future. I wonder what the effect of this will have on my future here in this place. My spiritual self does not allow for a distinction between this forest’s life flow and my own life flow, and so I feel this change in my body. As I sit and meditate in this place I feel an immense sense of responsibility, if I expect the Earth to nourish me and supply my body with life giving water, I have to expect that the Earth needs the same from me.
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GRAND OL’ TASTE BY R. SCHULTZ & E. GREAVETTE
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ur journey began on a beautiful that sustain us - foraging wild leeks, February afternoon. We set out rhubarb, fresh herbs. Spring food! It with good friends to commune with seemed appropriate to take advaneach other and our planet through tage of the change of the seasons and food grown by the the food that startwater that feeds us, ed popping up as The Grand River. soon as the ground Some of our ‘chosen warmed. family’ meets weekThis time, we’d ly to practice and be able to collect share our kitchen the meal from much arts. Today our goal closer to our homes was to explore what and frequented comour region had to munities. Rhubarb IMAGES by E. Greavette offer for this week’s comes in abundance communal meal. It had been a chal- if you get it at the right time. The cold lenging season for growers in the nights made the spinach sweeter, area. Hard frost last spring decreased juicier, and a fresh treat after the rootstocks. Despite this, Almut at Pfen- vegetable diet of the cold season.
Winter Watershed Menu Honey-Cider-Garlic Glazed Ribs Roasted Root Vegetables (with Butter & Horseradish) Frying Pan Sauerkraut (with Shallots & Apples) Roasted Butternut Squash (with Honey & Butter) Honey Baked Apples (with Ice Cream)
ning’s (#4 on the map) excitedly dug out the last of her home-grown sweet potatoes from the back while chatting with us about our project.
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inter is about foods that keep. Our regular CSAs and markets were not opperating until the spring. While we had loved our root vegetables when we first saw them in the fall, it was time for a change. We were itching for the chance to harvest our own food again on a larger scale. It was time to get back into the forests and gardens
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ocal food is welcome each time it appears in our gardens or our preserves. Flowing with the cycles of the land that feeds us forces us to select, prepare, put away, and enjoy a variety of foods. Our culinary adventure was born out of the Grand River and the people who live in its embrace, and was ended in the joyful company of others. Take it from those of us who live here - food that really schmecks [Mennonite for “is tasty” - Eds.] is best prepared, shared, and enjoyed with the people you call your family and community!
Spring Watershed Menu Garlic Sage Steak on a bed of Spinach, Bacon, & Wild Leeks Roasted Tomato & Pepper Kebabs Garlic Sage Grilled Asparagus Old Cheddar Slices Honey Stewed Rhubarb (with Ice Cream)
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OUR GRAND RIVER WATERSHED
Map used under Creative Commons license from the Johns Hopkins University Global Water Program. Map created 12-Aug-2010.
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1) Ribs - Dars Country Market, Elora 2) Horseradish - Farmers Market, St. Jacobs 3) Apples - Martin’s Family Fruit Farm, Waterloo 4) Shallots, Butternut Squash Pfennings, St. Agatha 5) Butter - Organic Meadow, Guelph 6) Ice Cream - Hewitt’s Dairy, Hagersville 7) Cheese - Bright, Milbank 7) Honey - Bauman’s Apiary, Milbank 8) Beer - Brick Brewery, Waterloo
5) Butter - Organic Meadow, Guelph 6) Ice Cream - Hewitt’s Dairy, Hagersville 7) Honey - Bauman’s Apiary, Milbank 9) Rhubarb - Highbrau HQ, Kitchener 10) Tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, spinach Floralane produce, Floradale 10 ) Leeks - Foraged in Floradale 11) Bacon - Traditional Foods, Wellesley 12) Steaks - Vibrant Farms, Baden 13 ) Garlic - River Song, St. Jacobs
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DREAMING DECOLONIZATION ON THE GRAND RIVER BY ADAM LEWIS
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s Idle No More movements continue to reorganize and evolve, they have brought Indigenous issues and resistance against colonialism to the forefront of political debates and social movement activity in this country. Non-Indigenous peoples are facing increasing possibilities of engagement with these issues and there are a number of questions that we must ask ourselves if we are to begin to embrace this engagement. What is the role of non-Indigenous or settler peoples in supporting Indigenous resistance? How might we show solidarity with Idle No More? How might we begin to self-organize within our own communities? What would an accountable vision of selforganization look like? What does this look like in our own specific contexts (i.e. the Grand River region)? What responsibilities do we have as settlers? What privileges? What would settler decolonization look like? The questions may seem endless – and daunting – but it is imperative that we ask them. One of the first things to consider is our location. The Grand River, from top to bottom, is situated on the land of the Haudenosaunee people of the Six Nations of the Grand River. The watershed extends much further than the river itself, supplying the lifeblood for the neighbouring natural areas. The Haldimand Tract, which encompasses 6 miles on either bank along the entirety of the river, was signed into existence on October 25, 1784 by Frederick Haildimand. The land had purchased from the MichiSaagig (Mississauga) Anishinabek and granted to Six Nations as reparations for the land lost in the United States after they fought as allies to the British in the American Revolutionary war. The subsequent history of this land is one of theft, stolen rev-
enue, appropriation and settler encroachment. We need to take stock of this particular context and history. We need to recognize that this history is not finished; it is ongoing today. Land defenders from Six Nations have been active in a number of efforts to recover land, halt deveopment, and draw attention to the theft of land and the contestation of the lands that most of us take for granted as the places where we live, work, and organize. The most notable of these events is the reclamation at Kanonhstaton (The Protected Place) just outside Caledonia that began in 2006 and continues to this day. Other struggles continue as well, including those against continued development on the Waterloo Moraine, expanding development from urban centres out into the reaches of the rural, the siting of a waste processing plant in Dundalk at the headwaters of the Grand (with the looming threat of contamination), the Line 9 pipeline reversal (attempting to bring Tar Sands bitumen through Southern Ontario), and efforts to fight the general lasting effects of contamination from industrial and residential pollution. These are the struggles that were and continue to be alive on this land. Given that environmental struggles are taking place on contested Indigenous lands, what are we, as non-native inhabitants who recognize colonization, injustice, oppression and domination, going to do?
We need to recognize that this history is not finished; it is ongoing today. HBmag.ca
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hose who are active in social movements, for example, continue to resist and create alternatives on stolen and contested Indigenous lands, often with little attention to the Indigenous struggles that are taking place and without connecting these struggles together. These alternatives and movements continue to reinforce the colonial relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples by taking the issue of uncontested land as irrelevant, unimportant or of lesser concern than broader goals of ‘revolution’ or social change. A failure to take into account the realities of stolen and contested land, colonialism, and the benefits that settlers receive maintains a colonial status quo, where Indigenous communities and voices are excluded, silenced and diminished. Further, what about the utopian alternatives that might create new futures? On what land will these be created? All those interested in social justice, resistance and action need to take up an intersectional and overlapping analysis of oppression and domination that includes colonization. Part of this begins by looking at how we are each situated with regard to decolonization. Many Indigenous writers, activists and community members have argued, in a number of ways, that non-native or non-Indigenous peoples are all settlers – meaning that we and our ancestors are not indigenous to the lands that we inhabit, and that through a number of ways we all have participated in processes of colonization and/or continue to benefit from these same processes. Because of the ways that non-Indigenous peoples have held up, created, or bought into the colonial system, this includes (to varying degrees): migrant workers, refugees, descendants of African slaves, immigrants, and diaspora communities. Colonization affects all of these people in vastly different ways, which means that the levels of privilege and complicity in processes of colonization are varied, messy, and unclear. But we must begin to unravel
the realities of colonization for ourselves: where we stand, how we benefit or don’t, and what this means in relation to Indigenous peoples and Indigenous struggles. We need to be clear about the privileges that we continue to accrue from colonization. Settlers exist in societies that were designed for their integration and wellbeing at the expense of that of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities have been under constant attack by systems of racism, white supremacy and heteropatriarchy; they have been systematically targeted by the police and the courts; they have had lands invaded by corporate interests, with their natural sources of life strength polluted, degraded and destroyed; they continue to feel the effects of residential schools and other state policies of genocide, cultural destruction, and assimilation. Many settlers do not and have not had to face these daily realities, though there are countless exceptions. White European descendent settlers in particular benefit from the white privileges that Canada as a white supremacist and colonial society grants to those who are perceived to be the ‘norm’ and the benchmark with which to measure how ‘others’ participate in society.
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nti-racist author and educator Robert Jensen suggests that a white supremacist society is “based in an ideology of the inherent superiority of white Europeans over nonwhites....It is a society in which white people occupy most of the top positions in society...” and benefit from the continued domination of non-white groups and peoples. White privilege on the other hand is “the privilege to ignore the reality of white supremacist society when it makes us uncomfortable, to rationalize why it’s not so bad, to deny one’s role in it. It is the privilege to remain ignorant because that ignorance is protected.” This protected ignorance means that settlers overall and white settlers in particular have the option of not having to (Continued on page 12)
Sad and Happy Sahar Golshan
Today I am still learning how to share. Maybe it’s because I am an only child. Or perhaps because my most cherished relationships are one-on-one interactions, and I don’t feel that I belong to a particular community. Yet, when I refer to the concept of sharing I don’t mean sharing relationships. I don’t even mean sharing things that you can divide evenly or anything that you can hold firmly in your hand. One night of my life I sat on a couch in a living room in a house, made shiveringly cold by the high altitude air that blanketed the village at night. Blankets and warm clothes covering our bodies, I sat with an agediverse group of mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins. I was not their family member, but they were each others. Sitting there, I wondered what they thought of me: a 21 year old guest who had been staying with them for less than one month now. Likely from something that I had eaten, that evening l felt the sickening coupled feeling of needing to throw up and the inability to do so. I held a small bucket close. Nonetheless, we all chatted casually while consuming the television’s delivery of exciting moving images: sports matches, sitcoms on life at Islamic boarding school and coffee candy commercials.
She produced dramatic, shining, soul-pronounced droplets of water. Melas teman, melas teman, she said as she came to sit next to me. Poor thing, poor thing. Disgrace hit me. I had made this wonderful old woman feel horrible. At the sight of Mbah Putri in tears, the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins joined in and shared their own. There was something about Mbah Putri crying that hurt everyone. Such sharp shame, great guilt, and the desperate desire to undo what I had done was felt. And then joy. While crying, we had recognized the comic nature of the situation: a watery-eyed choir led by a grandmother conductor and her worrying heart.
We shared laughter. I was crushed by the sadness of making a room of people cry, while overcome with the happiness of being so deeply cared for. Sad and happy. Guilty and loved. Outsider and daughter. Water shedder and water sharer.
While enthralled in a scene from a particularly captivating family drama, I suddenly grabbed for the bucket. In front of everyone, I vomited. Not only that. The embarrassment of vomiting in a home that was not mine, in front of a big family that was not mine, led me to more. I burst into tears. It is at this moment that the small, thin, tireless grandmother and matriarch of the family, called Mbah Putri, entered the living room from the kitchen. Instantly, she shed shared tears.
AMANDA HORDYK
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(Begins on page 10)
Not having experienced genocide and government policies of extermination, assimilation and cultural destruction.
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hese are but some of the benefits and privileges afforded to whites and settlers in so-called Canada. These dynamics and benefits come at the expense of others and structure social, political and economic relations in society. They are what helps to condition our ability to participate in society, how we interact with le-
consider and act upon next steps of resistance within ourselves, our communities and our movements. There might be a number of steps we can take, but the first is education: to figure out where we are, the history of the land, and contestations over it. Who are the traditional inhabitants; what was the process of theft, destruction, genocide, displacement, and settlement? How are we implicated in this? What do the federal/provincial/ municipal governments continue to do to profit from and maintain colonization? What are the legacies of colonization that continue to impact Indigenous communities, cultures and peoples? These and many more questions are perhaps some starting points that might give us a basis for further action and responsibility. But they are only that – a first, incomplete step.
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oing further, we need to continue to think about how we are situated. Where did we as individuals come from? What are our histories? What
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this very context – settlers now have a choice as to how we will engage with questions of colonial history, conceiving new relationships and future possibilities of decolonization. This watershed is a focal point of resistance to decolonization and ecological destruction. We all now have the choice: to act, to resist, or to remain complacent and comfortable in our privilege.
Crossword Answers
Not having our ancestors’ children removed and forced into residential schools only to be emotionally, physically, psychologically and sexually abused, and not having to deal with continued decades of trauma, recovery, and healing .
There might be a number of steps we can take, but the first is education: to figure out where we are, the history of the land, and contestations over it.
Down Karachay Arid Cochabamba Hydropower Arable Algae Potable Precipitation Veolia Fluoride Privatized Reclaimed Deionization Dead Sea Pacific Glacier
Having our experiences and efforts being understood as the standard that all others can attain, where the achievements , successes, and experiences in society by whites are taken as the norm. They are held to be the standard to which all others could aspire to only if they worked harder, weren’t lazy, applied themselves, etc., and as a means to downplay the daily struggles of others.
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White skin privilege: To be free from racialized targeting, policing and incarceration, and able to move through various spaces and institutions in society relatively free of interference, hassle, or challenges.
is our relationship to the lands that we came from, that we have previously inhabited, and that we inhabit now? Is it a ‘permanent’ relationship, or is it fleeting and temporary? We all rely on the natural processes of the watershed – to bring us water, to purify water, and to sustain the land and natural spaces around us. The watershed is what makes the areas where we are liveable. It is the blood of the land. Part of looking at our relationships to the watershed requires that we seriously consider how we are each positioned in relation to both the histories and contemporary realities of colonization and how this connects to current environmental issues. The Grand River is right within
Across Drought Reservoir Exceed Monsoon Barlow Aquifer Agriculture Plankton Desalination Watershed Irrigation Dam Saskatchewan Bechtel Hydrophobic Brazil
Land theft: Our ability to live where we do, while many Indigenous communities struggle with a lack of funding, resources, basic necessities, and increasingly, land in their communities.
gal, social service provision, employment, health care, immigration and all other bureaucratic and governance systems. Privilege determines to what extent we have to worry about getting deported, assaulted by police, denied welfare, or being affected and targeted by racism. Settlers benefit from many of these systems and processes or at the very least can chose to ignore their existence, realities and histories. This is directly apparent with regard to histories of colonialism and the disproportionate injustices directed at Indigenous communities. So, given this need to interrogate and expose privilege and work towards the destruction of white supremacy, colonialism, and racism, we need to
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worry about daily processes of racism, colonization, oppression, and domination, and those that are affected by them. We carry the privilege to choose to ignore the fundamental injustices in society, while reaping the benefits of (for example):
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Result of a severe deficiency of water Artificial lake, maybe “Water demands _______ supply” Stormy season of South-East Asia One of two authors of “Blue Gold” Rock containing ground water About 70% of fresh water used by humans is used for this At the bottom of the watery food chain Process through which salt and minerals are removed from water Drainage basin Employed during periods of inadequate rainfall Barrier constucted to hold water back University that is home to the Global Institute for Water Security Fined in1998 for violating water quality laws in New Hampshire Repelling or fearing water Country with estimated largest supply for fresh water HBmag.ca
Down Lake named the most polluted spot on Earth Too dry to support vegetation Bolivian city in which the collection of rainwater was made illegal Energy utilized for making flour from grain 5 Land suitable for growing crops 8 Latin for ‘seaweed’ 9 10 Safe enough for drinking 13 Water that falls from the sky 14 Largest operator of private water services 16 Public water additive 18 No longer available publicly 19 Formerly wastewater 20 Process also referred to as demineralizing 23 Saltiest place on Earth 26 The Drake Passage links the Atlantic via ___ 27 A sensitive indicator of climate change 1 2 3
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WASHED AWAY BY ERIC MOULDS
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here were no answers when he needed them, so he found himself downhill, by the river. By the water’s edge he could avoid thinking, avoid grasping for what was always out of reach. The river sang peace; but, thick with spring flood, it sang a dark peace. Swirling foam mesmerized and disoriented him, and he fell to his side. Struggling to his knees, he stared deeply into the murk. He hadn’t seen the stump, or the creature sitting on the stump, and didn’t notice him until the smell of wafting smoke tickled his nose. Over his shoulder he looked and saw a stump upon which sat a little man smoking a pipe, dressed in sullied finery and wearing a sunset-red cap. While slumped down on his knees, the little man was eye to eye. The new arrival leaned forward and spoke:
“Hello there.” He could feel the wet soaking into his knees. The little man patted a second stump (was it there before?) genially. “You’re getting your pants dirty. Come, come, this seat’s dry.” The man formerly on his knees found his rump rubbing a stump that gave off the scent of cedar. He couldn’t remember standing and moving to sit down, and it troubled him that he didn’t know how he got there. “Here, I would like to share this with you…” The creature offered his stump-mate the pipe. A green and gold plant matter ringed the ember nestled in the bowl; it smelled sweet and savory. Confused, the man with the drying knees said “I…don’t…I don’t…know what this is?” “It’s good for you. You should have some.” The short man pinched his fin-
ger and thumb together, “…just a little bit.” He lifted the pipe to his lips and inhaled. The little guy gestured for the pipe, and the two shared the sounds of the river’s song. They turned inward. The taller lost his thoughts with the pieces of jetsam that occasionally passed by their vantage point, but soon enough they surfaced from his depths. No outward indicators were given save the subtle downturn of his mouth. The little man spoke:
O
nly river song, and then plunk! A bobbing tree trunk rolled in the water, revealing a spinning branch that suddenly went plunk back into the water. The little man spoke:
“...but people
“People are more like the land, and life is a river. When the rains are heavy, it becomes so strong it overwhelms us. It carries pieces of the world and they leave marks upon us, scraping or getting stuck, changing what was there before. Some would say it is harder to be the land upon which the river washes, what when people think that the rivers job is just to make the water flow. DAVID THOMPSON That’s not the river’s job. The river is an artist, and it sculpts the land, leav“Have you ever ing it changed, deeper and ready for more. So, why just be something that he question was radically strange is pushed mindlessly along, when you outside of children’s tales, but so can be something that is changed and was the little man, and so was the mo- made more by the wild wet and its ment. In stride, the man said, “No. wisdoms?” The little man got up to go, dustThe thought had never really ocing off his rump as he left the man to curred to me.” The little man tugged his hat back ponder. The river sang, and he was out of his eyes and inhaled from his able to forget what brought him to the pipe, the ember drowning in the on- river in the first place.
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coming dark as the bowl emptied itself. “I find many people secretly wish for it, or something like it. They feel as if the fish don’t really think, that they only swim, and eat, and make more fish. Pushed by current around them, it’s like they don’t much work swimming at all. People want to be like fish, pushed by the current, eating, sleeping, and making more fish. It is easy, and maybe fun. Until you get eaten, but then you’re dead, so it wouldn’t matter, right?” The little man grinned a wide grin. The taller man admitted to himself how much a mindless life would appeal to him. Drifting, following instincts, letting the world around him push, pull him from one stage to the next, and then… “and then” left him with more than a little longing…
BLOOD SAUSAGE BY NAHTE G.
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his year will forever be known as The Year of Astral Geist as their new album Blood Sausage was released worldwide. This post progressive grindcore band of unknown origins has swept the charts and claimed the top three positions for all of their singles. Their opening track “Corpse Cork” sets an ominous atmosphere broken only by the unrelenting drumming of Eddy “Timebomb” Hinek. The album then takes on a more industrial tone with the next single, “Pink Sludge Factory”, featuring a screaming guitar solo by Jeröen Joord. My favourite track of the whole album is “Sausage Noose” based on a true story of vigilante justice in a meat packing plant. The song describes a brutal hanging of a foreman by three shift workers who had been forced to sample their own product for quality control. Do your ears a favour and pick up Blood Sausage today.
The deluxe edition of the album has a bonus track, “Pink Sludge Factory (live)”, and a piece of the sausage used to make the infamous noose.
PotDocs #1 The premiere of KW’s newest documentary IS annual ON THE AIR ! film festival! PotDocs is dedicated to shining a spotlight on issues related to the decriminalisation and legalisation of marijuana.
3 LOCAL SHOWS EVERY WEEK! 3 EASY WAYS TO LISTEN! In years to come we hope to exclusively showcase local
Nightmare Radio 10-Midnight but Fri for 1) Tune live in the KW area at 100.3 FM independent filmmakers, ourinfirst exhibition we Broadcasting the soundtrack to your nightmares! More will be hosting a discussion 2)of The Prince of Pot metal than a foundry. Stream live from anywhere at soundfm.ca
(the Marc Emery story) as well as viewing several short films.
HighbrauFM 10-11PM Sat A weekly showcase of the latest and greatest new local music from around Southwestern Ontario.
3) Visit our archives anytime at hbradio.ca
October 20 2012 Dr. Mark’s Psychedelic Solution 11-Midnight Sat Location TBD Just one dose guaranteed to dispel your cares, and cure hbmag.ca/potdocs your asthma too. The first one’s always free. HBmag.ca 15
LINE 9 REPORT
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e could not do a review of the issues facing our Grand River watershed without tying in the environmental, political, and ethical challenges we face in common with the people of other watersheds. Unfortunately, there is one such issue which threatens the health and safety of communities across our province. In 2011 Enbridge, Inc, the Calgary-based owner of the world’s longest crude oil and bitumen pipeline network, applied to reverse the flow of their aging line 9 pipeline. Built in 1975, line 9 runs through 115 communities, including Toronto, Sarnia, Hamilton, London, Kingston and Montreal. By reversing the flow of this pipeline, Enbridge would be able to pump crude tar sands oil from Sarnia through Montreal and eventually on to the Atlantic coast. There, they have access to world markets by sea.
environmentaldefence.ca/issues/tar-sands/line-9
N
ot only does this route run through our Ontarian communities and across several First Nations territories, but the Albertan tar sands bitumen which will be pumped through if it is approved is heavier and thicker than the liquids the pipe was originally intended to carry, requiring it to be pumped at much higher pressures than the pipeline was originally designed to handle. The dangers inherent to this sort of operation were made plain in 2010 when an Enbridge pipeline (line 6B) in Michigan, which was similarly intended to have its flow
s w a m p l i n e 9 . t u m b l r. c o m stopline9-toronto.ca environmentaldefence. ca/issues/tar-sands/line-9
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reversed in order to carry Albertan bitumen to Eastern markets, burst spectacularly and spewed more than 3,000,000 litres of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo river. Today, the cleanup cost of that accident (the largest on-shore spill of oil in US history) stands at roughly $725,000,000 US, and is still climbing. Even more chillingly, the Kalamazoo river spill is far from an isolated incident; Enbridge’s own documents peg the number of oil spills on their massive pipeline network at more than 800 between 1999 and 2010. There is clearly reason for us to be concerned about the safety of our watershed. Highbrau invites you to investigate this issue for yourself, and to get involved in the battle to Swamp Line 9. Read more online: