Contents
- Dear Friends,
- The Voices Of The Carnegie Newsletter
- The Carnegie Newsletter Is Twenty Years Old!
- To PaulR Taylor, editor, ‘The Carnegie’
- Missing Women
- To Diane Wood
- 7 Women's Stories Told
- Doing My Bit
- AWESOME ASAHI
- Celebration
- Dugald Christie – a friend indeed.
- Electronic Recycling Association
- News from the Library
- Picking Blackberries with Jean
- Two to Compare
- Towers of Deception: The Media Coverup of 911'
- On the Stadium
- Words to recognise 20 years
- It's Time to Sing the Old Songs Again
Dear Friends,
I wish to congratulate the Carnegie Newsletter on its 20th Anniversary!
To me, the newsletter is all about “keeping it real” – it’s the straight up truth without any “spin.” When people want to know what the Downtown Eastside is all about, I tell them to go read the Carnegie Newsletter. The Carnegie Newsletter is without doubt the best demonstration of the dynamic and close knit neighbourhood that is our Downtown Eastside. I am always inspired and educated by it, and it helps me to represent our community better in
Thank you everyone at the Carnegie Newsletter - you are all amazing, especially under the wise editorial guidance of Paul Taylor. Here’s to another stellar 20 years of insightful and thought provoking one of-a kind journalism!
Sincerely,
Libby Davies, MP (
The Voices Of The Carnegie Newsletter
So many people have written for the Carnegie Newsletter. So many people have helped put it together. We can’t name them all, but we can name some of them. If your name has been left out, we apologize.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people have helped to keep the Newsletter going. Some of those people have died over its 20 year history. We remember them with reverence. They are part of our living community. As Leith Harris wrote in one of her poems,
“Their spirits live within us
And keep the circle strong.”
Each name brings up memories, and memory is the mother of community. Here are the names of some of the people who have helped with the Carnegie Newsletter over its twenty years:
Paul Taylor, Bud Osborn, Tora, Sheila Baxter, Dan Feeney, Leigh Donohue, Irene Schmidt, Steve Rose, Dave McConnell, Sandy Cameron, Jancis Andrews, Tom Lewis, Margaret Prevost, Terry Flamond, Shang Lung Liao, Mike Kramer, Videha, Jeff Sommers, Garry Gust, Anita Stevens, Maxine Gadd, Diane Wood, Bob Sarti, Dora Sanders, John Ferguson, Sam Roddan, Leith Harris, Shawn Millar, Carl MacDonald (Mr. McBinner), R. Loewen(Al), Daniel Rajala, Taum, Robert Lemieux, Frank Parker, Ga Ching, Robert Rich, Wilhelmina Miles, Fred Arrance, Robyn Livingstone, Fudolf Penner, Kevin Annett, Earle Peach, Paul Wright, Luka, Ken Morrison, Rolf Auer, Jean Swanson, Beth Buchanan, A. Kostyniuk, Libby Davies, Charles Fortin, Muriel Marjorie, Colleen Gorrie, Ian MacRae, Jenny Kwan, Willy Munro, Dean Ko, Patrick Foley, Michael Bohnert, Larry Mousseau, Sarah de Vries, Gram, Jorge Escolan-Suay, Henry Dutka, Mary Ann Cantillon, Delanye, Michael Clague, Harold Asham, Gena Thompson, Savannah Walling, Ann Livingston, Muggs Sigurgeirson, Sandy MacKeigan, Stephen Belkin, Stephen Lytton, Mary Duffy, Sue Blue, Shelagh Day, Marlene Trick, Mike Guy, Gerald Wells, Maureen Kerr, Christiane Bordier, Grasshopper, Yukon Eric, Brill Preston, j a douglas, Sharon Kravitz, Lisa David, Crystal Asham, Bonnie Stevens, Jim Leyden, Bharbara Gudmundson, Richard Tylman, M. J Kelly, Sam Snobelen, Peter Fairchild, Vickie Dutcher, Meta Jacobsen, Susan Henry Charo Neville, Colleen Carroll, Roger Brouillette, Beth (our librarian), Marilyn Young, Ayisha, Sophia M. Freigang, Louisa de Plume, Kat Norris, Raul Gatica, Jacqui, Mariner Edelson, Nahid A. Nasirabadi, Ellen Woodsworth, Norma-Jean B., David Eby, Marie Lands, T. C., Sylvia, Sharon Isaac, Bill Easlie David Jaffe, , Mike Hughes, Susan Boyd, James McLean, Jaya Babu, Cecine Lam, Rosetta Stone, Sam George, Don Larson, Seth Klein, Atiba Mathew Mathew, M. McCormack, Doris Leslie, Elaine Woodhall, Tracy Knight, A. K. Hawley, Jayce Salloum, Michael McKim, Isabel McCurdy, Wendy Pedersen, Rick Pambrun, Miriam, Julia Manitius, Steward Gonzales, Penn B, sparrow, Angela Sterrit, Zeina Waheed, Yun Quan Liu - and many, many others. The Carnegie Newsletter thanks you all.
By Sabdy Cameron
The Carnegie Newsletter Is Twenty Years Old!The Carnegie Newsletter Is Twenty Years Old!
Twenty years, I tell you. Unbelievable! Our Carnegie Newsletter has been giving people a chance to define their own reality for twenty years.
The Carnegie Newsletter has a passionate sense of justice. It is information, entertainment and inspiration all together. It is a celebration of resistance against those who attempt to exclude the people of the Downtown Eastside, and destroy our community. It is a declaration that we live here, that we are somebody.
The Carnegie Newsletter has been bringing hope for twenty years. Congratulations to the editor, Paul Taylor, and to all those other volunteers who have worked over the years to write and publish our paper. It has been coming out twice a month for twenty years, and has only missed publication a few times.
There have been many occasions (too many) when Paul Taylor has stayed up all night putting this paper together so we would have it on time. The Carnegie Newsletter is paid for by the Carnegie Community Centre Association, and 1200 copies are printed each time it’s published.
When Al Mettrick arrived at Carnegie in the summer of 1986 to help set up a newsletter, no one thought that it would still be going twenty years later. Al just walked around inside Carnegie, asking everyone if they would like to join the newsletter group. Paul said, “Yes,” although he didn’t know much about newsletters. He did know how to type, however, and he understood that words spoken or written at the right time can help to change the world. The Newsletter started on August 15, 1986, and Al left in December of that year. Paul, contributing since its inception, became editor when Al Mettrick left, and he has been the editor ever since. He wanted to give everyone a chance to speak with his or her own voice, and he knew that if we didn’t speak, those with wealth and power would speak in our place.
Putting even one Carnegie Newsletter together takes a huge amount of work, so putting newsletters together every two weeks for twenty years as a volunteer, takes an exceptional commitment. Paul’s commitment extends beyond the Newsletter. He has sat on the Board of Directors of a number of Downtown Eastside organizations, including the Carnegie Community Centre Association, and also puts out the very important Help in the Downtown Eastside. In 1988, Paul was chosen as Carnegie’s first Volunteer of the Year.
Where does Paul’s strong sense of commitment come from? Through illness he learned what it was like to be shunned and excluded. Travels in
He learned to live according to his principles. For example, Paul believed in the Carnegie Newsletter so strongly that on three occasions in the early days, when the soon-to-be ousted Board of Directors tried to kill the paper by refusing to pay for it, he paid for its publication with his own money [medical welfare]
Some of the stories came to Paul on bits of paper, written by people who had never written before. Paul would help people with their stories, or send them to the Learning Centre for help. Sometimes he would clarify a story so others would be able to read it. His purpose was to publish the voices of those who had been excluded by the corporate society.
He wanted the Carnegie Newsletter to speak out strongly on issues of social justice, and to reflect the joy, pain, beauty, courage and compassion that he saw in the community every day. The book, “The Heart of the Community – The Best of the Carnegie Newsletter,” edited by Paul and published by New Star Books in 2003, shows that he succeeded in making his vision a reality.
But Paul didn’t do this alone. Many people helped him over the years. Dan Feeney, with his powerful writing and technical skills in newsletter publishing, helped in the earlier days of the Newsletter. Lee Donohue, Dora Sanders, Dean Ko, Videha and Sandy all helped with writing and with putting the paper together. More recently Diane Wood, with her artistic skills and writing, has helped enormously. She is a fine artist who has drawn many excellent cover pages for the Carnegie Newsletter. One of her artistic works has been shown at the
So many people have helped in the past. So many people are helping now. They have all helped to give the members of Carnegie and the residents of the Downtown Eastside an opportunity to express their own authentic voices.
The Carnegie Newsletter has a website:
The Newsletter has supported the life-giving services that our community needs such as the safe injection site, the Life Skills Centre, the Pender Street Clinic and the Powell Street Clinic. It fought Councillor George Puil’s plan to build a recycling incinerator plant at Terminal and
Paul knows the Carnegie Newsletter will change as the times change. He hopes, though, that it will never lose its feisty, grassroots feeling. He hopes that it will always fight for justice, and that it will always be a voice for low income people. Congratulations, Paul, on the 20th anniversary of the Carnegie Newsletter. May it continue to reach out to people, giving them an opportunity to say in a strong voice, “We are somebody”.
By Sandy Cameron
To PaulR Taylor, editor, ‘The Carnegie’To PaulR Taylor, editor, ‘The Carnegie’
Congratulations, Paul and the team for 20 great years of quality reading!
I remember its forerunner –a news sheet via DERA to keep D.E. residents up to date and informed of happenings in their part of the city and I requested a copy. The Editor said she would be willing to send me one, but as I didn’t live in the area, a donation to cover postage would be appreciated. I still receive my copy (now, The Carnegie [Newsletter]) and what a joy it is – information, articles, art, poetry, laughs and tears. Nothing can come up to its quality.
My most recent copy arrived and I was delighted to see that it was a well-earned tribute to that “Teller of Tales & Sayer of No” Sandy Cameron. In the same paper was Jean Swanson’s powerful section about hotel evictions, the Vancouver Agreement and, of course, her report on the campaign for the long-awaited & much needed upgrades to the assistance rates – and at last I am beginning to feel that are nearer than ever before!
I salute you all; a super team and roll on the next 20 years.
Yours ever,
Margaret Davies
Missing WomenMissing Women
Like the dawn
the heartbeats
of our missing
women continue
their voices echo
like music in
the wind,
their whispers
cry for justice
throughout this land
like an eternal flame
their justice must not
be denied or forgotten
Once again
their fight
is our fight
their plight
is our plight
loved
and not forgotten.
Stephen Lytton
To Diane WoodTo Diane Wood
The words of her spirit came through as having made their way to the surface of a caldron.
“We’re th white trash, th drunk Indians
th niggers, th spics, & half-breeds
We’re th ones U call Stupid, Ugly, Lazy,
Dirty, Good-4-Nuthing,
Only Good 4 One Thin
. . .”
This poem was the lightning that first struck me – the talent and depth of Diane Wood’s art. In 1998, the full text appeared in the October 15th edition of the Newsletter. Diane submitted some of her graphic art in fits and starts over the following months, and I recall one of the first times she was in the office, agitated about having to decide which memorial to attend because there were so many of her friends and acquaintances dying in the wars of the Downtown Eastside. I gathered that an intimate had just died as a direct result of the predations of one or more drug dealers – Diane voiced her fury as “I feel like committing murder” –and left saying “I have to get out of here for awhile.”
Beginning about 2000 or 2001, Diane began sharing layout duties with Shawn Millar and I had my first lesson in the consequences of changing just the size and layout of a respected artist’s work (even though it was mandated by space requirements and budgetary concerns). I recognised her sensitivity to editing, making “a note to self’ for future reference.
Over the next 5 or 6 years Diane’s art, poetry and writing became more and more an integral part of the Newsletter, especially augmented by her additional work doing the partial and then almost complete layout, issue after issue.
Her cover art began to appear and adorn each edition, laid out to make a statement on its own and introduce the lead story. Excellent all!
She also encouraged and recruited others in the ‘hood to get their ideas, experiences and opinions on paper and hand such in for consideration. There was consultation on logistical matters, and also on the appropriateness of some stuff. The two of us had differences of style and opinion but for the most part such were not breakers of the working relationship involved.
About mid-June of this year I made a mistake regarding the sanctity of Diane’s graphic art, looking for a relevant illustration for a piece and just cutting a portion of a previously appearing cover art and using only that bit for the current space. I’d haphazardly done such for years to graphics found in magazines or other publications, taking a portion of a whole for the specific allusion such would imply or add. They were anonymous and months/years old.
Not so with Diane’s work. And this incident apparently illuminated other things in her perception of my respect for her; while the collation of the June 15 issue was in progress, she emotionally announced her withdrawal from the publication and has since reaffirmed her choice to engage her energy and talent in other endeavours.
Diane has been recognised from here to the
Respectfully submitted,
PaulR Taylor, editor.
7 Women's Stories Told7 Women's Stories Told
(The Province, Page A20, 08-Aug-2006)
A book of the life stories of seven women who have triumphed over addiction, poverty and illness on
Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane compiled In Plain Sight: Reflections On Life In Downtown Eastside Vancouver in an attempt to counter what they saw as the misconceptions that surround
"Readers will have found neither the idealized nor demonized images of the junkie, the prostitute, the underclass hero, the victimized woman, the AIDS sufferer, or the homeless aboriginal woman in these accounts," the editors say in the afterword.
"Rather than these conventionalized figures," they write, "you will have met seven women, exhausted by their daily struggles who have for reasons of their own chosen to tell you their stories."
The book is gritty, at times dark and depressing, but is also pervaded by optimism, though the optimism is painted across a backdrop of mental illness, drug addiction, prostitution and desperate poverty. One of the women whose tale is told is Anne. Sexual abuse, mental illness, trauma and poverty are threads woven through a life in which she is trying to raise a child alone. The father is long gone, a heroin addict somewhere.
"I don't know if our stories will help," writes Anne, "but that's my hope. I need to leave my child a better place to live in. If I don't actively work in my community to change things and make them better, even to some small degree, then I believe that as a parent I have failed."
Ken Smedley runs the George Ryga Centre in Summerland. He said the women portrayed in In Plain Sight are the kind of people with whom Ryga, who died in 1987, could easily have sat down and enjoyed a long conversation over coffee.
He said the book displays the "multidimensionality" of people often discarded by society as down-and-out and losers. "It was so much of what [Ryga] represented in all of his work," Smedley said, "the disenfranchised and the marginalized. This piece was representative of that kind of multidimensionality, Things have not looked up for that segment of the population."
Among previous winners of the award is Maggie De Vries for Missing Sarah, the author's story of her sister who vanished into the Downtown Eastside. Sarah De Vries's DNA was later found at the farm of accused serial killer Robert William Pickton.
Doing My BitDoing My Bit
Riding the No.8 bus down to Carnegie, we pause at the light on Main at
The look of amazement on their faces is wonderful and I know they won’t ever view the Carnegie Centre without thinking Ballroom Dancing!
I’m doing my bit to change perceptions one bus ride at a time.
Kelly
AWESOME ASAHIAWESOME ASAHI
This past Sunday Aug 7th at the
The Pirates were made up of mostly Carnegie and
Although the Pirates were handily beaten by the well coached and coordinated team of Asahi, the Pirates did make a valiant effort to provide competitive opposition for the Asahi. The Pirates lack of practice time was evident in the number of miscues they committed but rest assured that the rematch will not result in such a lop sided score next year.
Thanks to all who showed up and especially thanks to
The approximately 75 spectators attested to the popularity of this game and next year it should prove to be even more successful. So don’t forget to put this event on your calendar for next summer!
AK 47
CelebrationCelebration
A Gala Celebration
Japanese people
rich in culture
rich in history
past, present, future
emerge in the ‘hood
like decades before
her people.. welcome
us with open arms
sirens scream in
the distance
Vendors selling
their wares
voices, music
laughter everywhere
there’s a feeling
a deep connection
of being here, there
sharing her beauty
calm, peaceful,
holding her hands
but for a moment
of the rising sun
Stephen Lytton
Dugald Christie – a friend indeed.Dugald Christie – a friend indeed.
Dugald Christie died as he lived - fighting for the legal rights of the low-income community.
Christie, 65, was struck by a van and killed in a traffic accident on Aug. 1 in
Christie was a successful establishment lawyer with a big house and expensive car in
The free program he founded, now called Western Canada Access to Justice Society, runs 61 clinics in B.C and has 400 lawyers donating their services for nothing (“pro bono”)..
An avid cyclist, he was travelling to
At his death, there is still an outstanding court case that he launched against the province’s seven per cent tax on legal services. His point was that the tax is a barrier to low-income people obtaining justice.
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear the case next March.
In recognition of Christie’s contributions, the Carnegie Association has allocated $200 to provide free legal education materials in Carnegie. Thanks, Dugald, for all you have done for the community.
Almost at the same time that Dugald Christie lost his life while trying to help people, another individual who also had a big impact on the Downtown Eastside also died.
But Gilbert Paul Jordan’s contribution was of the very negative kind. He was no friend of the community.
He would lure the women to his room, then ply them with drinks, telling them, “Down the hatch baby,” and “Twenty bucks if you drink it right down.”
An alcoholic himself, and a life-long anti-social creep and lawbreaker, he got away with his killing spree for years because – like in the missing women’s case – police failed to notice any pattern in the deaths.
Finally, in 1987, he was convicted of manslaughter for one of the deaths and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, reduced to nine on appeal. When he got out, he continued to be a menace, prowling bars in
By Bob Sarti
Electronic Recycling AssociationElectronic Recycling Association
Hope you are doing well. My name is Bailey Smith and I'm contacting you on behalf of the Electronic Recycling Association. We are a non-profit organization focusing on the reuse and recycling of computer related equipment and other electronics.
Each month, a percentage of collected equipment gets refurbished by volunteers and distributed amongst many charities, non-profits groups and children's facilities etc.
This month we are in desperate need of more donations of laptops and computers to cover all the charities and non-profit groups requesting equipment.
Please get back to me if you are able to contribute by donating 10 pieces or more and I'll be happy to send out a truck. If you have any other equipment for donation or recycling please contact me also.
Thank you and have a great day www.era.ca
News from the LibraryNews from the Library
New Librarian
Hello Carnegie. My name is Mark Koep. I will be your librarian for the next 7 months while the fabulous Beth Davies is on maternity leave. Please feel free to drop by my office anytime to ask questions, share ideas or just to say hello.
Writers Workshop with Drew Hayden Taylor
Monday, August 28 from 2pm to 4pm
in the Carnegie Centre Theatre
Drew is an award-winning playwright, author, columnist, filmmaker and lecturer who has spent the last two decades travelling the world and writing about his experiences from the Aboriginal perspective. In this workshop he will be talking about the writing process and answering questions from participants.
There are many books by Drew Hayden Taylor in the Carnegie Library’s First Nations Collection. Look under the call number 822
New Books
Thanks to a generous grant from the Friends of the Vancouver Public Library, and the enthusiastic shopping skills of
Picking Blackberries with Jean
Berries are the luscious jewels of summer,
And blackberries are the most prized of all.
Most berry-pickers I know
Guard the location of their blackberry patches
Better than many countries protect state secrets.
So, I am honoured to accompany Jean to “her” spot.
She doesn’t even ask me to wear a blindfold.
The morning air is cool as we start out.
It is a treat for me to see green spaces,
And to hear the birds calling to one another.
Jean and I enjoy the silence while we work.
Is it a coincidence that the thistles and berry bushes
Grow in close proximity?
Thorns, thorns, thorns.
But, we are determined to claim the treasure.
Wading in, ignoring the scratches
And pretending not to mind the spiders –
I’m such a city girl! –
I fill my small pail again and again.
Later, I assess the damage:
Stinging flesh, Lady Macbeth hands,
A broken fingernail – all minor.
I had fun.
I return home, triumphant,
And bake a fresh blackberry pie
For my beloved.
Lisa David
Two to CompareTwo to Compare
Can you see me clearly through your inverted eyes
As they jitter and dart around, askew
Maybe some skittish nerves, fraying apart now
Can you sense or have a feel for a few?
You seem to slightly cry, to wince, at such trivial
meaningless thoughts of recent wanton woes
It appears it’s always trauma, live or die, with you
- like a helpless wisp of wind – I never know,
With you it’s always touch and go…
with a small little stack of crumpled scripts
in your crunching, possessive, chilling fists
Are you really that taut, intense and, truly, subdued
-come what may I don’t think more or less of you.
Does the hurt run so loud, so deep,
in a terrible, boiling turmoil that twists and steeps
And the feel fo an addled, malaised mind, with an ongoing steady drum that numbs the heart in kind
Don’t tell me of the day the twain shall meet, when the souls of a select few will turn around, become complete
I believe you when you spout loving these thoughts
to see what your time in life has wrought
Excuse me when I make my shallow (false) excuses
because I too remember long past suppressed abuses
‘Get over it.’ as I’ve been told / instructed to do,
that’s never worked for me and may not ever for you
So we will always be leaving home, with no roots
to share; with no place to ground, nor roam
where life was messy, tortured and forever long
where we fought for our lives and breath,
hammer and tong
Maybe some day, some when, somewhere, somehow
we shall deservedly discover a shared and settled peace – with a will to never again compare
The then, the now, and to lie relaxed
in a serenely silent and justly perfect ease.
Robyn Livingstone
Towers of Deception: The Media Coverup of 911' Barrie Zwicker the only Canadian journalist on television to expose the mass deception of the official 911 conspiracy tale, will be making a special appearance in
Wednesday, August 30th, 7:30pm
St.Andrew Wesley Church
Burrard & Nelson, downtown
Entrance: sliding scale: $5-$20
www.necessaryvoices.org for more details.
On the StadiumOn the Stadium
Your worship and council,
I’m standing here quite by accident. The product of two young people unable and unaware of the commitment and planning it takes to raise a family. Due to this factor, I spent much of my childhood until the age of 8 shuffled between two rough neighbourhood:.the Flatbush section of
At the age of eight, I was sent to live with my Father’s family here in
If living in a nice, safe, gentrified neighbourhood means happiness, TV shows like Dynasty,
For the last 13 years I’ve made Gastown my home in spite of the much discussed noise of planes, trains, automobiles and movies, movies, movies. With the backdrop of a brand new stadium,
Two weeks ago at Special Council I heard a Whitecaps advocate use the term “our Gastown”. I would like to use that terminology to reflect on pride of place. It’s never our Gastown when the drunken sons of the suburbs are urinating in front of residential buildings. It’s not our Gastown when women go missing. It’s not our Gastown when the sons and daughters of the suburbs get stabbed and shot. It’s not our Gastown as you sit comfortably locked in your air conditioned car on a hot day wondering why Main and Hastings is a mess of people who have been forced out of their hot, rundown hotel rooms.
In spite of all this I’m proud to say Gastown is my home. I’m proud of how hard the largest police department on the West Coast tries to handle the comings and goings of hundreds of addicts, tourists, residents and businesses. I’m proud of the Salvation Army for their commitment to this area. I’m proud of the legacy of people like the late Bruce Eriksen and Harry Rankin
I’m proud of all the business owners who give residents a neighbourhood discount. I’m proud to say I live in affordable building that once housed the likes of Douglas Coupland and many struggling artists and musicians. I’m proud to see how Brian Adams took years to retro-fit one of
I’m disappointed that the Whitecaps believe their only constituency is
I’m disappointed that the Whitecaps are not able to facilitate a mixed use arrangement with GM and BC Places. Gastown residents and business owners do this everyday for movies and tourism.
Finally I would like to say thank you to council and the planning department for creating a process, rather than putting out a fire. Raising a community is like raising a family. Without the input of all stakeholders the larger community suffers; in particular
the ones who are the most vulnerable and voiceless.
Thank you
Sean George
Words to recognise 20 yearsWords to recognise 20 years
Most of the comments in this issue of the Carnegie Newsletter are positive, even laudatory, with words including commitment, courage, justice, respect, quality, service, sacrifice and various synonyms. Thanks.
This paper, with its best face forward, has been and hopefully will continue to be a vehicle for spiritual progress and social change. I’m not sure if there is or ever has been a ‘worst face’?
As editor I’ve been accused of being an arrogant asshole who can’t keep his fingers off of other people’s work, who changes things, is self-centred, insensitive, even “that fuckin’ retard”… The most fun to be had here always seems to exude from situations wherein someone or some group or some organisational staff get really pissed off about the views expressed in the newsletter about him, her, them and/or it.
Mostly this comes from saying stuff that the object of exposure doesn’t want said. For some people even us having the temerity or just balls to disagree is an insult. “Who do these ‘pests’ think they are?” or words to that effect. It’s always astonishing how any public statements about ‘opposition to’ or just a different view is blatantly obvious as an expression of some kind of generic superiority complex. Such persons talk and/or act in condescending, patronising and viciously stupid ways to put us down and kick us out of the way.
Part of the problem is that most of these self appointed overseers of just about everything are too stupid to argue with. Why waste time and paper giving them or their views equal space? If you want to get the “right” answer you just have to turn on a TV or get a daily paper and “their” views are front & centre, while “our” honest opinions or just factoids are extreme-leftwing-radical-marginalised garbage.
Yeah, right.
Guidelines/rules for submitting anything to the paper are: No racism; no sexism, no personal attacks on members of our community, nothing blatantly illegal (like libel), no crap. And someone has to decide what can and can’t go in. For the last 20 years that someone has been me, and I’ve never tried to please everybody.
Thanks to you all!
Respectfully submitted,
PaulR
Volunteer editor.
It's Time to Sing the Old Songs AgainIt's Time to Sing the Old Songs Again
It's time to sing the old songs again
The times they are a changing.
Not the way we meant or wanted
But we knew this time would come round again.
The rough beast is on its way to be born
A fool can see the portent.
The same old games have begun
We never learn; our memories are all short term.
Lest I name myself Cassandra or put a sign on my door
Beware the ides of Mars
In which case I will become like all the others
Raving to an indifferent populace.
So I shall go my careful way: not upsetting le carte
Do we need one more prophet - surely we have had enough
Instead I will play the old music: sing the old songs
Revolution is neither cool nor imaginable.
Wilhelmina
