Contents
- STICKS AND STONES
- "Sticks and Stones"
- The School System And Class Conflict
- Politics of Education and Illiteracy
- Volunteer Recognition Awards
- TAKIN' IT DOWN TO SHITTY HALL
- Book Launch
- Neighbourhood News
- MEDICATION
- On Giving In
- if it's in your arms
- Maxan Lake Bear Clan
- Blindness and Empire
- Strange
- S.L.O.P.S.
- Camping at Cultus
- News from the Library
- Wisps of Wisdom
- You Might Be Canadian
STICKS AND STONES
The Gallery Gachet is an artist run gallery that agrees to eliminate discrimination on the basis of mental health and/or abuse, by networking with people and organizations working for the same goals. " Do you have to be crazy to be a member here? Yes, I am! That's the whole point, mental health is what we do to stay healthy, it's not just about hospitals and care teams and labels. When art is vital and speaks about the world around us, it can test our limits and prejudices, and promote animated arguments and even social change.
All of these are reasons why I organized the Sticks and Stones show. I remember my mother answering "Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you", when I was teased as a child. Now I can see that she was wrong, that people are beaten and murdered for their sexual orientation, their racial origin, their gender, their religion and the way they look.
This exhibition will show how we can use art-making as a therapeutic tool for healing ourselves and our community, breaking down the barriers that separate us, and educating each other. Art, including traditional "crafts", has been one of the strongest tools for recovery from abuse of all kinds. It gives an identity, both personal and cultural, to the survivor, which enables them to grow beyond the limited stereotypes previously put in place by their addiction, abuse, incarceration or disability.
I approached community workers and friends I know and respect, explained the concept of Sticks and Stones, and scheduled four workshops, a video screening, and a performance night. I circulated an open call for artists to consumers' groups, healing groups and support groups, not the usual art elite. Everyone was asked to speak from their personal experiences, and not for any group they were not a member of.
These are the people who responded, with enthusiasm and dedication -
Jean Swanson is an anti-poverty activist and the author of "POOR-BASHING: The Politics of Exclusion". She worked at DERA for 10 years before co-founding End Legislated Poverty in 1985. She offers a knowledgeable overview of the systems that have created poverty in the West since feudalism was overtaken by capitalism. Swanson defines "poor-bashing" as the way that economically disadvantaged people are subtly, continuously, and often unconsciously, demeaned by our culture. Language is one of the biggest weapons used against the poor, and goes hand in hand with other forms of oppression, such as racism and sexism. She will use popular education techniques and involve the audience.
Linda Moreau (formerly Marcotte) is an author and a community activist. She worked as an organizer at End Legislated Poverty for 13 years. She led an Organizers' Training Group, with Alice Kendal and June Bernard, at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre for 6 years. Before ELP, Linda was a single mom on welfare, and volunteered as a welfare advocate.
Sandy Cameron is the author of "Sparks from the Fire", "Taking Another Look at Class", and "Fighting for Community - Stories from the Carnegie and Downtown Eastside." He has taught at all levels from primary through to university. Over the last 15 years, he has volunteered as a tutor at the Carnegie Learning Centre. He is a regular contributor of political analysis and poetry to the Carnegie Newsletter, a voice of dissent and accountability distributed freely in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He says we begin healing by sharing stories and fighting stereotypes. He adds;" The school system discriminates against poor and non-white kids and labels them Slow Learners and Trouble Makers. The poverty and violence in their lives are not reflected in the stories of Dick-And-Jane. Literacy is our power to say who we are."
Willy Munro was born and raised in Holland. The socialist ideology was part of her childhood household. She emigrated to Canada twice: once single and once with two daughters. She has volunteered and worked at the Vancouver School Board's various adult learning centers in Vancouver as an instructor and assistant for the past 15 years; and volunteered at Carnegie Learning Centre and Native Education Centre. She is presently enrolled in the BA Adult Education degree program at UCFV. She feels that only through socialism and critical thinking, true democracy is possible.
Gina Scarpino is a First Nations Children and Family Counsellor. She makes masks of deer hide, feathers and beads as a way to embrace her First nations heritage. She is currently working on her master of social work at UBC, looking at the roots of resistance, resiliency and strength of her people. Through education, therapy, and learning about who she is as a whole person, she shed the shame and fear of being First Nations, by doing art and taking pride in what she creates. She says; "When I embraced my culture, I started to feel more of a sense of community. When I go to cultural celebrations to display my work, I feel more of a sense of belonging and acceptance of this part of me. In life, we all have special gifts and it is time we told the world what these treasures are. As a family development worker, I see these gifts in families, as we work to create change. I watch each of them grow into their potential."
Shelley Lavell works in both oil paints and clay. Humour plays a major part in both her healing and her creative process. Her works in this show portray parts of herself that she has repaired with the help of humour. She says; "Just as humour comes from pain, the most individual and interesting parts of us are the damaged parts that we have had to repair."
Elaine the Lunatic Artist is a survivor of the psychiatric hospital system, with a total of 34 committals. She was told she was a schizophrenic who needed to take psychiatric drugs for the rest of her life, and accept that she needed to live in a boarding home and be taken care of. She has been free from psychiatry and medication for more than 10 years now, is an artist, and labels herself a "Goofy Savante". She believes psychiatry has about as much scientific validity as green cheese moon theory, and says; "I think it is your right to believe in Mental Illness, psychiatric labelling, or psychiatric drugs, but I will not be free until Society doesn't have the right to grab me, lock me up, rip down my pants and stick a needle in my ass, full of drugs that take away everything I cherish: my humanity, my creativity, my soul."
Caroline Credico, Sto:lo Nation, is the Family Programmer for an inner-city community centre, as well as an artist and poet. She has a certificate in counseling, and a diploma in Family Violence from Native Education. She has worked in many areas with grief, loss, suicide prevention, intervention and postvention (dealing with the families after someone attempts or succeeds at suicide). She has co-facilitated and led healing circles. In the one she will be doing at the Gachet on July 6, she will be addressing the issue of division in communities because of different ethnic groups. Peer groups eventually become gangs with bigger weapons than just words. She believes if we teach non-violence to one child consistently throughout their life, we are affecting more than just that one child, because they are talking to their siblings and peers. Her poetry is about the things she's changed in herself in the recent past, such as loss and how she deals with it. She incorporates collages and drawing in her written body of work, layering inter-connected images and words in a continuum of experience, change and growth.
Gladys Evoy is an Alcohol and Drug Counsellor, Family Support Worker at YWCA Crabtree Corner, recovering addict and mother. The daughter of a residential school teacher and a 16-year-old student, she doesn't remember a loving home, just alcoholism and violence. She started using drugs at the age of 7, hanging out on the street, and was lured into prostitution by a "baby pimp" within a few years. As the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome coordinator for Crabtree, she continues to see the results of neglect and abuse on children. Because of her own recovery from alcohol and drugs, and a strong spiritual foundation in her life today, she recognizes that she's blessed with the ability to help others.
Rocco Xibalba came to Canada after almost losing his life in his native Mexico at the hands of a gay-basher. In the last 5 years there have been 631 unsolved murders of gays and lesbians in his country. He says, "homophobia is never defeated, it's a daily, gentle and courageous fight."
Marie Annharte Baker: Ojibway Nation is a writer who will be reading her work on Performance Night. She works in collage with recycled materials, as an active member of the Art Studio. The therapeutic tools she employs are humour and outrageous excessiveness. She says; "My healing visual explorations are influenced by art therapy where I could claim my protected space symbolized by a tepee. My sense of community is transitory or it is a work-in-progress. Right now, I am in community with others in a CIF Healing Journal Workshop. I am looking for others with heart and spiritual connection to a land base."
Louise Garand's mixed media drawings are a powerful depiction of the healing process of a woman who has survived childhood sexual abuse. Her experience shows that healing is possible at the deepest level for anyone else who chooses to undergo the same transformative journey.
Adina Edwards lives in the Core Artists' Co-op in the Downtown Eastside, where she participates in the music room and membership committee. The labelling, ugly secrets and memories of her childhood in east van are depicted in her sculpture. Her artwork speaks with a social consciousness, that creating one-dimensional labels for people and ourselves is a destructive path we should all avoid if we want to leave the door open for growth and change.
Kristin Nelson is a painter of large-scale canvases of drag kings, and lesbian activists. Her portraits are of women who are proud to call themselves "Butch". This world is one of lost histories, hidden people and yet unknown faces. She re-presents, revives, glorifies, puts on stage and honours the people of her desired ancestry, unknown heritage and absented family through her artistic practice.
Diane Wood: "I have painted and drawn all my life. I have had formal art training 'til the age of 19, with 2 years Fine Arts at Sir George Williams University in Montreal. Since then it has been the city streets, poverty, pop culture and the music scene that has shaped my vision. I have done front line crisis work in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for over 12 years. My involvement with the issues of addiction, abuse and recovery are the basis of the art I create now."
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- Diane Wood, Curator
"Sticks and Stones"
What names have you been called? What names do you call yourself? Community building arises from our need to protect ourselves, and in Vancouver is apparent in the resistance and the strength of the Downtown Eastside.
I am inviting you, the people who are most affected by prejudice and oppression, to the free events being held at the Gallery Gachet all month. The calendar is as follows:
July 5 at 3:00 - "Lazy - the Politics of Poverty" - Interactive Workshop with Jean Swanson and Linda Moreau of End Legislated Poverty. They will use popular education techniques and invite audience participation.
July 5 at 8:00 - "Homo Fobia The Two-headed Monster": Screening of the video: "41 Locas" by Mexican-Canadian filmmaker Rocco Xilbaba on Gay-bashing and Gay Pride, Bi-lingual discussion to follow with the film-maker and members of the Latin and Gay Communities, with translation.
July 6 at noon - "What About The Children?" Sacred Healing Circle with First Nations Community Workers Gladys Evoy and Caroline Credico. They will lead a Talking Circle in the First Nations tradition, on the effects of bullying and racism on school-age children. As adults, we understand prejudice, but how do we explain it to young children? Name-calling is learned and repeated often without knowing what it means, at that age. Anyone with young children will gain a deeper understanding, and some basic skills to work on with their kids. On-site supervised childcare for this event.
July 11 at 8:00 - "Stupid - the Politics of Education and Illiteracy" Workshop with Sandy Cameron and Willy Munro, on how the school system discriminates against poor and culturally different kids and labels them Slow Learners and Trouble Makers. When they drop out of school, it has nothing to do with intelligence; their reality is not reflected in the school system. Sandy and Willy are adult educators, who have taught for the Vancouver School Board, the Carnegie Learning Centre and the Native Education Centre. They will initiate the process of healing by sharing stories and discussing how there is a difference between feeling stupid, and knowing the school system didn't met our needs. " Literacy is our power to say who we are."
July 12 at 8:00 - Performance Night with Elaine the Lunatic Artist, Diane Wood, Marie Annharte Baker, Caroline Credico, Muriel Williams and Bill Buckels
July 26 at 3:00- "Last Call" Artists' Talk with the participating artists. Viewers often want to meet or at least see the person who made the art. The artists will be on hand to answer questions about our work and our healing process.
The School System And Class Conflict
Written with respect for the teachers, students and parents who have fought against the injustice of the system for years.
I used to think school was the path to "upward mobility" for low income children. Students who were "smart" and worked hard could improve their situation and become doctors, lawyers, or whatever. In individual cases, low income students do move up in status through schooling, but that is not the usual pattern.
What the sociology of education has shown for 40 years is that the school system divides society into layers on the basis of income and wealth. As a rule, the poorest students drop out first and the richest last - not because the poorer students are stupid, but because the school system discriminates against them. In other words, the school system perpetuates a class system, and legitimizes a society so unequal that most of us can't even imagine the wealth of the richest Canadians.
Low income students drop out of school at more than twice the rate of other students. (1) Maybe they feel excluded because their clothes don't carry a fashionable label. Maybe they get tired of being called dumb in a hundred subtle ways. Maybe they can't find the money for books and field trips. Maybe they have been reduced to silence because the school and its curriculum do not reflect their life experience. Maybe their self-esteem has been so shattered by failure that they simply refuse to go to school. Some children have been so badly trauma-tized by the system that their minds automatically shut down as soon as they enter it.
Unfortunately, students generally blame themselves for their failure and the school blames them as well. They're told that they have low IQ's, or that they're culturally deprived, or that they're slow learners - but such culturally biased assessments only show that the school does not know these children. Some students learn to feel stupid in school, and they accept that as meaning they are stupid. It can take a long time before a person has enough confidence to risk new learning.
School failure, for the most part, is not due to lack of intelligence or motivation on the part of low income students. It is due, rather, to an inability of the child to grasp the school's dominant culture
(language, for example), and the inability of the school to meet the needs of children who are different from the middle-class norm. Intelligence is social. It takes two to fail.
It's a big jump in insight for a student from "I am stupid" to "We have not been served well by the school system." It's a jump first Nations people made many years ago with the document, "Indian Control of Indian Education."
The school system is a competitive system of winners and losers. When low income students drop out, others will say, "They didn't work hard. They're lazy. They're stupid. They're troublemakers. They don't deserve a good job or a good wage." We know, however, that the school system itself has let down these children by failing to meet their needs. It has failed especially in the nurturing of self-esteem, and has refused to address a major cause of student failure in a middle class school system: poverty.
"Poverty is the underlying cause of illiteracy," said Carman St. John Hunter, one of the most respected adult educators in North America. "Without any proven will to break the chain of poverty, no government has been able to make significant progress toward universal literacy." (2)
To their credit, teachers' organizations such as the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) speak to the issue of poverty and school performance. They warn that unless we citizens address the economic inequality that lies behind much of the failure in school, our school remedial programs will have little effect. (3)
The best way to deal with the injustice of a class system is to eliminate poverty and create a classless, equitable, democratic society. This is the direction in which Scandinavian countries like Norway have moved.
Right now, however, our public schools and public schools around the world are being attacked by governments that serve the interests of corporate business, which is motivated by maximum profit. We have a long way to go.
By Sandy Cameron
(1) The Canadian Fact Book on Poverty, 1994, page 68.
(2) "Myths & Realities of Literacy/Illiteracy," by Carman St. John Hunter, in Convergence, vol. XX, #1, 1987.
THE POLITICS OF EDUCATION AND ILLITERACY
During the multi-media show Sticks and Stones, exploring the long-term effects of name calling, Sandy Cameron and I would like to examine education in Canada and how it affected you and us, during a workshop. It'll be held at the Gallery Gachet, 88 East Cordova, July 11, at 8:00 p.m. We know it is not the best time for you party beasts, but we hope you can make an effort to examine, with us, the situations in our school system and/or society that keep us from learning, keep us from being creative and keep us from asking questions for fear of being called dumb. A lot has to change and what are we going to do about it!
Hope to see you there!
Willy Munro
The 16th Annual Volunteer Recognition Awards: Celebrating Our Gems
Carnegie was nominated for "Group Community Service Award" - "...to honour groups who enrich our community through your Volunteer service"
With humble beginnings 23 years ago, the Carnegie Community Centre's Volunteer Program has grown into one of the largest volunteer groups in BC, providing a range of volunteer opportunities to over 600 individuals a year, for a total of over 70,000 volunteer hours committed annually.
Programs and services sought by the Centre's 2,000 daily patrons are provided primarily by volunteers, without which such resources would not exist. To ensure maximum accessibility by Downtown Eastside residents, the volunteer body is comprised of men and women from many walks of life, with the wisdom of a variety of ages, races, lifestyles and abilities. The Volunteer Program is particularly successful in matching volunteer tasks with an individual's own capacity to be of service, and thus greatly facilitates a volunteer's development of skills and self-worth through participation.
The Carnegie Volunteer Program as a whole won this huge award!! Our Volunteers Program is a very unique creation that provides enormous benefits, not only to the community that Carnegie serves but also to each and every individual who participates in it.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS
TAKIN' IT DOWN TO SHITTY HALL
GONNA TELL 'EM OFF Y'ALL
CLUBS STAY OPEN 4 AM
DOPE HOUSE CLOSES WHO KNOWS WHEN
COME ON D E HEAR DA CALL
TELL 'EM OFF AT SHITTY HALL
TAKIN' IT DOWN TO SHITTY HALL
TALKIN' BOUT DA SUMMER BALL
YO COME ON DOWN SURREY CREW
WELCOME BURNABY NEW WEST TOO
YOUNG CLEAN SOBER OLD FOLKS CALL
WHERE'S OUR FUN AT SHITTY HALL
TAKIN' IT DOWN TO SHITTY HALL
THEY SURE DO HAVE SOME GALL
EAST END RESIDENTS HAVE NO SAY
CITY PARTY'S ANYWAY
FUNERAL PARLORS MAKE BIG HAUL
BRING YER DEAD TO SHITTY HALL
by carl macdonald
Book Launch
Monday, July 14th, 2:00 pm
Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main Street
From an idea six years ago to a beautiful book, this will be the launch of The Heart of the Community: The Best of the Carnegie Newsletter. It's a collection of articles, writing, poetry and art taken from the most consistent and persistent publication in the Downtown Eastside since 1986. The Publisher is New Star Books and it was made possible with a grant from Partners in Economic and Community Help (PEACH). Edited by Paul Taylor.
Neighbourhood News
*DEYAS has moved to West Cordova. There's a notice in this issue that gives details.
*The Woodwards community consultation has come and goin' ta City Hall - with hope/fear about equal: hope that reiterating "what we want" and have said overandoverandover for 9 years will find consensus or approval by a huge majority at whatever "decision-making" body finally gives the go-ahead; fear that the whole exercise was done to cover public relations' bases, that the plan has already been decided upon, that the Gastown and Chinatown gentrifiers (sorry, business associations) hold trump cards over what is wanted/needed.
Witness whatever passes for Christianity being strung out along Hastings, and a kind of psuedo-psychological pincer to push for 'shop-til-you-drop' with market housing (condos) and scatter residents with the bible-thumpers corralling weary people on the streets, as thankful for their own self-righteous-ness as they are for so out-numbering the unwary.
Previous articles and poetry by Bud Osborn have nailed the fundamentalist ethic to every available wall: quasi-Christian groupings prowl the streets and our neighbourhood with the god-given zeal of other dealers, while their funders (often themselves in business suits) buy property and draft plans for the 'better life' coming when they have successfully "revitalized" - read driven the poor undesirables out
I'm not trying to be rhetorical, but the failure of International Village in its discrimination against poor and Aboriginal street people, the distaste with which prominent professionals and residents in Gastown spoke of the unilateral activities of the Business Improvement Association when they hired yellow-jacketed cop wannabees to harass and humiliate poor and Aboriginal street people if/when they ventured into Gastown.
Is this the same old rant?
*Police CET: The front of Carnegie was freed from staging the largest open-air drug market in North America. Not to worry,as the trade just moved down Hastings, making a few more businesses close. Oppenheimer Park picked up in its drug activity and several other areas have noted an increase. The violence seems to have increased in alleys and impromptu gathering places, like outside the old Sunrise Hotel and on the unit and hundred-blocks of East Hast. Hotels and bars that have worked for quite a while to shut down drug activity in or on the premises see a substantial increase in same since the 40 extra cops took to making the streets appear safer. Enforcement is one pillar. If the money being spent on this extra policing were intelligently used and distributed amongst equally intelligent programs for Prevention, Treatment and Harm Reduction, the changes sought would occur.
As one local said, "this extra policing is a tactic, not a strategy." But that begs the question - why?
Why such an overwhelming, imbalanced focus on Enforcement? Consider what the venal rich and class interests want - shopping experiences and condos for those who can afford them, urban pioneering in very valuable real estate currently overrun with far too many poor and Aboriginal street people, let's capitalize on the Liberal Government's (which we elected) to cccclamp down from on high while we run our battles on the ground" so let's have harassment on "legal" grounds to scatter the undesirables and continuous sweeps by the 'moral' to get people either addicted to God or just sicken the immune heretics.
No one is against policing and it's good to have officers walking beats. The extra squads of horse-riders leaving trails and piles of shit on sidewalks are disrespectful and the ticketing of locals for all manner of petty offenses is blatantly done to pay for the extra cops. Other neighbourhoods would be outraged at paying twice, but the Law & Order approach still gets used to harass and humiliate local residents. Keep in mind the offloading of Treatment onto "charities" which - what a Coincidence! - seem to be Christian religious. Another local compared this to the States where government gets out of providing for its citizens by granting huge sums of money to the Far-Right fundamentalists who want their own armies out belching "fire and Brimstone."
The times are interesting.
PRT
MEDICATIONMEDICATION
In a low income high-rise
two senile well groomed ladies
play games
wondering halls
knowing people
behind thin doors
say things to hurt
then hurry a few feet away
stop to look back
and giggle behind their hands
like two young children
in their parent's homes
On Giving In
Kimberly sits serenely, silently, rigid, erect, pondering but not mean, solemnly, deep in thought, mind wandering yet keen.
Oh Kimberly -so distant + remote, an emoting soul, yet tense and uptight I pick up on our grooves - her subtle vibration rules as a psalm.. it is so right
She lays back for who knows what or where or why
but so prim and proper/by the book - if you don't connect you'll get the leering look
She puts up fences, barriers, and yet is not so very shy.. maybe sly.. her hard exterior shields her hot interior, a core that's so afire it lovingly cooks
Alas it is in her game - the riddles she plays where time is lost and nothing is gained
Who wins, Who loses, I'll let her decide; I'll just tag along for this stormy ride. I cannot quite decipher her mysterious ways when deep feelings collide
Kimberly cannot fathom if I'm onto her style and alluring, stirring feminine wiles
It's such an unforgivable loss of time, even though it'll be only a little while; yet as the minutes and months go speeding by it's the two of us who lose, our dreams slip away
She reminds me of someone special who I was fond of so many hazy years ago in this tired, vital world that is spinning like her web I should swallow my pride and, simply and sincerely, let Kimberley know how I really feel for her...
Robyn L.
if it's in your arms
it's the end
it's not hard to say
face to face
it's like a dagger
when you're old and grey
nothing remains
just close your eyes
and slip away
it's hard when you lie
every night
sad songs
feel it
what can you say?
what does it mean?
it's back to yesterday
it's in the air
it's going to happen
sealing fates
returning suspense
charles fortin
Maxan Lake Bear ClanHi everyone,
I've been struggling with a severe bout of asthma since last week, and lying here trying to breathe has moved me from my mind to my heart.
Perhaps it's my inability to run around with all the daily "doing" that has freed me to see things more clearly. But I have an insight to share with all of you, concerning why and how we can jump off the blind treadmill of death that we and our culture are caught in.
A good friend of mine, Ellen Murphy, spoke on my radio program a few months ago. She had just been arrested for handing out information on depleted uranium poisoning to American servicemen at an army recruitment centre in Bellingham, Washington.
Ellen is a beautiful and compassionate soul, but like so many of us she was trying to rationally describe why she did what she did, in the face of a genocidal corporate-military beast that is devouring our planet. I could tell by her voice that she couldn't put into words what her heart was bleeding.
Fortunately, I also had on the program another strong soul named Telquaa, a Carrier native woman from the Maxan Lake Bear Clan of northern B.C. Telquua is a veteran of many battles for her land, but unlike most of us activists she has stayed in the pain of her heart, and speaks from there.
Telquaa began sobbing over the air as she described all of her relatives who have been murdered or killed off in her territory after the invasion of Cominco, Alcan, and other corporations which have destroyed the land with mercury poisoning and deforestation. As Telquaa cried over the air, Ellen began to cry too. And then I did. Soon, we were all simply wailing our grief and outrage to the world; something we have been conditioned not to do.
Finally, all of this releasing allowed Ellen to speak the truest words she could, straight from her heart. "Thank you Telquaa, for helping me to grieve. My culture doesn't know how to grieve and so we stay stuck and nothing changes."
Like Ellen, it has taken the honesty of our own pain to make me see that words get us nowhere: that ra-tional discourse changes nothing, since our planet is dying and we with it. That is not a rational or sensi-ble fact: it is a nightmare. And we are so numbed by this terrible reality of death that we consign it to an abstract and disassociated "issue" in order to get through the day without coming to pieces.
But it is time that we all come to pieces, and fall apart with grief. Then the truth will be heard, and
acknowledged in the only place that can change the world: within human hearts.
The only reason that I can know this is because I have gone through the grief that opened up my own heart. My life was shattered and ground to nothing over a few years, after I stumbled over the murder and land theft committed by my former employer, the "United Church" of Canada. And I am still being ground down by the same people and groups who put me here.
And yet, short of that personal tragedy, I doubt if I would now understand much of that Telquaa and Ellen taught me that day on the radio - and what so many other native people have given to me: the simple truth that we're on the way down as a people, and that only radical spiritual transformation will save even a remnant of us.
I don't think in terms of "how" anymore. I am seeking a place of rebirth in which the "how" follows from a new understanding of who I am, and who we are, and why we have been given this precious and sacred gift of a bleeding and loving heart in the face of the blind and automatic murder that poses as polite society.
In the midst of my illness, on Friday night, my lungs began filling up with mucus and I literally couldn't
breathe. I struggled at first, like anyone does who is drowning. But then something involuntarily relaxed me and I looked at myself with a sudden love.
I saw that, like my body, our world and what we know and rely on is ending. But I also knew so clearly that (like me) we are nevertheless so much more than who we seem to be, and that death is not the end. And knowing this, I actually laughed in the midst of my gasps for breath, and began crying with a joy that I had heard as well in the voices of Telquaa and Ellen.
I came through that struggle with a new peace in my centre where mystery and all truth resides. I pray that in the days left to me, I can speak from that centre and not from my mind.
The poet W.H. Auden wrote, "In the desert of the heart, let the healing waters start". But Telquaa and Ellen and I can add to this, "And let those healing waters be our own tears: of shame, and grief, and a new joy."
All my relations,
"Why do Americans pay so little attention to their poets and moralists and so much to their million-aires and generals?"
Leo Tolstoy
Empire-building is so much a part of the history of the United States that many Americans don't even see it. Henry David Thoreau saw it, though, and as part of America's deepest and truest democratic tradition, he opposed both slavery and the U.S. war with Mexico that lasted from 1846 to 1848. It was a war of aggression (as is the war on Iraq today), and lots of Americans opposed it as an unnecessary attack on a weaker nation. "Witness the present Mexican war, the work of a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the (American) people would not have consented to this measure," Thoreau wrote in his famous essay called "Civil Disobedience", published in 1849.
In the treaty after the Mexican war, the United States seized from Mexico the regions of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Colorado. Some said the war was a great victory, and an expression of the spirit of manifest destiny that lies at the heart of empire. Others, like Thoreau, did not believe that beating up weaker people was a sign of honour, courage or morality, and looked to peaceful ways for nations to settle disputes.
The acquisition of new territories after the Mexican war caused unexpected problems for the U.S. Bitter quarrels over slavery broke out. Were the new territories to be "slave" or "free"? In spite of the Comp-romise of 1850, these violent quarrels became one of the underlying causes of the American Civil War. In war, you can never be sure about what is going to happen next, even as the Bush Administration has little idea of what is going to happen after its ill-conceived war of aggression against Iraq.
The success of the Mexican war buried criticism for a while, even as the apparent U.S. military success in Iraq has given Bush a little more time. Be careful, though, of this word "success". Before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Hitler spoke to his military commanders. He noted the failure of the world to remember the Armenian genocide by Turkey -1 to 1.5 million people massacred from 1915 to 1917. "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? The world believes in success alone," Hitler said. (1)
Well, the world has remembered the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust in Germany, the genocide of aboriginal peoples in the Americas, and the many other genocides that have taken place, and are taking place, in our empire-driven world. Ordinary people are getting fed up with "success" that relies on genocide. We hear a strong voice against war in the international peace movement. When the Ameri-can people rediscover their own democratic tradition they will reject George Bush and the ugly face of empire.
"How does it become people to behave toward this American government today? I answer that they cannot without disgrace be associated with it," Thoreau wrote in his essay "Civil Disobedience". When "a whole country (Mexico) is unjustly overrun and con-quered by a foreign (American) army, I think that it is not too soon for honest people to rebel. This (American) people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people." Earlier in "Civil Disobedience" Thoreau wrote, "I think that we should be human beings first and subjects (uncritical, obedient consumers) afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right." He closed his essay with a spark from the fire of true democracy, "I please myself with imagining a State which can afford to be just to all people, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbour."
Thoreau spoke the democratic vision of America. It is the opposite of George Bush's empire. The United States, after all, was founded in rebellion against the British Empire. How beautiful th hope of democracy as described by American poets - "As if it harmed me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself - as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same," Walt Whitman wrote. (2)
By Sandy Cameron
(1) Genocide and The Politics Of Memory, by Herbert Hirsch, University of North Carolina Press, 1995, pg.184.
Strange
It was a lazy Sunday early in the PM, just after noon. I had just recently started to ride the bike again and had planned to go for a ride around the Stanley Park seawall. I had actually planned to go riding earlier in the day but it was raining when I awoke from my slumber and I didn't want to go outside and melt and leave a big puddle of brown sugar on the sidewalk. I'm a very considerate person.
Just after noon I received a call from a friend who I hadn't seen in a week or so. She asked if I'd like to go for a walk to London Drugs up on Georgia and Granville. I didn't really want to put off my bike riding exercise (yeah, right) but being a genteel homme I agreed to the walk up Granville. I decided that it would be all right to go for a ride later in the day. When we got there, she couldn't find what she was looking for, so we decided to go to a different London Drug store, the one way up on Hastings past Nanaimo Street.
We decided to catch a bus. We jumped on a Number 16, 29th Avenue Station.It wasn't too crowded There were two people sitting at the front of the bus and we also sat near the front. I think they were tourists to this part of town because they didn't know where they were or where to get off the bus. They were headed to Edmonds Station. I found that out when they decided to get off at the Granville Street Station to catch the Skytrain just after we pulled away from the Granville Street Station stop. This error caused a dialogue to develop between them and the bus driver. After discussion on the merits of walking down to the Waterfront Station from the corner of Hastings and Granville, they decided to stay on the bus until they reached 29th Avenue Station and transfer to the Skytrain there. Apparently they were a couple of hours ahead of schedule and wanted to see some of the city before they met their party at Edmonds or something to that affect.
As we neared Pigeon Park, the man mentioned to his woman friend that we were entering the worst part of the city because he had heard a lot about Pigeon Park and that there had been a few deaths there. The driver, now being a part of their group, said that it was a lot worse than that. I guess he feels that way as he drives thru this part of town on his regular route. I found that strange because I live a block from there and I find it to be a friendly place most all the time. Whenever I pass Pigeon Park some one always says hi or hello or just nods or smiles. Not being a butt-in-ski kind of person, I decided to be quiet and mind my own business as we passed thru the worst part of the city. Sure enough they kept on running the area where I live down, the tourists and the bus driver, although the driver was not saying too much.
Someone further back in the bus heard the conversation and decided to chip in his opposing opinion. This brought a smile to my face as I sat there watching the tourists get suddenly quiet. The guy was a big boy and he was trying to see who would question his opinion. It was then that I realized that this is how the myth becomes fact. This stranger felt threatened as he traveled thru the bad part of town thereby reinforcing his prejudice that this was the worst part of the city. He would only have this idea that he was right about his opinion. I knew I should have said something but I realized that it wouldn't matter what I said because this person would never believe anyone from down here until he spent some time down here. I was the same way before I came down here about 6 years ago. I now know how wrong an opinion can be when it comes from rumor or the paper or any place when a person hasn't walked in another person's moccasins. Even though it is the worst area of town I feel as if I belong somewhere finally. Being a volunteer at Carnegie is somehow making my life worth something. It may not be much but I received a letter the other day saying that I am important to some people some of the time. Right now that is important to hear.
-harold
S.L.O.P.S.
The World Health Organisation today issued a new warning against non-essential travel to the entire Western hemisphere, following renewed concerns about the spread of Severe Loss of Perspective Syndrome (SLOPS). Officials are warning travellers not to visit the UK, the US, almost all of Western Europe, and Canada, following further outbreaks of the disease, which has led to mass panic among the media, thousands of ecstatic children being kept out of school by their credulous and moronic parents, and increased profits for DIY stores as the idiot public rush to bulk- buy face masks and boiler suits.
A WHO spokesman said, "You'd be much better off going to somewhere like Thailand or China, because all you've got to worry about there is SARS, and let's face it, you're about as likely to die from that as you are to get kicked to death by a gang of zombie nuns.
The SARS virus has now claimed a staggering 500 lives in only six months, which makes it considerab-ly more deadly than, say, malaria, which only kills around 3000 people every single day. Malaria, how-ever, mainly effects only darkies what speak foreign, whereas SARS has made at least one English person feel a bit iffy for a couple of days, and is therefore considered much more serious.
The spread of SLOPS has now reached pandemic proportions, with many high-level politicians seem-ingly affected by the disease. The rapid spread of SLOPS has been linked to the end of the war in Iraq and the need for Western leaders to give the public something to worry about. Otherwise, they might start asking uncomfortable questions about domestic issues, and that simply would not do. Anyone who appears to be exhibiting symptoms of SLOPS should be dragged into the street by their genitals and shot.
CAMPING AT CULTUS
Camping with Carnegie, a first time for me. It takes a while to get used to being out of the city. I hear the wind rustling the leaves and think it's shopping cart wheels on concrete.
The schizophrenic is playing volleyball by himself, but asks me to join him. It rains, so Kai reads out loud to us from the Chilliwack Yellow Pages. Much fuss about fishing, to Rocky Raccoon go the spoils, and the marshmallows.
And then there was the night we roasted nuts over the bonfire, well not all of us! As we approach full moon, the guys go all pagan on us. Women laugh, squeal and cheer, while the men jump through the flames, sizzling and searing and proving their manhood! Jason keeps challenging Gerald to do it au naturel, "sky-clad" as we'll call it in some traditions. When not screaming with laughter, we all sing along to the good old songs from the bad old days, songs we all know, and remember different words to.
Bingo is a big favourite. No markers so we use beans and rocks. "Where do you get the rocks?" our ever-alert security person asks. Tobacco is the perennial number one choice of the winners. Of course, there's the occasional squabble; if Andy hadn't sprained his wrist at volleyball, I'm sure he would have gotten into a fist fight with the bingo caller.
The games are high spirited. My favourite is the new one we invent, obstacle course bocce ball. Of course, for some, there is love and romance, and all the tantrums and tears that accompany it. I make new friends with people I usually just pass with a "hello", sometimes not even that on a bad hair day. The food is spectacular and abundant! We all pack home enough groceries to last us a few days. What more could a girl ask for? Sign me up for the next one!
- Lady Di
News from the Library
Some of the new books received this week
Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Call # 994.04 pil
Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up by whites and taken to settlements to be assimilated. This incredible story which was made into a remarkable film is the real life story of three such girls who escaped the institution to walk home over 1000 miles through the dessert - a moving story of awesome resilience and courage bound to inspire the reader.
The Sick House Survival Guide by Angela Hobbs Call # 613.5 hob
We ordered this book following requests from some patrons. It is a new book produced by New Society Publishers Gabriola Island B.C. It may be of interest to people suffering from asthma , allergies, chronic fatigue or environmental factors. It has many tips and is easy to read.
How to grow up when you're grown up by Nancy O'Connor Call # 158.1 O'Con
This is not just a book you read, it is a book you do! The book is organized in a way to help readers to identify specific areas where they would like to change and has a very helpful self-evaluation tool to identify areas where change would lead to a happier and more successful adult life. Her previous book Letting go with love was one of the most helpful books on bereavement your librarian used when living with loss.
And in acknowledgement of National Aboriginal Day June 21st some new First Nations Titles
Who are Canada's Aboriginal Peoples : recognition, Definition and Jurisdiction
Call # 971.004 Cha
Addresses such questions as who are the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada? Who are the Metis? Who decides? How many are there? Where do they live?
One Dead Indian: The Premier, The Police, and the Ipperwash crisis Call # 970.2
The title tells it all
Inside Out: an autobiography of a Native Canadian by James Tyman Call # 971.004
An autobiography of a young man written in six weeks by the author as an account of his own story . A story filled with racism and injustice a story where his life almost ended. First published in 1989, when it became a national best seller, it deserves to be rediscovered.
Final word from Mary Ann your librarian Are you reading Stanley Park?? Do wish to talk to others about the book? Want to enter a competition where grand prize is sleep over in Stanley Park with author Timothy Taylor and a gourmet meal?
Join us in our reading club Thursdays at noon in Learning Centre and come add to the fun...
"We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
- Oscar Wilde
"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn
"A big hurdle that none of us is spared (whether we know it or not): how to keep going and going, doing and doing, learning and learning, without becoming so set in our ways that we lose sight of (or taste for) the stray, the different, the unexpected."
- William Carlos Williams
"The facts of this world seen clearly are seen through tears."
- Margaret Atwood
"Devils can be driven out of the heart by the touch of a hand on a hand, or a mouth on a mouth."
- Tennessee Williams
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"When you can't freely express yourself, you're already behind bars."
- Mbanna Kantako
18 Signs Showing You Might Be Canadian
1 - You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars.
2 - You drink pop, not soda.
3 - You know what a mickey and a 2-4 mean.
4 - You don't care about the fuss with Cuba. It's a cheap place to visit, with good cigars, great music, and no Americans.
5 - You know that a pike is a type of fish, not a freeway.
6 - You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
7 - You get excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada.
8 - You know what a touque is.
9 - You design your Hallowe'en costume to fit over a snowsuit.
10 - You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is "Zed" not "Zee".
11 - Your local newspaper covers the national news on 2 pages, but requires 6 pages for hockey.
12 - You know what the four seasons mean: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road work.
13 - You understand the Labatt Blue commercials.
14 - You know how to pronounce and spell "Saskatchewan".
15 - You perk up when you hear the theme song from "Hockey Night in Canada".
16 - You were in grade 12, not the 12th grade.
17 - "Eh?" is a very important part of your vocabulary, and is more polite than "Huh?"
18 - You actually understand all of these jokes.
