Contents
- Bias in the printed news media? Absolutely.
- The Abyss
- Downtown Eastside Photography Contest
- Conditions at the doors of Carnegie Centre
- CBC CHAIR [more convergence]
- What can we learn from Claude Richmond's past
- Irish Eyes: To Mary Ann Cantillon
- Lucky old Hobo
- Economics As An Ideology Of Death
- Dear Jill Davidson (City of Vancouver);
- War on Drugs or War on People
- Just a big Thank You.
- strengthen our community through the library
- ‘Welfare’ Mom
- Keep on the Grass
- ARTFUL Sundays!
- THE SHADOWS PROJECT
- Explore the Edges of your Consciousness
- Spiritual dysfunction
- Aboriginal Day
- To Do it in Style
- Two Wolves
- One for the good guys..
- Music Program Random Notes
- Chinatown Arts & Cultural Festival
Bias in the printed news media? Absolutely.
This article started as a response to a Jan. 23, 2003 column by Globe and Mail writer Lawrence Martin, titled “It’s not Canadians who’ve gone to the right, just their media.” Wrote Martin, “’You have a bit of a problem here,’ a European diplomat was saying over lunch last week. “Your media are not representative of your people, your values. So many of the political commentators are right-of-centre,” the diplomat said, “while Canadians themselves are in the moderate middle. There’s a disconnect.” Who could disagree?
In the intervening time, I pondered the reasons for this. Aside from the obvious (the media are corporate controlled, and therefore tend to advance big business’s agenda, which skews to the right), there are other factors. This was made quite obvious recently (on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1) when the Senate Committee on Communication and Transportation came to Vancouver during a cross country fact finding expedition to hear, here, about media concentration in Vancouver.
According to The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canada’s Press by Robert Hacket and Richard Gruneau (available from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives), there is a distinction between media concentration and monopoly. Concentration measures the extent to which one or a few companies dominate the industry regionally or nationally; monopoly refers to the lack of competition within a given market. As far as I’m concerned, concentration leads to monopoly.
In The Republic, [Feb. 3-16] Kevin Potvin wrote (“The Senate came to town, in case you didn’t notice”). “Editorial monopolization in Canada is most pronounced in the Vancouver media market, now legendary for being the most monopolized not only in Canada but in the whole Western world.” Witness both The Province and The Vancouver Sun editorializing that the BC Liberals were worthy of another term just before the last provincial election, and you get a taste of this.
According to an article in the online publication, The Tyee (www.thetyee.ca) on Jan. 28 by Donald Gutstein (one of the contributors to The Missing News), titled “Senate Comes to Scrutinize Big Media in BC”: “CanWest Global accounts for 28.5 percent of total daily newspaper circulation in Canada. For Vancouver dailies it is 100 percent – the Sun and Province. Factor in the national papers, the National Post (also owned by CanWest) and the Globe and Mail (owned by Bell Globemedia), which have little local news, and CanWest still accounts for over 90 percent of daily circulation.” Talk about monopoly and concentration.
What’s the upshot of this skewed state of affairs? “Media not impartial, majority say” was the title of a June 11, 2004 Vancouver Sun article which stated, “An overwhelming majority of Canadians believe the news media do not provide impartial facts but are often influenced by powerful people, according to the results of a national survey.”
But what’s the federal government’s take on concentration and monopoly influencing the news? Kevin Potvin: “The government of Canada, for instance, has refused to consider whether there even is a monopoly over editorial content. The competition tribunal considers it the limit of the people’s concerns that they worry instead only about whether there is an advertising monopoly in the marketplace (which they have decided there isn’t because there are advertising markets available on the Internet). [which is utter nonsense—RA]
But maybe not nonsense. Consider the advent into the Vancouver free dailies market of the miniature papers, Metro, The Dose, and 24 Hours. CanWest outright owns Dose, and further owns a share of Metro. Advertising is uppermost in the news media’s minds, at least.
From The Missing News: “The most obvious—and the most widely voiced—concern is that concentrated media ownership potentially puts too much political and cultural power into too few hands.”
From the same book, “This argument was later reiterated by Paul Audley, after intensive research into Canada’s ‘cultural industries.’ Writing in the early 1980s, Audley argued that the corporate news media in Canada maintain a ‘basic commitment to the business community’s views on public issues rather than to a wider range of interests.’ Under such circumstances, information that casts business in a bad light is likely to be under-reported in the news. Consider a further implication of profit-oriented media ownership. Competitive pressures, leading to a bottom line perspective, pose significant challenges to any ‘public service’ component that may be associated with editorial content.”
Again, from the same book, “[C]oncentration multiplies the opportunities for a media owner to impose his (or, very occasionally, her) own agenda on news coverage.”
Consider the case of David Beers, founder of The Tyee, and former employee of The Vancouver Sun. Why was he fired? From The Westender, Mar. 31-Apr. 6, “Urban Legends”: “[in Beers’s own words] “9/11 happened, and I began writing about 9/11. Some of my themes were that we shouldn’t sacrifice our civil liberties in the process of fighting terrorism, and that we should be very careful about that. And I went to the defence of somebody named Sunera Thobani, who was a professor at UBC who was very angry and who was saying some very critical things about the US. Everybody was angry and attacking her and I said, ‘Cool out! This is why we’re a great nation, because we have freedom of speech here.’ Nine days after I wrote that column, I was fired. I asked them why and the editor said it was for economic reasons.”
What was the Senate Committee told? Here are some examples. Donna Logan, head of the School of Journalism at UBC, and Kirk LaPointe, now the Vancouver Sun’s managing editor but at the time working for the Toronto Star each gave presentations to the Committee. Donald Gutstein: “LaPointe framed his comments with some broadsweeping, unsupported claims: big media are ‘very good,’ there’s no connection between cross-media ownership and declining journalism [“convergence”—RA], and convergence so far has been ‘profoundly positive.’”
“Logan appeared before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in 2001, offering testimony that supported broadcast license renewals of CanWest and CTV. ‘Converged journalism offers an opportunity to … (free) up reporters to do stories that are not being done and are vital to democratic discourse. … Two months after her CRTC testimony, CanWest gave $500,000 to Logan’s school of journalism for a visiting journalism professor.” Connection? You be the judge.
What convergence has actually done is resulted in fewer reporters, less local news, bias in rewritten wire copy, and dumbed-down news.
According to a Feb. 2 article in The Tyee, by David Beers and Charles Campbell titled “Creating Counterweights to Big Media”: “Other speakers today, I believe, have detailed the cost. The slashed staffs. The lowered standards. The embarrassing boosterism. The conflicts of interest. The lack of accountability to the public. The stunted civic conversation that results.”
In “CanWest controls too much media, Senate hearing told,” The Westender, Feb. 3-9, by Matthew Burrows, “Deborah Campbell, president of the Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Association of Journalists, questioned local media concentration and lack of staff in crucial areas. ‘There is a lively ethnic press, but the papers of record are all owned by the same company,’ she said. She also cited the lack of coverage of the leaky condo crisis, [the missing women in the Downtown Eastside—RA], and the ongoing native land claims, adding that the two dailies have no reporter in the legislature full time, and nobody dedicated to land claims, labour issues, [social issues—RA], fisheries and forests.”
Kevin Potvin: “[T]he purpose of this traveling road show was not to learn what changes the people required, but rather to sugar coat for the people the disappointing but familiar news that the government is there for industry as it always was. These types of hearings are only to make the people think the government cares.”
David Beers and Charles Campbell (concluding comments): “I am sure about one thing. You can have diversity of ownership in the media and it won’t matter a whit if the owners are all wearing the same suit and belong to the same club. The Senate committee needs to put forward concrete mechanisms to promote different kinds of ownership. The simplest and most promising opportunity is to promote the development of new media on new terms. It might even be politically possible.”
By Rolf Auer
The AbyssThe Abyss
Ghosts wandering through the ruins
of shattered minds
Lives slipping through the crack
falling into nothingness
Homeless hopeless helpless
as the centre unwinds
What chance What choice What change
could bring an end to madness?
The Bass Player
Downtown Eastside Photography ContestPIVOT LEGAL SOCIETY
Downtown Eastside Photography Contest
First prize (1 winner): $500 cash
Second prize (5 winners): $100 cash each
Third prize (10 winners): $50 cash each
Every contestant will get $5 cash when they turn in their cameras.
Winning photos may be used in the
2006 Downtown Eastside Calendar
Free Cameras and Training provided
The theme:
community and relationships
The rules:
Each contestant will be given a black & white disposable camera at the beginning of the contest. All pictures must be taken with an official contest camera. You enter your photos by turning your camera in - we take care of the developing and printing!
Pick up cameras 10.30am Monday July 4
Interurban Gallery (1 East
Contest ends 5pm, Thursday, July 7th.
Space is limited to 150 contestants.
This contest is open only to low-income residents
of the Downtown Eastside.
For more information: 604-696-1322
Conditions at the doors of Carnegie CentreLarry Campbell, Mayor; Stephen Learey, Executive
Assistant; Vanessa Geary, Executive Assistant
Re: Conditions at the doors of Carnegie Centre
and on the sidewalk to the east.
Dear Stephen, Vanessa and Larry, 16 June 2005
This letter is addressed to the three of you in hopes that either Vanessa or Stephen will be able to get Larry’s attention. The sheer number of letters, “Priority” ‘For [His] Eyes Only’ ‘For the Immediate Attention of _’ etc., to say nothing of email volume, makes being lost in the pile a real menace.
Coming into Carnegie on any given day, it is almost always a dirty sight with excessive amounts of litter and trash on the sidewalk, on the street around the curb and blowing around. This condition is extant on both the northwest and southwest corners of Main & Hastings. It seems to be no one’s job to pick up this stuff, even though it could/should/is needed 4+ times a day, every day. Perhaps United We Can could be contracted to have workers there do the work several times a day, in line with their alley and sidewalk cleaning service.
The next issue is the returned use of the sidewalk to the southeast of M & H by dealers and users as a kind of turf. Much of the litter and obstruction to pedestrians passing there is due to perhaps 6 to 10 people who sleep, set out blankets to party on, deal and generally cause unease to passersby. Litter is continuously generated from this location. The temporary presence of police persons may cause a temporary dispersal only
The most disturbing and dangerous situation is now unfolding on many mornings. The first Building Service Worker (BSW) arrives at 6AM. He is now confronted by 10+ people who have spent the night camped out directly in front of the main entrance. There is much litter, but the hassle he receives from those unwilling to move to allow him entry makes that a consideration for 8AM or later. Most recently, once inside, he reports observing drug deals happening, weigh scales being using, drugs being cut up and packaged for street sale, and of course money changing hands. The dealers have made this covered and higher-up public space into their office. And it is this aspect that presents the most dangerous implications. If stoned and/or hyper/paranoid people feel threatened by those coming in to work – who ask them to move all the paraphernalia involved in cutting and packaging dope for sale – he/they may be assaulted or even stabbed with a needle (the odds-on-favourite for freaking out anyone even mildly critical of such activities).
The Kitchen Programmer is now on a 7am-4pm shift, and the most recent arrival at Carnegie before 7am, when the drug-marketing set-up was in operation, scared her too badly to enter on time. She had to wait until the first Security person arrived almost an hour later to have an escort past or through this ad hoc ‘office’.
As with many other letters on safety and drug concerns in the Downtown Eastside, I mention and cite the fact that this would not be tolerated anywhere else in the entire GVRD for an hour. I ask that Mayor Campbell meet with the VPD and community representatives to find respectable solutions, both to the litter problem and the much more serious matter of the front steps/entrance of Carnegie being used as a trafficking office.
I’ll print this letter in the July 1 issue of the Carnegie Newsletter as an open one to you three. Hopefully I’ll have an encouraging response. To repeat the words of a longtime Security employee, after hearing of the Mayor’s statement that “We’ve cleaned it up down there and now the nay-sayers are trying to find something else wrong,.” (or words to that effect), “It just isn’t so Larry. He should come down here without fanfare and suited entourage and just look around. The street scene is coming back with a vengeance.”
Respectfully submitted,
PaulR Taylor, volunteer editor.
CBC CHAIR [more convergence]CBC CHAIR [more convergence]
CBC insiders have told Our Public Airwaves that the corporation’s chair, Carole Taylor, quit out of unhappiness over government appointments to the CBC’s board of directors.
With two years left on her appointment,
Corporate governance was one of
Among those appointments was a real estate tycoon (a close friend of the Prime Minister) and a woman whose husband is an active supporter of the right-wing Fraser Institute that often attacks the CBC.
Please visit the Our Public Airwaves website regularly for the latest news and views about public broadcasting. www.PublicAirwaves.ca
It is impossible to simultaneously protect, and print on, ancient forests.
What can we learn from Claude Richmond's pastWhat can we learn from Claude Richmond's past?
Paul Taylor gave me the idea of checking out End Legislated Poverty's old newsletters for some Claude Richmond history.
June, 1987: Welfare workers start asking people who turn 60 to apply for early Canada Pension so it can be deducted from their welfare.
July, 1987: The BC Human Rights Council says that the provincial government does discriminate against people under 26 years old when it makes their welfare cheques $25 less than older peoples' cheques.
September, 1987:
December, 1987: Welfare rates are raised for people who have been on welfare more than 9 months. The new rate is $180 for support and up to $250 for shelter for a single person. The increase costs the government $44 million. Half came from the federal government through the Canada Assistance Plan.
April, 1988: The socred government announces that it is going to change the definition of "unemployable" in October. They want to exclude single parents who don't have a baby less than 15 weeks old. At that time people who were "unemployable" got $50 more than "employable" people so this was a sneaky way of cutting $50 a month from single
parents. End Legislated Poverty decides to fight for the $50.
May, 1988: Mothers on welfare got angry. They wrote letters to the editor, started a petition, went on radio talk shows, and met with the Opposition. They held a rally at
minute before the rally began the Socreds announced that some parents would be able to keep the $50: mothers with a baby under 6 months or 2 children under 6 years. But other mothers would still be cut.
June, 1988: ELP organizes a group of single mothers to go the Legislature in
July, 1988: Mothers from the Child Poverty Action Committee went to
September, 1988: Welfare advocates report that more bureaucratic hurdles are being created for people on welfare: the planned $50 cutback to single mothers; a requirement that unemployable people have to get a letter from their doctor; no welfare for a full month if you apply part way through the month; people over 60 are told to apply for CPP; a new policy for a home visit for everyone within 3 months.
November, 1988: The $50 cut goes into effect but ELP asks people to appeal it and Legal Services helps out.
December, 1988: Victory!
February, 1989:
Chair of the Board of Century 21 Real Estate. Anti-poverty advocates ear
May, 1989: ELP is concerned because single parents are forced to say that they are looking for work in order to get their cheques. ELP tells parents that it has a letter from
July, 1989:
August, 1989:
November, 1989: On October 20th, just before leaving the ministry,
Note: on August 1st, 1990 welfare rates went up again to $200 for support and $300 for shelter for single "employable" people.
Lessons that I learned from looking at this list:
By Jean Swanson
Irish Eyes: To Mary Ann CantillonIrish Eyes, an Infectious Smile
To Mary Ann Cantillon
During your reign over the past four years as Carnegie’s Librarian, you certainly have been a model of strength in the very heart of this community of ours. You have shown us through your commitment the qualities and character that you bestow – very fine role model qualities for anyone.
In solidarity you walked in marches with sisters in the ‘hood – the annual Valentine’s Day March for one. Addressing issues of injustice against women, the missing and murdered women, International Women’s Day, and so many other initiatives – just naming a few.
You’ve seen the devastation caused by government cutbacks, witnessed the impact and end results on our community: death, memorials for friends and friends of friends or family.
Those Irish eyes have cried, laughed, danced; you’ve read poems and heard poems read; you’ve seen and felt the pain and still shared in our victories and losses equally; you’ve been through the trenches and valleys - “Man, what a war…” - as we stuck together through thick and thin. You held true at our weakest moments and with our strongest assets; to the real character of the community.
You believed in this Community! Breaking down barriers, building bridges, changing attitudes; the little things we take for granted, seen or unseen.
Yeah, I know you’ll say (as you often did) “but it’s my job!” I can only respond by saying that it’s in the manner you did your job that was truly special.
In closing, our lives have been touched and enriched; our experiences with you will be etched in memory until time immemorial.
In Friendship,
Stephen Lytton
Lucky old HoboLucky old Hobo
The homeless lucky in a way
sometimes wake up in orchards
only sound is birdsong as the sun
melts between the branches
of an overhanging apple
The homeless lucky in a way
aren’t stuck with the same walls
same neurotic neighbours sharing
their own brand of locked-in madness
it’s never the house that makes you move
it’s the neighbours you try to flee
some places you’re lucky to leave
at any cost, you’re glad to be gone
leaving the neighbours with their
continuous bellyaches and rumours
as you loll in city parks’ green grass
drinking in the sunlight marveling
at the freedom only the wanderer knows
so don’t feel so sorry for the homeless old guy
he’s better off in some ways
than the landed immigrant
the slum dweller with all your keys
R.Loewen
Economics As An Ideology Of DeathEconomics As Profit-Making
Is An Ideology Of Death
Millions of people around the world are fighting the corporate global economic system. The fifth World Social Forum took place in
Most human beings want to live in peace. They want to raise their children in healthy communities. They want meaningful work, adequate income, a circle of friends, the resources to live with dignity and respect, and the opportunity to participate in the life of their country. The peoples of the world are not asking to be obscenely rich. As a peasant woman from the province of
1893 peasant uprising: "It will be enough to share with justice what is produced."
Yet we are faced with a plague of greed and selfishness that sickens our lives and our environment. In his important book, "Small Is Beautiful," the economist E.F. Schumacher wrote, "Nature abhors a vacuum, and when the available spiritual space is not filled with something higher, it will be filled with something lower - by the small, mean, calculating attitude to life of economics as profit-making." (2)
I believe that if ordinary people really understood how our mean-spirited, avaricious, and violent economic system pits poor and working people around the world against each other in a downward spiral of competitive impoverishment, they would throw it out in two minutes.
"We are living by an ideology of death, and are destroying our humanity and killing the planet," the economist H.E. Daly and the theologian J.B. Cobb said in their book "For The Common Good." (3)
"It (unrestrained global capitalism) is an evil system by all fully human standards," the cultural historian Raymond Williams said in his book "The Year 2000." He went on to say, "The most aggressive marketing and militarist societies will destroy the world if their accumulative policies continue." (4)
The economist Barbara Ward had this to say about the Scrooge-had-it-right economic policies that are sucking the life out of mother earth, and making us feel that we are losing control of our lives: "Rich nation philosophy has still, in the main, to get past 1840. The market will provide. The growth of the rich will pull up the poor in its wake and if the result turns out to be misery for the many and well-being for the few, that is simply the way in which the laws of economics work. For a century or more we have been modifying this stupid, unworkable and dangerous philosophy within our economies." (5)
Our economy is the way we organize the resources of our society to ensure that everyone has a decent life and that no one is excluded. Our economy doesn't belong to the transnational corporations. It belongs to the citizens of
Capitalism creates great wealth alongside great poverty. It fails to distribute wealth in a fair and equitable manner. Citizens have to regulate private power in order to distribute wealth and income fairly. This is a democratic process that the Scandinavian countries are better at than
Rather than a society based on competitiveness, we long for community that lifts being-in-the-world beyond the predatory stage of human development. We do not want our success to depend on another's failure, nor our prosperity on another's poverty. We want to be in control of our lives, belong to our land, and live in peace and justice with our neighbours.
By Sandy Cameron
(1) See "The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World," by John Ralston Saul, Viking, 2005.
(2) "Small Is Beautiful - A Study Of Economics As If People Mattered," by E.F. Schumacher.
(3) "For The Common Good," by H.E. Daly and J.B. Cobb, Beacon Press,
(4) "The Year 2000," by Raymond Williams, Pantheon Books, 1983.
(5) "Progress For A Small Planet," by Barbara Ward.
Dear Jill Davidson (City of Vancouver);Dear Jill Davidson (City of
I am sending you list of what our Senior's Committee identified as the most relevant Ministries to negotiate with [on implementing the Homeless Action Plan];
1) Ministry of Health; Minister Responsible; George Abbott
2) Ministry of Family & Children Development; Minister Responsible; Stan Hagen.
3) Ministry of Aboriginal Relations & Reconciliation; Minister Responsible Tom Christensen.
4) Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism and Attorney General; Wally Oppel
5) Ministry of Community Services & Responsible for Seniors and Womens Issues; Minister Responsible; Ida Chong
6) Ministry of Education and Minister Responsible for Early Learning and Literary and Deputy Premier; Minster Responsible; Shirley Bond
7) Minister of State & Responsible for Child- Care; Linda Reid
8) Ministry of Labour and Citizens Services & House Leader; Minister Responsible; Mike De-Jong
9) Ministry of Public Safety & Solictor General ;
Minister Responsible; John Les.
The Speakers who make comments and statements in the Public Consultation to City Council made it abundantly clear that the Ministry of Family & Children Development must be held accountable for its atrocious and disturbing record over the past few years especially under the Liberals. Since there is now a far stronger Official Opposition.
I sincerely hope to see a major turn-around in transparency, efficiency, more humanity & care, and considerably more accountability in the way government has been treating its most vulnerable citizens as no one should ever be considered disposable.
In closing, I think more of us in the community will be watching a lot more closely to ensure our valued citizens are treated with respect, with dignity and as humanely as possible especially our Senior and Elderly both men and women but especially our women and in addition we must wipe out our countries shameful record on the increase of child poverty in increasing public support systems.
It is fundamentally imperative to restore those social programs immediately that have suffered being cut to smithereens over the past decade, now that the Federal Budget 2005 has finally been passed. I’d be interested in being kept up-to-date on the City's progress in this very worthwhile, important initiative.
Thanks;
Marilyn Young
War on Drugs or War on PeopleWar on Drugs or War on People: Human Rights and Plan
San José de Apartadó is a community in the southwestern [province] of Cauca in
opportunity and calls for a new policy on
Consuming more $4.5 billion since it was first
passed by Congress in 2000, Plan
The recent
"Peace in
http://www.peaceincolombia.org/colombiafinal.html
Please urge our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pierre Pettigrew, not to support
Just a big Thank You.
From the bottom of my wallet. Thanks for supporting my extravagant life of wealth, women, fast cars, eating in the best restaurants, partying with and becoming one of the richest, most powerful and influential society figures! – by mutilating your bodies and minds and destroying all that was precious in your lives (family, friends, etc.) and, in all probability, if you continue on your self-destructive course, dying prematurely.. whose only purpose now is to get relief from that all-consuming craving (yeah!) to become a slave to the candy (drugs) I push.
We’ve got to keep that cash flowing!
How’s it feel to be my puppet? To be my disposable source of wealth?! $900 million of cocaine and heroin sold in BC every year!! ((300+ overdoses in BC every year; 1 in 4 users have HIV/AIDS). So?)
From your local DRUGLORD!!!
strengthen our community through the libraryWe can strengthen our community through the library
Currently, the Vancouver Public Library is operating the Carnegie Reading Room and Strathcona Branch to serve the Downtown Eastside/ Strathcona (DTES/ STR) area. Carniegie Reading Room provides magazines, newspapers, fiction, non-fiction, books in Chinese, internet access, and outreach services to the public. Strathcona Branch is a children’s library where the materials and services cater to the needs of preschool and elementary school aged children.
To better serve the DTES/STR community, VPL is proposing a full service library in the area. While the Carnegie Reading Room would remain untouched in the same location, with the new branch the library would be able to provide more materials and services to the entire DTES/STR area including those teenagers and adults not currently being served.
In April 2004 the Vancouver Public Library hired a consultant team to investigate how the library could improve and enhance its services in the area. The team met with many local organizations and individuals to gather input on the kinds of library services that community members would like to have. Following the consultation, the Library Board has taken a series of actions:
1) Accepted the report and made a new DTES/STR branch its highest priority in the capital referendum.
2) Distributed the consultation report to all the organizations and individuals who participated in the consultation process for comment.
3) Held a community meeting to discuss the report with community members in November 2004 at
4) Created a DTES/STR Outreach Librarian position based on the belief that an ongoing public consultation process would be essential in order to consolidate input and amplify community interests.
5) Submitted the capital plan for a new DTES/STR library to the City’s capital plan staff review group
and the City’s Corporate Management Team.
The on-going community consultation that the library is doing has collected a lot of valuable advice from the community. The followings are some of the things that we have learned:
1) Many residents have talents in various areas, but they need resources or services to support them.
2) Children, teenagers and many learners do need a silent study room.
3) People in the area are hungry for books and that book clubs for different groups would be treasured.
4) Aboriginal community members would like to meet with their elders to enjoy storytelling so as to pass their tradition and knowledge to next generation.
5) Art is a very important element in the area and the library should find ways to support its development.
6) Both professional and amateur artists would love to display their work in the library.
7) Community members who can not read would
love to have audio visual materials in the library.
The library realizes there are many ways to engage people in its services and we would love to hear from you! Your comments and support would help us to establish a new branch that everyone could call “my library”.Together, we can achieve it.
Want to express your library needs? Please contact Gladys Chen, DTES/STR Outreach Librarian of Vancouver Public Library at 604-331-3826. Or you could simply leave a message/ comment at Carnegie Reading Room or Strathcona Branch.
‘Welfare’ Mom‘Welfare’ Mom
In response to an article in the Georgia Straight, and comments by Jean Swanson reprinted in the Carnegie Newsletter(June 1), regarding Debbie Krull:
I am not surprised with the attitude of the public. I’d like to share a tragedy I witnessed in
The press and the public were relentless with cruel comments toward her, some even implying that she killed her daughter. About a week later Andrea’s body was found behind the building’s furnace. The investigation showed that it was a part-time janitor who had raped and killed the little girl; he was convicted of the crime.
Why is the public so cruel toward welfare recipients? Society creates a caste of untouchables. The governments know this, yet are willing accomplices in creating a climate of blame.
We have within us a depth of cruelty or caring. Some people who gave big money to the tsunami victims will, in turn, insult and abuse a homeless person in the street. It is truly the human paradox: “good” poor there; “bad” poor here and the vicious cycle continues to spin indefinitely.
The other victim in this story was Andrea’s mother; when her daughter was found dead her welfare was cut off. She’d already had to deal with her daughter’s death and the cruel bashing by both press and public. She took her own life less than a year later.
I am sure it was not an isolated incident. Human nature being what it is takes a minority group as scapegoats to blame all the problems of society on. Our modern, insane capitalist system will blame the poor for being a burden (undeserving) while letting government give the rich (deserving) big tax cuts. Sooner or later this pyramid will collapse under its own weight.
But will we see Trump, Gates, corporate CEO’s or political fat cats in soup lines? They would not survive. They could never adapt to destitution but we, the poor, will. We are strong and creative; we will find ways to survive. It may be the best form of divine retribution.
Christiane Bordier
Keep on the GrassKeep on the Grass
Grass is always greener they always say
but you gotta be grateful for all good luck
that comes your way, a little bit every day
Remember those religious folks used to say
He looks after everyone in his own way
from sparrow to elephant and all in between
Don’t put up a fight, it’ll work out all right,
Just give it some time.
Now I complain and sometimes I should
but you know it never does much good
but we struggle and we carry on
today’s problems will soon be long gone
You just keep hangin’ on
You’ll make it thru.. I know you will
You’ll carry on ‘cause whether you know it
You are that strong
Strong enough to keep on keepin’ on.
Al
ARTFUL Sundays!ARTFUL Sundays!
Beginning July 10 and every week until August 28 2005, Britannia Community Centre is presenting "Artful Sundays", an outdoor, multimedia arts market in Napier Square (Napier at Commercial Drive), noon-4pm. Featuring local artists: paintings, photography, metal works, mixed media, collage, paper arts, sculpture, needlework, glass, etc.etc. Each Sunday will showcase a different group of about ten artists, plus musical guests and other surprises. To reserve a table interested artists can leave a message for Katherine Polgrain at (604)718-5800 or pick up a registration form at the Britannia Information Centre
Artist Diane Wood will be participating July 10, displaying her handbuilt ceramics, "Urban Icons", greeting cards and fabric wall hangings.
THE SHADOWS PROJECTTHE SHADOWS PROJECT
Hi everyone,
Vancouver Moving Theatre is working in partnership with the Carnegie Community Centre to create a shadow play (with images and puppets, storytelling and music) for the whole family and the Downtown Eastside about addiction. We need your help.
We are writing the play with a large team of DTES writers. Some of the writers are in different stages of the process of addiction. The following is a questionnaire about addiction that will help us build this play. Please help us write our play by answering these questions. We consider addiction can involve everything from sugar, coffee, nicotine, alcohol and other drugs, to behavioral addictions like workaholics, shopaholics, and TV, video, nickel slot machine-aholics
Thank you,
Rosemary Georgeson, James Fagan Tait,
Do you live in the Downtown Eastside? ______
If not, where is your home neighborhood? _________________
1. How does addiction affect your life?
2. What are some of the most powerful images you’ve seen or dreamt regarding addiction and/or\recovery?
3) How is your world affected by addiction?
4) What kinds of images come to mind when you imagine a person – or a community – going through the process of recovery?
5) If there were no addictions, what would the world
and/or the DTES look like?
6) How has your life been transformed because of the experience of addiction and/or the recovery process?
7) If you painted a picture of addiction, what would
your picture contain?
9) Do you have a story you’d like to share with us about addiction? (Humorous, touching, sad, inspiring?)
10) What do you want our children and our elders to understand about addiction?
If you would like to be kept informed about The Shadows Project – please leave your name and contact information
Please drop this questionnaire at the Carnegie Community Centre front desk for The Shadows Project
Or mail to:
Vancouver, B.C. V6A 4A4
604-254-6911 (messages)
Explore the Edges of your ConsciousnessExplore the Edges of your Consciousness
This is Gallery Gachet's latest, an interdisciplinary
group exhibition entitled Edges which debuts with an opening reception on Friday, July 8, from 7 to 10 p.m. at
Artists Stephen Long, S. Siobhan McCarthy, Danny Wickert and Catherine Pulkinghorn have come together to present this innovative exploration that combines video, mixed media artwork, live performances, and branding.
"The edges of our lives are perhaps more important than what they contain," says Stephen Long, whose contribution to the show involves digital video projection. "The edges of our physical space, our perception, and our consciousness describe the possibilities for our lives, where they begin and end."
Danny Wickert draws inspiration for his work from numerous sources including surrealism, the outsider art movement, abstraction, and the traditional arts of ancient cultures and religions. Wickert's recent work integrates wood, paint and mirrors and attempts to integrate the picture frame into the images contained within it through the exploration of geometrical patterns and designs.
Visual artist and academic Catherine Pulkinghorn and S. Siobhan McCarthy of the absolut theatre co. come together in edges, the first phase of their collaboration integrating arts-based research examining human behaviour and consciousness, identity/ branding, and an exploration of the human psyche. The current stage of the project culminates in a live branding performance and multi-media installation addressing the impacts of projection.
"Edges define the content of everything," the artists explain. "They specify the limits and boundaries. The constant negotiation between self and other exposes human behaviour and the question of what is acceptable."
Gallery Gachet: 605-687-2468, www.gachet.org, or stop by Wednesday to Sunday from noon to 6 p.m.
Spiritual dysfunctionSpiritual dysfunction
The voice of weeping soul
Cleaving to the flesh
Out on the streets
Suffering piles up with time
Spiritual dysfunction
took hold of him.
Affliction and earthly desires
Scornful of man’s despair
Wise man – His enemy
Suffer him not to anger
Pain to others
is pleasure to his soul.
The Voice of Judgment wails
Wisdom wails
Spiritual dysfunction
Took hold of him.
Ayisha
Aboriginal DayAboriginal Day
ab·o·rig·i·nal (?b'?-r?j'?-n?l) adj.
1. Having existed in a region from the beginning: aboriginal forests. See synonyms at native
a. Of or relating to aborigines.
na·tive (n?'t?v) adj.
1. Existing in or belonging to one by nature; innate: native ability.
2. Being such by birth or origin: a native Scot.
3. Being one's own because of the place or circumstances of one's birth: our native land.
4. Originating, growing, or produced in a certain place or region; indigenous: a plant native to
a. Being a member of the original inhabitants of a particular place.
b, Of, belonging to, or characteristic of such inhabitants: native dress; the native diet of
5. Occurring in nature pure or uncombined with other substances: native copper.
6. Natural; unaffected: native beauty.
7. Archaic. Closely related, as by birth or race.
8. Biochemistry. Of or relating to the naturally occurring conformation of a macromolecule, such as a protein.
a. One born in or connected with a place by birth: a native of
b. One of the original inhabitants or lifelong res
dents of a place.
Now I know what it means. My ancestors were original. I don't know how they got "ab" in there. Because of my ancestry I guess that I'm also original or at least a native of turtle island. That's where we live,
We have our own day now (National Aboriginal Day) and it’s the summer solstice, June 21st, what a great day for a celebration. Last year I sat at a table at
Around 11o’clock they asked people to go out to the parking lot and get ready for the parade. That’s when I decided to go for the walk. Brionne decided to come along for the walk too. It was a good way to spend a few miles together.
We walked and we talked and we were careful not to step in the horse droppings from the mounted police escort we were given. It was pretty warm, some might even say hot out, but it was a good walk. People along the street waved and every once in a while the whole parade let out a holler. It felt great to be in the parade. Next year maybe I’ll wear some kinda regalia, maybe just a feather.
When we got to the park I decided I better get down to Carnegie as I have an afternoon shift in the learning centre, so I said goodbye and went to catch the bus. It sure is a nice way to spend part of the day. Next year I’m taking the whole day off …
hal
To Do it in StyleTo Do it in Style
Surfing around during the still summer nights,
as well as the days all anew, where have you been and did you truly see uncertain things through?
And, oh yes, did he bring you down once more..that sad, dreadful, stupid fool? Was he fair to you or was
he mean again, uh huh, abusive and cruel?
Try not to tempt the Fates in what now seems an endless go round, and never take any risks in a war that you can’t win but can only fall down;
What’s the point of this futile battle where little homour ever abounds? “Nothing doing,” you may say;
in the end calling a truce just to hold your ground.
Situations may unravel at anytime, anywhere, without notice – can’t you see? What’s the ultimate result that will satisfy you, since you won’t just let it be? Is it really about winning and losing.. but yet will either set you free? I feel I can comment upon
and recommend, but why should you listen to me?
Think how many times you’ve been through this scene, isn’t it oh so futile? Yet you continue to persist for reasons unknown I say with a smile. Why not take a burden off your racing mind, lie down and chill awhile? Forget all the anger pent up in your heart and make peace with your world. Jump start
your new life, all afresh, and do it in style
By Robyn Livingstone
Two WolvesTwo Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a debate that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" in us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
One for the good guys..One for the good guys..
I'm pleased to report that we had an excellent court
decision recently on advocates and confidentiality.
Our Victims Assistance Worker was subpoenaed by MCFD [Ministry for Children and Family Development] who aggressively challenged our resistance to giving information and also aggressively challenged why a Victim's Assistance worker would do advocacy.
Fortunately a local lawyer, Patricia Gartner, who values our services highly, took up the issue for free and the provincial court decision today actually noted that among the reasons for granting privilege were that people living in poverty needed particular support and that the Legal Aid cuts meant that advocates were needed more than ever!
[Sent to PovNet by]
The Advocacy Centre, Nelson
Music Program Random NotesMusic Program Random Notes
Well, well, well, the first musicians’ meeting to discuss a second CD project went off with just the right amount of hitches to make everyone who came, apparently, more than interested in getting this project off the ground. Thanks to everyone who showed up, and added their 2 cents worth to the ongoing discussion. And, I might add, that it was agreed by consensus to continue at a future date, as all of the points for discussion people were raising were not addressed and voted upon.
And now for something completely different: Just about every afternoon you could drop into a Carnegie Music Program afternoon session (Well, the ones I've been at, anyway.) You can find at least one musician, usually a newcomer to Carnegie, who's a tad peeved at the way these "JAMS" are structured. Invariably, the slightly miffed musician doesn't return for a good long while… If at all. Why? ‘cause our 'JAMS', aren't JAMS!
To a musician, a jam is basically a free-for-all, where what goes on, and who goes on is determined by the unspoken politic of the moment. It isn't a structured thing, as the Carnegie Music Programs afternoon sessions are.
Seems like I'm splitting hairs, right… 'cause a name's just a name!? Except for the fact that our community centre might be perceived, by someone who wishes to participate in one of the ongoing programs, as monolithic and stodgy, all because of the semantics of the slang used by people the music program is directed towards. Really! It's sort of a play on the first impressions thingy, where people who might benefit from the program are subconsciously slightly put off by its structure; it isn't quite as its name implies.
So, for the next little while, could the Carnegie 'regulars' be as patient as they might be with a little name change for the afternoon sessions on Tue. and Wed? It might be something that brings some new blood to the stage.
Yeah, it is after all an open stage, open door concept, where anyone who wants to is free to use the facility and equipment. Hmm… Open Stage?!
Now that doesn't seem too stodgy, does it?
Till next time
M.
Chinatown Arts & Cultural FestivalBringing the World to the Heart of
Saturdays in July
July 2 -
July 9 - Celtic Day (1 – 4pm)
July 16 -
July 23 - Japan (1 – 4pm)
**Donations are greatly appreciated**
Celebrate
This unique festival will enhance tourists' experiences in Chinatown and encourage pedestrians/cyc lists/residents from neighboring areas including False Creek, Gastown, Yaletown, Strathcona, and the Greater Vancouver area to rediscover
We also wish to thank and acknowledge the generous support from the City of
The Festival’s cultural showcase includes:
July 2:
A combination of Chinese lion dancing, classical and folk dances, opera and traditional Chinese music as well as Korean dance and music highlight these two countries’ unique colors, costumes, and sounds.
July 9: Celtic Day (1 - 4pm)
In collaboration with the Celtic Connection, an afternoon of Irish, Scottish, and British musical favourites including the Fraser River Fiddlers, Tartan Pride Dance Team, pipers, Celtic sports, and more.
July 16:
Together the Indonesian and Burmese communities present traditional songs and folk dancing from
July 23: Japan (1 - 4pm)
An inspiring day featuring the power of taiko drums, the Zen of a Shakuhachi quintet, the elegance of classical Japanese odori dance, the finesse of or
gami and the agility of Aikido martial arts
For more information or images please contact:
Rika Uto at Carnegie Community Centre, 604-665-3003 or rika.uto@vancouver.ca
