What would Jesus do, and could he get a permit for it?

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and his NPA-controlled City Council like to give uplifting names like "Project Civil City" to the projects they undertake to cope with the city's escalating homeless crisis. However, when it comes to religious organizations who wish to ease the suffering of the homeless, the response from the city isn't civility, it's bureaucratic hostility. In the spirit of such institutionalized anti-social behaviour as forbidding transit users to share bus transfers at the end of their ride, Vancouver City Hall insists that the 10th Avenue Church and other religious organizations need a 'social services permit' in order to continue to carry out local mission work to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for the people at Vancouver's margins.

This page is by no means a religious person, but I do recognize that where government and business have failed, the only other people holding up the social safety net besides strong trade unions are the churches. As a liberal democracy, Canada subscribes to the separation of state, and this page says that separation cuts both ways. Particular religious viewpoints should be infiltrating public institutions, and the state should not prohibit the church from conducting traditional activity that benefits the entire community.

Matthew 22:21 says "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto the Lord what is the Lord's" I hope the 10th Avenue Church and their allies can forgive this page as I say to City Hall: "Caesar, get the f**k out of the way!"

The lights go out on Broadway

This page doesn't have so much of a point to make today as I do to relate what yesterday's shooting at Fortune Happiness Restaurant was like for me. While it may not be an incident that I had direct involvement with, it did take place only a few blocks from my home, where we caught the disturbing ripples of the violent splash made by the gunmen.

Because of the way the news broke, I left for work yesterday morning feeling confused, and to be honest, somewhat frightened. Living near East Broadway, I usually wake up at 4:00 - 4:30 AM to the sound of police sirens, but yesterday morning the chorus seemed a little louder than usual. The first report I saw (CBC Newsworld) said there had been a shooting in 'Downtown Vancouver', which led me to believe that it was another case of clubland posturing gone horribly wrong. The next report I saw (CKNW.com) said several people had been shot near Commercial Drive, which left me shaking as I headed out the door to work. For those of you outside the 604, Commercial Drive is central hub of Metro Vancouver's transit system: two Skytrain stations and the terminus of the crosstown 99B express bus line.

I didn't get another update until I made it to work, about 3 km away from home, and the crime scene. There were no buses heading west, and I saw the eastbound 99B being diverted south onto Kingsway. That aggravated my fear that a shooting had taken place at very crowded transit station. I walked as quickly as I could to the point of running, feeling that I needed to be high above the street in my office as quickly as possible, rather than being on the street looking up at the police helicopter directly over me that was looking for the two gunmen.

However, it was a pale sense of relief when I found out that it was Fortune Happiness where the shooting took place. Vancouver Police believe that the shooting is likely gang-related, and questioned the activities of the victims who were getting a bite to eat at 4:00 AM. With all due respect to Constable Chow, there are a lot of people doing things at 4:00 AM: janitors, security guards, convenience store clerks, taxi drivers, bartenders, bloggers drinking coffee, so I honestly don't know one's innocence should be shadowed by what time of day it is. The scary thing for me and my neighbours is that people were shot in our neighbourhood.

Mount Pleasant has come a long way, it's been at least two decades since the supermarket had a holding cell, there are far fewer shoes strung over telephone lines pointing to the crackhouses, and prostitution has moved further down Fraser Street or into the massage parlors and mini-brothels around the neighbourhood. Little kids play in Sahali Park without fear of more than getting pushed off the swings, and grown-ups can walk to work, the coffee shop, the market, and feel safe. Not as safe as I felt before yesterday's tragic step back, but still, safe.

and a side order of Dignity...

This page, like a lot of you, eats. When I'm not eating at home or from a reusable lunchbag in front of my office building, you can find me eating in one of Vancouver's reasonably-priced restaurants. I greatly enjoy the variety of menu items, the care taken in preparing them, and the competent professional service which brings them to my table.

However, I can do without a side order of low-cut blouses, mini-skirts, midriff-baring tops, and especially high heels. For this page, imposing a dress code on servers only contributes to the runaway exploitation already taking place in Canada's hospitality industry, where workers are expected to rely on customers' generosity because their employers refuse to pay a living wage. Of course, nothing elicits that generosity from (male) customers like low-cut blouses, mini-skirts, midriff-baring tops, and especially high heels, which means that young women who work as servers feel they need to play along lest they end up with the short end of the breadstick.

There is nothing wrong with dressing for the occasion. When I go to a Mexican restaurant, I feel it's a somewhat more authentic experience if the staff are wearing Ponchos. If I go to an Indian restaurant, I like to see someone wearing a Sari. However, I really can't be bothered to go to the Earl's, Joey's, Moxie's, or any of the other "urban/hip" bar-restaurant hybrids because there really is no occasion, other than overpriced pub fare and a side order of stale self-importance.

That would be why these places compensate by insisting that their staff dress in a manner to titillate their customers, which doesn't just brush up against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms like so many drunk patrons brushing up against the rear end of a second-year Arts major trying to pay her tuition, it also brushes up against Occupational Health and Safety Regulations. If your kitchen is anything like mine, it has a number of things that can get very hot, are very sharp, don't treat exposed flesh all that nicely, and aren't that easy to carry while wearing little stilts on the heels of one's shoes.

Remember when the best thing one could say about a meal was that "It's just like Mom used to make"?

The Reset

Two weeks away, and I still don't know which will happen first, an agreement between CUPE and the City of Vancouver, or Barry Bonds 756th home run (for those of you scoring at home, I usually write these posts a day in advance).

As I mentioned previously, this page has been taking care of real-world work projects (with 'real' as a marker for being paid real money), and also taking some time off. In a couple of weeks, I'll be tackling some family business in Alberta, a place that, although I was born and raised there, becomes more distant and disturbing with each passing year.

I don't know...maybe it's the idea that up until yesterday, people thought it was O.K. to operate a live firing range at Alberta's biggest shopping mall.

That's it, I'm outta here....

This page is taking a break due to increasing work responsibilities and a subsequent vacation from those responsibilities.

Also, recent developments have led the producers of this page that the bear604 show could use some retooling and a shift in its artistic direction. This will be mulled over during the break.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Commodifcation of Literature

This page has never read one the Harry Potter books, nor seen any of the Harry Potter movies. Yet, with each new release excreted from the Raincoast Books/Scholastic Publishing factory, my contempt for this so-called "literature" still finds room to grow. While all the Muggles and whoozits scramble to big-box bookseller or movie megaplex for the latest scrap of the Potter brand, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, this page quietly rejoices in J.K. Rowling's promise that this will be the final dispatch from Hogwarts Academy.

Why isn't the page feeling the Harry Potter magic? Having skimmed through enough of the material and read enough reviews, it's easy to draw the conclusion that Harry Potter is the most self-indulgent, patronizing, smothering crap that's ever been put to print. I can't see how the series is supposed to get "darker" as it goes along when reviewers consistently point out J.K. Rowling's "love of children" and "the value of friendship". Maybe it's my Gen-X cynicism showing, but I have issues about grief counsellors being put on standby for Potter readers. There was no grief counselling when Gwen Stacy was killed in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. There was no grief counselling when Bambi's Mom was shot. There was no grief counselling when Maude Flanders fell off the grandstand at the Springfield Speedway.

There is counselling, coddling, and comforting for Harry Potter fans, because Harry Potter is the kid-lit brand of choice for spoiled, upper middle class trend-mongering brats and their idiot overprotective hyperbraded yuppie parents who are loathe to do any actual parenting. How many times have we heard "Harry Potter turns kids on to reading!" Do you know what turned this page on to reading? READING: Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, Agatha Christie, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby - a little variety instead of the stamping readers' heads with the same brand repeatedly. Can these kids who've been "turned on to reading" name any other books they've read that don't involve juvenile wizards or standing in front of a Chapters in the middle of the night?

Most pop culture phenomena in our day and age have a sense of irony or camp (and openness to criticism) about them which makes them palatable (See: Star Wars, Episodes I & II). The world of Harry Potter, however, is a closed world where no one dares criticize the sacred texts of Rowling for fear that they will be forever cursed. Hogwarts is locked down by the scavenging lawyers of Raincoast/Scholastic, who go out of their way to bully anyone engaged in speculation about upcoming Potter books, for fear they might be casting "spoilers" among the true believers. Anyone here see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? Why did you go see it? I went because I heard Spock was going to die!

I realize that for those of you who actually know this page, much of this will read as hypocrisy, given that I've read pretty much everything with the name "John Grisham" on it. However, I don't see myself being stuffed into the back of a van if I give away the verdict in the final chapter, or if I write my own story about southern-fried attorneys up against impossible odds...BTW, the comments section is open - POST YOUR HARRY POTTER SPOILERS HERE!

Green Party Forecast: Fair to Middling

Interim BC Green Party Christopher Bennett thinks that the candidates running to lead his party should pull the Greens to the centre. Once upon a time, this page actually pulled a little towards the Greens. In the dark, soul-crushing days of the 2001 election campaign, this page actually considered supporting the Green Party, up until got into a screaming match with one their candidates at the Park Royal shopping mall. Any party who runs a candidate who barks at me that Unions "destroyed" British Columbia and Mike Harris did "great things" for Ontario is not the party for me.

The thing Bennett doesn't realize is that unlike the rest of the country where some form of the family compact still exists, British Columbia really has no political "centre". There's the right (The Liberal party formerly known as Social Credit), the left (the New Democrats), and anything else just fractures the vote and lets one side win more easily. One party is the party of the wealthy elite (and those who aspire to be like them), and the other is the party of working people and the less advantaged we need to take care of because the wealthy elite won't.

The Greens are using environmental issues to wedge themselves into the picture, but ever since the Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers' Union (IWA) split from the Labour Movement, they volunteered to be a rat union for Regional Health Authorities, started raiding the Hospital Employees Union, and Dave Haggard started kissing up to Paul Martin, nobody in the NDP really cares what the IWA thinks anymore, which allows the party to match the Greens on environmental issues. The only difference is that Greens prefer market-based incentive solutions which may not see results in our lifetime, whereas New Democrats aren't afraid to legislate necessary reforms before the environmental damage gets worse.

The NDP has made its own efforts in reaching out to small business people, and in many cases (like Vancouver-Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson) successfully converted them from the inconsistencies of the Green agenda. The Greens however, have never really dealt with their antipathy towards unions. In 2001, Adrienne Carr and Gordon Campbell were lockstep in busting nurses' and teachers' unions, and despite Carr's showing up at HEU rallies after Bill 29, workers weren't fooled and rallied solidly behind the NDP in 2005, taking back votes from the Greens, beating Carr in her own riding, and forcing her resignation as party leader.

If Bennett really wants the Greens to capitalize on disaffected Liberal voters, this page says more power to them. However, I don't see where he thinks there are disaffected New Democrats, beyond the backseat drivers who want to show Carole James the door when the poll numbers are a little weak after a blizzard of bullsh*t Liberal propaganda. As Gordon Campbell's love-in with Arnold Schwarzenegger illustrated, this province already has a party of capitalist greenwashers. We also have a party of progressive social democrats who, give or take a few Surrey MLA's who need a little shake about The Gateway Project, match the Greens on the environment.

Given the reality of the situation, what could the Greens offer BC voters? The candidate who can best answer that question is the one Green Party members should support, not the one most likely to travel in Business Class like Bennett sees it.

The Puppet Masters

According to a misdirected e-mail form City of Vancouver clerk Syd Baxter, the blame for the impending city workers' strike falls squarely on the shoulders of Geoff Meggs, Executive Director of the BC Federation of Labour.

This page sits in awe of Mr. Baxter's investigative skills. For Meggs to be "engineering this", he would have had to been in on all the events leading up the legal strike position CUPE 1004 find themselves in tomorrow. Was it Mr. Meggs who decided that Locals 15 and 1004 should go without a contract for over half a year? Was it Mr. Meggs who told City negotiators that stripping benefits and pensions was a good idea? Did Mr. Meggs convince those same negotiators to demand CUPE accept a contract with no job security after the 2010 Olympics?

This Geoff Meggs appears to be one dangerous operative. Was he the one bankrolled the mayoral candidacy of James Green in 2005, whose subsequent appearance on the ballot stole enough votes from Jim Green and Vision Vancouver to let Sam Sullivan and his right-wing NPA stooges run City Council?

For those of you scoring at home, Mr. Baxter has apologized...to the Mayor and Council for comparing Council Chambers to a toilet bowl. However, he has refused to apologize to Mr. Meggs or the BC Fed for lying about them, which raises the possibility that the next time Baxter is anywhere near a toilet bowl, an ardent trade unionist could be around to shove the City clerk's head in it and flush.

A rising tide lifts all streetcars

A survey conducted by Intel reports that the commute of the average mass transit user takes up 240 hours of his or her time per year. The number of people who commute by mass transit make up about 12% of the population in Canada.

Intel thinks the best way for corporations to squeeze a little productivity out of that time would be to outfit their commuting employees with shiny new laptops or other portable computers, preferably with Intel Inside (tm). This page says instead of spending money, time, and energy on more gadgets, businesses should be lobbying municipal, provincial, and federal governments to improve public transit in cities across Canada.

Of course, most corporate board members have way more shares in Exxon, Shell, BP, and Amoco than they do in Bombardier or Simens, so they'll help themselves before they help their own workers. Besides, the only 'public' entity that capitalists ever support is an IPO.

How to tell your neighbour reads the National Post

This page was attacked in his own home yesterday. More to the point, this page, and Walnut Boat were attacked by their anti-union neighbour, who ironically, works for a financial institution which enjoys a positive reputation among Unions in British Columbia. For reasons unknown to us, she decided we were appropriate targets for her to spew her imagined superiority and vitrol towards the members of CUPE Locals 1004 and 15, despite the fact that she is well aware that both Walnut Boat and this page are also members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

For your consideration, this page is in the process of drafting a response:

Dear Neighbour,

The Labour Movement lives by a creed that was first spread by the Industrial Workers of the World at the turn of the last century "An Injury to One is an Injury to All". When you insulted the members of CUPE Locals 1004 and 15, you insulted every member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and that includes Walnut Boat and me. You are not a member of our Union and you do not have the right to cast judgement on our Union's bargaining proposals. Bargaining proposals are established in consulation with rank-and-file union members like Walnut Boat and me, and are researched according to the needs of our members and the employer's ability to pay. They are NOT based on what you made at a job sometime in the past and how you had to 'suck it up': it's not CUPE or anyone who supports us who needs a lesson in 'reality' - it's you.

I am extremely disgusted and angry that someone like you who gets a six-figure bonus and yet has complained openly about the cost of living and buying a home in Vancouver actually begrudges someone asking for a 3% wage increase. City of Vancouver workers' previous contract had increases of zero, zero, and one per cent. The City is running a surplus (at least until the 2010 Olympics and the RAV line bankrupt them), and yet they are demanding concessions in their workers' pensions and health care benefits. You have spoken to Walnut Boat and this page at great length about how hard you have worked and how much you've sacrificed to get where you are today, and those tirades leave three questions which are begging to be asked:

1. Do you really feel you're the only person who has worked hard to get where they are today?

2. Do you really believe that hard work and education automatically entitle someone to a better position in life? Is it not possible that issues of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, political belief, economic opportunity, or geographic location might factor into whether or not someone succeeds?

3. Do you think being in a 'superior' position gives you the right to look down on and disparage workers who organize to mitigate those disadvantage and improve their own position?

Another creed union workers live by is "What we want for ourselves, we want for all." You made it quite clear yesterday you don't share that view: you said that CUPE 1004 members don't have the "right" to ask for 3%. In case you missed it, last month the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the BC Liberal Government in the Bill 29 case, where the government wiped out the binding contract provisions (and jobs) of my friends and co-workers who were members of the Hospital Employees Union. The court stated that Collective Bargaining is a RIGHT guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms.

Please be advised that until you can absorb these facts and discuss them without selfishiness, petty jealously or imposing your personal issues, you should not consider yourself our neighbour, but just another fascist we have to put up with.

Sincerely,

Ursa Minor

Chicago, 10:43 AM

"Damn! That was some pretty tasty rat.

Hey, Isn't that Conrad Black?"

The end of 'Reason'

As some of you may have noticed, this page pulled comments from a poster who calls himself 'Reason', which were in response to my column about Canadian military commanders demanding that Canadians civilians shut up about what's happening in Afghanistan because Canadian soldiers have been killed. 'Reason' believes this page to be a hypocrite and an idiot because I'm discouraging dialogue at this site. For those you scoring at home, smear tactics do not amount to dialogue: Not only did 'Reason' claim that opponents of the Afghan occupation disrespect the Canadian military and their families, he also said we've been calling them 'babykillers'.

Those of you who are regular readers, and those of you who have seen me on Babble know that I am capable of saying some very cruel things. I have prayed for Vancouver May Sam Sullivan to rise from his wheelchair and walk again so that we don't have to feel guilty about someone beating the sh*t out of them. I have advised anti-union trolls to go f**k themselves with something sharp. I should have the term "waste of skin" trademarked before the end of this year. However, I HAVE NEVER REFERRED TO ANYONE AS A "BABYKILLER" DURING THE AFGHAN OCCUPATION, NOR AT ANY OTHER TIME. Neither has Linda McQauig, Heather Mallick, Rick Saultin, Avi Lewis, nor anyone else among the too few progressive voices in the mainstream Canadian media. I also haven't seen anyone on Babble call anyone a "babykiller" either. At this point, Reason should understand why his comments were pulled.

'Reason' is under the impression that when Canadian soldiers are killed, their families rush out to buy copies of the Toronto Star and Canadian Dimension so that they can be told how evil their fallen loved ones are. WRONG: I think the families are either too busy looking at the maple leaf flags people are hanging from the highway overpass as the funeral motorcade goes by, or they're starting to agree with the opposition and have some serious questions about what kind of orders the Harper government was passing down to their children. Another thing - If 'Reason' thinks military all military families submissively rally around the flag, he needs to learn who Cindy Sheehan is.

'Reason' doesn't get that in a democracy, people not only say what's on their minds, they also choose what they want to hear, no matter what day of the week it is or if it happens to be raining outside. Reason obviously disagrees, but the "War on Terror" is a phony war being conducted for a multitude of reasons which have nothing to do with stopping terrorism. If Canada were serious about fighting terrorism, our troops would be marching into Pakistan where Al Qaida forces routinely retreat to, and we'd also be infiltrating on a certain six-star hotel in Dubai where Osama Bin Laden has been seen a few times over the past three years. My source on that is a pair of former UAE government employees who picked it up through the local rumour mill, but it's still a way better lead than sending Canadian soldiers into the Afghan hills and waiting to see if they come back.

This war, as this page sees it, is really about securing an oil pipeline from Iraq through Afghanistan, but what it's really about keeping western democracies in a perpetual state of war so that governments can eradicate the freedoms our fathers (including mine) and grandfathers fought to preserve in previous wars. If Canada is perpetually at war against "terror", Canadians are always going to be killed, and someone like reason or Colonel Jon Vance will always be telling us to shut up and not ask questions. When everyone's too afraid of upsetting grieving families and rocking the boat, who needs martial law?

'Reason' has a choice - he can debate what he perceives as the merits of Canada's deployment in Afghanistan, or he can continue his personal attacks on this page and anyone else who opposes current Canadian foreign policy. If he continues to choose the latter, those attacks won't be showing up here.

*NOTE: "Reason" posted up more comments which have been expunged - it appeared at one point we were actually to get some actual dialogue that could have proved to be interesting - he did point out that apparently English isn't Col. Vance's first language and that he was adamant about people needing "breathing space" in the face of tragedy. Unfortunately, he regressed into calling me a hypocrite and called out Babblers such as Unionist and Jingles, accusing them of using the 'babykiller' tag. Reason - if you hate Babble so much, why go there, or for that matter, come here? Geez - what part of "my blog, my rules" don't you understand?

Up with Papal

The Vatican has announced that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church.

This page congratulates Pope Benedict, the Archbishops, the priesthood, and everyone involved in what is obviously a remarkable achievement. After a millennial battle for superiority among the world's religious organizations, Catholics finally stand at the top of the heap. Face it, church fans, Catholics just wanted it more: From the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, to winking at Auschwitz and keeping condoms out of HIV-stricken African villages, the Catholic church proved they weren't afraid to get their hands dirty to get their point across.

Here's hoping for sake of the Catholic Church that the one true God has been impressed enough by the Vatican's treatment of women, indigenous peoples, gays and lesbians, and people of other faiths that he (or she) would actually consider joining the Catholic Church.

Who says you can't fight City Hall?

CUPE Locals in cities around the Lower Mainland are gearing up for what could be a long, hot, stinky, and brutal strike.

This page says thank gawd: it's about f**king time somebody stood up to the NPA and their fellow travellers who mistake fellating real estate developers and right-wing posturing for actual governing. It's also time that a union in this province wiped the February 13, 2010 date stamp off their foreheads. The City of Vancouver can't hand out raises and huge bonuses to managers while expecting CUPE Local 15 members to accept concessions and wage freezes just because the Olympics are coming. This could explain why Mayor Sam Sullivan refuses to bargain.

As for the City's claim that their offer is in line with other public sector settlements around the province, let's not forget that those agreements were lubricated by Carole Taylor's signing bonus bribery. My CUPE Local fell for the easy money, and in return received wage increases that don't keep up with the cost of living, job classification gridlock, ongoing discrimination of our members, and no safeguards against contracting out. Having been to a few CUPE B.C. conventions, this page can say that it's the municipal locals that set the tone on the convention floor. Hopefully, CUPE 15 will be able to set a much louder tone by taking Sullivan and his right-wing minions to the wall the same way CAW 111 helped flush Vancouver of George Puil and the NPA following the 2001 transit strike.

Fall Star

*This page realize that there are readers among you who don't like baseball. Those readers may want to check out something else today. Have a nice weekend. See you next week.

(pause while we let those people out....)

With only 4 dingers to go before catching up to Hank Aaron's 755 carreer home runs, Barry Bonds has opted out of the Home Run Derby at next week's All Star Game in San Fransisco. One would have thought that Barry would have enjoyed pounding the horsehide into McCovey Cove while the adoring crowd in his home park cheered him on, but as with everything about Barry Bonds, there's a little more to it than that. The Home Run Derby has reached a popularity that many fans now enjoy it more than the actual All Star Game. However, there's a forced casual chuminess to the event in which the media's jockriders feel they can chat up the longballers between rounds. It's a prime opportunity for a sports "journalist" to try and make a name for himself by confronting the Giants' left fielder. This page contends that Bonds is taking a pass because he doesn't want to be Pete Rose to somebody's Jim Gray.

This page doesn't blame him either, because none of the anti-Bonds hysteria is really about steroids. It's little more than a weapon of mass distraction for Major League Baseball and the politicians who jumped on their moral high horse (yet trotted lightly around the likes of Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens). For those of you scoring at home, Bonds has never tested positive for steroids. He has however, tested positive for telling Republicans to pay less attention to him and more to Hurricane Katrina victims, and comparing the likelihood of finding steroids in his locker to finding WMDs in Iraq.

Besides, I'm pretty sure whoever was pitching for the Derby would be under orders from Bud Selig to intentionally walk him anyway.

Shut the f**k up - we're fighting for democracy here!

In reacting to the most recent Canadian casualties in Afghanistan, Colonel Jon Vance says that Canadians should stop questioning the Afghan mission and provide a "clarion call of support" to the families of the six soldiers who were killed.

With all due respect, Colonel Vance, I sympathize with the loss of Canada's finest, and obviously it must be devastating losing troops from your own unit, the First Canadian Mechanized Brigade. However, if I was a family member of one of the fallen, the first thing I would want to know exactly WHY my loved ones were sent to die, and I would want a better answer than some propagandist garbage about "fighting the terrorists over there before they get here".

In telling us not to ask questions, Vance puts the Canadian military on the same footing as Al Qaida or the Taliban. Stand down, Colonel Vance, we're not under your command, we're still a democracy, and we can support our troops AND question our government at the same time.

The United States of America

1. Fear 2. Rage 3. Delusion 4. Hopelessness 5. Despair 6. Myopia 7. Antipathy 8. Denial 9. Shock 10. Concern 11. Emergency 12. Intoxication 13. Fatigue 14. Restlessness 15. Hopefulness 16. Apathy 17. Depression 18. Obesity 19. Confusion 20. Acceleration 21. Decline 22. Loneliness 23. Paranoia 24. Rhode Island 25. Aggression 26. Debauchery 27. Disrepair 28. Grace 29. Hostility 30. Remorse 31. Disbelief 32. Innocence 33. Ambivalence 34. Frenzy 35. North Dakota 36. Agitation 37. Hunger 38. Joy 39. Extravagance 40. Toxicity 41. Poverty 42. Shame 43. Nostalgia 44. Idaho 45. Recklessness 46. Abandonment 47. Piety 48. Avarice 49. Congestion 50. New Mexico

Wisecracking beavers may be cross-bred with hippopotamus, bunnies, lizards, and other assorted 'critters' in bizarre abomination of natural and market laws

The dismantling of Canada's public infrastructure began in earnest during the 1990's, when our provincial phone companies were dismantled for profiteers who thought that they could deliver cheaper and better telecommunications services in a competitive, deregulated market. To this day, this page remains largely unconvinced, because I haven't seen anything that even vaguely resembles competition on the part of Canada's telcos.

Depending on what part of the country you live in, your home phone service comes from either a) Bell, or b) Telus. Even if you try ditching your home phone service and exclusively use your cell phone, 60% of the wireless market in Canada is split between these two, and the CRTC is reluctant to allow new players into the game.

If the slimy, customer-abusing, union-busting bastards at Telus have their way, you won't have any choice because Telus wants to buy Bell. Say what you want about the monopoly BC Tel used to have, but at least at one time that monopoly belonged to British Columbians, not to the whims of a market that could care less about consumers or workers.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...

According to our evil lying fascist bastard friends at the Fraser Institute, we just passed Tax Freedom Day in British Columbia. Like a lot of sensible Canadians, this page regards the notion of tax "freedom" as relative to the point of condescending speciousness. It's one thing for governments to collect fewer taxes from citizens, it's quite another for governments to provide value for the tax dollars they collect from citizens. I'm not going to celebrate any tax "freedom" while the B.C. Liberals spend our money on such idiotic line items as:

-$44.5 million in bonuses for VANOC staff, despite the fact that the salaries they receive put them way ahead of any non-profit organization in British Columbia. John Furlong gets $300,000 a year, and no one really has any idea what he does because VANOC conducts their business at secret meetings surrounded by riot cops. Do you think Kim Kerr makes anywhere near that as Director of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association? Actually, Kerr would rather see $44.5 million go to social housing, which would make DERA's job a hell of a lot easier.

-Cash bonuses for ER doctors: It's bad enough that patients are shuttled through family doctors' offices as a result of fee-for-service billing that focuses on quantity over quality. It may be acceptable for people with the sniffles or tennis elbow, but people usually go to Emergency wards when something is seriously wrong. Do you want your ER physician to take his time and treat your correctly, or do you want him to take the money? Before you get too excited, just remember that you're in critical condition, not on Let's Make a Deal.

-Ignoring the Supreme Court of Canada ruling and continuing to layoff health care workers under Bill 29 is only making a bad situation worse. Many of us would have liked to see the court order the B.C. Liberal party to pay damages to over 8,000 (and counting) fired health care workers, but instead, the money will come out of the pockets of B.C. taxpayers. Kill good jobs that provide good tax revenue for the government, then have the taxpayers clean up the mess. Wow! Mean and stupid!

To summarize, the right-wing wastes of skin at the Fraser Institute can belch all they want about how much earlier British Columbians are working for themselves and not to pay their taxes. However, it's the vicious Social Darwinism they peddle though corporations and the media that keeps us from achieving the society we're paying for through those taxes.

No one expects the English Reformation!

After helping my neighbours celebrate their same-sex wedding last weekend, this page is watching with interest the Anglican (Episcopalian in the U.S.) Church of Canada's gathering in Winnipeg this week for a heated debate on what the church's position on same-sex marriage should be.

On the one hand, full credit to the Anglicans for gutting this out and proving that Canada's same-sex marriage legislation works. Individual religious organizations to determine their own level of comfort in performing same-sex marriages and not bully the state for a one-size-fits-all approach. There are a lot of progressive Anglicans who believe that their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should enjoy the same rights, and rites, that everyone else does, and this page hopes that their arguments will prevail.

However, it's a little hard to take seriously any Anglican who cackles about the sanctity of marriage when the Church of England established itself around the fact that Henry VIII wouldn't take 'no' for an answer when he asked Pope Clement VII if he could dump Catherine of Aragon for Anne Boleyn back in 1527. Karl Marx once said that "Religion is the opiate of the masses", and some Anglicans must be putting back some pretty strong stuff to forget the last 480 years.

Just hang on? Hang on to what?

Kevin Falcon's advice to Cambie Village merchants who have seen their businesses devastated by construction on the Canada Line: just hang on and things will be fine. Falcon's manipulation and condescension about The Little Train Nobody Really Wanted is getting old, and lying about the future for Cambie merchants and residents just makes it worse. The Canada Line is not going to bring a rush of business into Cambie Village, it's going to bring business rushing underneath Cambie Village because Canada Line passengers (especially tourists) won't be able to see Cambie Village.

For those of you scoring at home, this 'marketing campaign' that was supposed to support Cambie merchants during RAV construction has done sweet F.A. In fact, a quick survey of the billboard and print ads shows the retail areas most prominently featured in the "Open for Business" campaign (to encourage shoppers to visited construction-affected areas) are Granville, Yaletown, and No. 3 Road. Unlike Cambie Village, none of those areas has an NDP MLA who introduced a Private Member's bill to directly compensate the devastated small businesses in his riding.

As for the "significant benefits" of the Canada Line's completion, those are difficult to grasp, especially since what the region really needed was east-west mass transit along Vancouver's Broadway Corridor to UBC. However, the "benefits" of the line's construction to date have been the bullying of municipal governments, lying to residents and small business owners about the disruptive "cut and cover" system of tunnelling, paying near-starvation wages to immigrant workers, and the collapse of private financing for what was supposed to be a "Public-Private" partnership.

And the Fast Ferries are supposed to be the biggest transportation debacle in B.C. history why?

Up, up and .... #*&#%*@!!

Today is the debut of Canada's very own No Fly List at airports across the country.

Oh, goody. After making us pay a surcharge to show up hours before an inevitably delayed flight, throw out our water bottles, unwrap our wedding presents, get notes from our doctor for our medication, shove our toiletries into tiny ziploc bags, and flash our ID to everyone at the airport shy of the people at the gift shop, we might not even be allowed to get on the plane after all.

The No Fly List is not an exercise in passenger security. Unless terrorists start flying under their real names, it's only exercising state power for the sake of exercising state power in a high-profile location. In fact, this page is looking forward to a trip this summer to prove this argument: a few weeks ago I signed a petition in support of removing an Iranian opposition party from their current status as a terrorist organization under Bill C-36. I may not be a big fan of Bush or Harper, but I'm no fan of Al Khamenei or Ahmadinejad either. Will that signature be enough for this page to end up drowning his anger at the airport bar? Watch this space in a few weeks to find out.

Fore!

As part of their ongoing penance for their disgusting attempt to subject aboriginal treaty rights to the tyranny of the majority five years ago, Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals are considering ceding the University Golf Club, located in Campbell's riding of Vancouver - Point Grey, to the Musqueam First Nation.

Every now and then the vicious little overfed blind squirrels in Victoria find a nut that makes sense, and this page wouldn't mind seeing this one cracked open. As most regular readers are aware, I greatly enjoy a lot of sports, but there are two endeavours this page wouldn't mind having wiped from the face of the earth: auto racing and golf. If you can find another sport where gargantuan tracts of arable land are commandeered for the enjoyment of an elite few, I'll hate that sport too. Skiing comes close, but unlike golf courses, America's ski resorts don't consume more water in a year than the country's farms*.

The duffing elites who can afford the $70 greens fee are already screaming "betrayal" at the government. They're bitching about the loss of natural green space, oblivious to the facts that one, Pacific Spirit Regional Park (free admission) is nearby, and two, A coastal rainforest doesn't have sand traps or shaved grass.

If the Liberals do go ahead with transferring the land, there is little doubt that the Musqueam would shut down the golf course - the land is just waaaay too valuable in Vancouver's extra-terrestrial inferno of a real estate market. Closing the golf club creates a few opportunities to stick it hard to the richie-rich NIMBYs in Point Grey with a few projects:

• Fair market housing for aboriginal people,
• Leasing retail space to service the exploding population in the UBC area (and at the same time curtailing commercial development on campus)
• Ceding a right-of-way to the UBC, the largest commuter destination in the Lower Mainland, making it that much easier to finally build mass transit to campus

As for the gold card-flashing, SUV-driving, Mike Weir wannabe suckholes in Point Grey: if they don't like it, let 'em vote NDP and book a tee time at the Stanley Park Pitch n' Putt.

*Harper's index

Calgary is the new Edmonton

Many political observers are claiming that Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and his Conservative government received a wake-up call in Tuesday night's by election victory by Liberal Craig Chiffins in the Ralph Klein's former riding of Calgary-Elbow. However, it could be as easily said that with Klein's personality cult retreating into obscurity, Calgary Elbow voters finally woke up from their 14 year slumber of selfish ignorance and realized that what used to be "Ralph's Team" isn't worth rooting for anymore.

This page had the misfortune of living in Calgary for most of the Klein era, when the city drifted from the promise of a cosmopolitan post-1988 Olympic legacy to being crafted in the former Premier's bullying, alcoholic, misogynist image. Today's shiny new Calgary Liberal voters didn't seem to have a problem with Klein's government blowing up the Calgary General Hospital, punting the University of Calgary to the bottom of national rankings, bashing the rapidly-growing homeless population (who were served by more privatized liquor stores than shelters), and cheering on its union-busting propaganda arm, the Calgary Herald during the newsroom strike of 1999/2000. For some reason, poor government is only an issue for these people when the economy is doing well, as opposed to when their government was lying about a phantom deficit crisis.

In 1986, the Alberta New Democrats swept Edmonton because Don Getty's Conservatives didn't appear to give a rat's ass about what was going on the provincial capital. Does Chiffins' victory foretell a similar sweep the next time down the electoral road, and will that mean real change for Albertans? This page doubts it: the Alberta Liberals reached their electoral peak in 1993 with 30 seats on the promise of "brutal cuts" vs. the Conservatives "massive cuts". I am sure RevMod Don will jump in at some point and claim that Kevin Taft isn't Gordon Campbell. I'm familiar with Mr. Taft's outstanding academic work in analysing and debunking the redneck reactionary bullsh*t that passes for government policy among our neighbours to the east, but he's still leading a Liberal Party in Alberta. Besides, at one time, Gordon Campbell wasn't Gordon Campbell either.

Canadian "Taxpayers" Failure

Earlier today, I had a post up about feeling depressed which I've subsequently pulled. It appears all I needed was a good laugh from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

If the CTF really was a federation of Canadian taxpayers, this exercise in malicious prosecution never would have gone as far as it did. This federation is really just another bellicose right-wing corporate lobby trading on political mythologies like the self-serving public servant. A lot of real taxpayers are parents who understand what BC teachers went through in 2005. They understand the difference between being upset at the inconvenience of a labour dispute and ideology-driven harassment of teachers. Outside of Christy Clark, this page can't think of anyone who would sign up to sue people fighting for smaller class sizes and support for special needs students.

The CTF has every right to be disappointed that their attack on the B.C. Teachers Federation isn't going ahead - it's still a free country. They just don't have the right to be surprised.

I got your 'flexibility' right here...

Although Gordon Campbell is doing his best to keep up his usual facade of an aloof, buttoned-down arrogant sociopath, Friday's Supreme Court of Canada ruling still forces his BC Liberal administration to comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Campbell says his government won't rewrite Bill 29 without maintaining "flexibility" in B.C.'s health care system. However, as anyone who has been paying attention knows, "flexibility" is BC Liberal-speak for continuing to fire front-line health care workers and feeding their jobs to multinational corporations (or smaller companies that support the BC Liberals).

The Liberals have 12 months to either scrap fix Bill 29, and of course will try do it with as little public scrutiny as possible. Can these capitalist lapdogs comply with the court ruling and still deliver for their corporate masters? Let's take a look at a few of the options:

Option 1: Invoke the Notwithstanding Clause - Since the ruling establishes Free Collective Bargaining as a Charter Right, why not just opt out of the charter on this one? Mind you, If this page wasn't from this country and I was looking to invest some money, I don't think it would be in the province where contract law isn't a constitutional right.

Option 2: Pull a 'Ralph Klein' - in 1994 the Alberta Conservatives used a phony deficit 'crisis' to pull the rug out from public sector workers. Their unions were told that the government needed a 5% rollback to prevent layoffs. The unions took the layoff notices, and almost immediately, many of their members were quickly axed. Of course, the whole Bill 29 mess started with Campbell stabbing people in the back...

Option 3: The Fake Consensus - While this page expects the Liberals to shun transparency, there is always the chance they could go the other way and manufacture themselves a little consent. Instead of sitting the Legislature this fall, they may opt to gather around their pals from the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation at the so-called "Conversation" on Health to bitch about apocryphal hospital janitors in Vancouver making 17 dollars an hour.

Option 4: Self-Destruct - If there's one thing BC governments of any stripe know how to do, it's devolving and reorganizing the health care system for the sake of devolving and reorganizing the health care system. Bring back Hospital Boards and shut down Regional Health Authorities, disband or replace the Health Employers Association of BC, anything to make it look like the people who were responsible aren't around anymore. Unfortunately for the Liberals, shuffling the deck chairs means a few of those friends may get a deck chair upside the head.

Option 5: Wait until it blows over - If Gordon Campbell didn't have to resign after being found guilty of drunk driving, why should the Supreme Court of Canada be able to tell him what to do about ripping up collective agreements? It's not like a Stephen Harper federal government is going to be big on enforcing any pro-union rulings out of the Supreme Court anyway.

And sometimes, I'm pleasantly surprised...

Yesterday's ruling at the Supreme Court of Canada regarding Bill 29 almost makes me want to take back my comments about the difficulty working people have finding justice in the courts.

For many HEU members, justice delayed is justice denied. The labour movement believes in making its members whole after a dispute, but I don't know the Caretaker at BC Children's Hospital who's now selling homeless newspapers at Broadway and Main is going to be made whole. After Bill 29, many of the familiar faces at hospitals around Vancouver simply disappeared, which was quite unsettling given that this page heard one or two so upset by their employers' treatment they openly considered not being heard of from anywhere ever again.

However, the crime against reason, compassion and justice that is Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberal party has finally been wounded, and will be made to pay for the lives that Bill 29 destroyed. This page hopes that Campbell is choking on his Martini in regret.

Campbell gave an interview to the HEU newsletter in November of 2000 in which he said "I do not believe in ripping up collective agreements". You lied, Mr. Premier, and the highest court has ruled your lie violates our nation's greatest principles. Resign, you lying, drunk-driving, arrogant, hypocritical sack of shit.

Drop the lawsuit and pick up a picket sign.

CIBC bank teller Dara Fresco is tired of working unpaid overtime. To that end she's filing a class-action lawsuit against her employer. For those of you scoring at home, this is probably the saddest example of working people's ignorance of their own history this page has seen in quite a while, both because of Ms. Fresco's ignorance and the pitiful chances her and her co-workers would have in court against a major international financial institution who can use their connections and deep pockets to crush them like so many misprinted deposit slips.

When workers aren't being paid overtime, or being underpaid, or being subjected to unsafe working conditions and/or harassment, we don't cry to a lawyer or run to the courts. We organize, damnit! While a bank may not be the most ideologically predisposed environment to pass around the union cards, it hasn't stopped workers at credit unions or the Alberta Treasury Branch. The bank can tie up a lawsuit in court as long as they want, but they can't screw around with their own workers once their union allies start talking about moving their formidable pension funds.

However, if Ms. Fresco and her colleagues think they're somehow 'better' than forming a union, they should try to remember where laws concerning overtime, pensions, safe working conditions, vacations, and everything else that makes our working lives bearable came from. Power yields nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will.

Small minds in Big Valley

It's hard not consider Alberta the land of radical right-wing redneck reactionary rubes when the Big Valley Creation Science Museum opens this week. Just like Walnut Boat, this page bristles at the term 'Creation Science' because the truth is, there's no science involved.

While Creationism and Evolution are both considered theories, the term 'theory' is regularly applied to such endeavours as art, music, and philosophy. It's the hypothesis that forges the anchor of the scientific method: maybe it's time rational people stopped taking the church's bait and started referring to evolution as a hypothesis. What's the difference between a theory and a hypothesis? There are scientists out there conducting research to prove the hypothesis, and are willing to live the fact that the facts might not bear it out. A theory, on the other hand, just sits there and hopes the facts will bend to its will.

However, to be fair, there is substantial and well-known evidence that humans and dinosaurs lived together at one time. Unfortunately for the nutbars in Big Valley waiting on a tourism bonanza, there are far more entertaining places for future generations to believe it.

Whoah logo

Remember all the complaining about Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics logo? Check this out the logo for London's Summer Games in 2012:

This page has no idea what the image is supposed to represent. My best guess that if you are one of nearly 2 million displaced by recent Olympic Games, it looks like what you're probably living in (or under).

Hoard office supplies? Hell yeah!

This page advises his readers to empty your savings accounts, cash in your RRSPs, max your credit cards, and shake out your Mom's purse for an urgent trip to your nearest office supply store. If you are at all serious about a life of prosperity and financial security for you and your descendants, you must heed my advice and buy every single paper shredder that you can get your trembling hands on.

After Judge Bennett's ruling in the Basi-Virk trial yesterday, it won't be long for the BC Liberals, in a desperate attempt to cover their corrupt, arrogant asses to burn out every shredder they have. Say no to the first offer, and make the bastards pay in cash.

Abbey needs a bitchslap

If anyone thought that the BC Liberal assault on front-line health care workers was over, one only needs to take a look at the 160 members of the Hospital Employees Union being laid off at Nanaimo Seniors Village. The Bill 29 shell game of rotating contractors, union busting, and privatization at all costs continues, no matter how much pain and trauma it inflicts on health care workers, the patients they serve, and the communities they live in.

Giving Union workers the pink slip in a misguided attempt to shave the bottom line is one thing, but what's particularly repulsive to this page is that the owners of the Nanaimo Seniors Village (Retirement Concepts) are replacing the HEU members with non-Union labour from Abbey Therapeutic Services of Chilliwack. Placing material such as "ATS is a non-union company therefore union activity is prohibited. Any union activity is grounds for immediate dismissal." puts Abbey at a level with Wal-Mart in terms of anti-worker viciousness, and also violates the Conventions of the International Labour Organization of the United Nations, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and what's left of the British Columbia Labour Code.

This is not how a competent and caring society treats its elders, nor the hardworking people who look after them. Of course, with the Liberals planning the cancel the Fall session of the Legislature, they won't be around to be held accountable for the bleak September that Bill 29 inflicted four years ago.

Pedal to the mettle

Today marks the end of Bike to Work Week and the beginning of Bike Month in Vancouver. This page is a former regular cycling commuter, but as a result of a change in employment, I switched my religious affiliation to Pedestrian. The distance between my home and my office makes for a pleasant walk, and on the bike it would be a short and stilted commute.

While this city puts the rest of the country in terms of the number of active cyclists, we are still, in some respects, a few spokes short of a wheel. Cycling connections to other Lower Mainland municipalities remain inconvenient because of the megaproject obsessions of Translink and the Ministry of Transportation. Bad driver behaviour continues to threaten cyclists, particularly hotheaded leadfoots who treat cyclists as a threat to their fuel-injected manhood and equate the term "Bikeway" with the term "shortcut". It also doesn't help that many cyclists undercut the credibility of fellow riders by refusing to wear helmets, ride on sidewalks or against the traffic, and pass others without signalling.

While its one thing to celebrate our two-wheeled wonders, it's another to, as far as events like the World Naked Bike Ride let us, seriously address these issues so that people are less reluctant to put down the car keys and pick up the handlebars. Enjoy the ride, and use what's under the helmet to help others join the ride.

The Anti-Social Socialist

After much badgering and media hype, this page has been making a few visits to Facebook, the social networking site turned cult. After reviewing a few pages (including those of neighbours and family members), I was left with feelings that the notoriety surrounding Facebook is unjustified, plus feelings of inadequacy in that my roster of friends doesn't number into the hundreds or thousands.

I don't get Facebook. I also don't get American Idol, Paris Hilton, NASCAR, Lost, Starbucks, IPod, Ultimate Fighting, Survivor, and many other expressions of today's popular culture. However, Facebook isn't as much an expression of pop-culture as it is an emerging self culture, propelled by a younger generation far more starved for attention than the Generation X that pioneered the Internet. To this page, counting up your friends and latching on to a shifting variety of cliques is like a life sentence in a virtual high school where you don't learn anything except how many friends you have and what cliques you belong to.

Certainly, there are exceptions to every rule, and someone might post something informative or meaningful to their Facebook page, but guess what? The site's rules state that anything posted on Facebook becomes property of Facebook. They own your stuff, they know you are, and they know where you live - it's a marketing agency's dream! With the reach that Facebook is gathering, it probably helps the FBI, CIA, CSIS, and Interpol sleep pretty soundly at night, too.

Not being all that moved by Facebook, this page isn't going anywhere. I'll stick my first generation MP3 player, my cellphone that doesn't have a camera, analog basic cable and good ol'fashioned e-mail. All of us a choice to be popular or to be right, and I think that my relatively faceless presence allows me to be right more often than not. I can wait until Facebook writes a more compelling chapter.

Everyone's a winner...except you

Here's the bad news: BC Ombudsman Kim Carter's investigation has found several instances of potential corruption and fraud among lottery retailers. It appears that several prizes under $10,000 were pocketed by retailers rather than the rightful winners, and with next to no scrutiny from the BC Lottery Corporation (BCLC). Carter's findings come on the heels of an internal BCLC investigation last year which found no wrongdoing, and should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks Crown Corporations should be allowed to police themselves: David Hahn and BC Ferries, I'm talking to you.

Here's the good news: Even if some retailers are pocketing the winnings, the chances of winning the lottery in BC have probably haven't dropped that much anyway.

The fish fights back

After failing to do their masters' bidding in confronting last weeks Anti-Poverty Committee occupation of Ken Dobell's office, Gordon Campbell's media minions snapped back to attention and continued work on defaming the APC. Columnists accused the APC of drawing attention away from the issue of homelessness and on to themselves like so many spoiled children. A CTV reporter asked people living on the street such delightfully loaded and simplistic questions as "Do you think you're homeless because of the Olympics". The best piece was an astounding defiance of quantum physics: Jim Green was brought four years into the future from 2003 to defend the previous City Council's agreement with VANOC on social housing.

Unfortunately, no one bothered to tell Green before he went before a microphone that any commitments made by VANOC or the City for Social Housing ended up under the wheels of Sam Sullivan's wheelchair a long time ago. Either Green was disoriented from the effects of time travel, or perhaps he wasn't the best choice for Mayor in the last election after all. It also doesn't appear that Jim Green 2007 was able to meet up with Jim Green 2003 and warn him about his namesake appearing on the same Mayoral ballot, because the commentary you're reading at this moment would no longer exist.

This page recommends its readers to check out The Tyee's week-long feature on the Housing Crisis in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and throughout the Lower Mainland. While VANOC, City Hall, and the BC Liberals are sneaking around the airwaves and op-ed pages to discredit the legitimate concerns of the APC and the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, Authour Monte Paulsen is shoving their hidey-holes full of factual information. If that information gets shared around, there won't be any place for the Olympic oligarchy to hide.

Thanks for sharing

One of the comments from Wednesday:

"I have to remain anonymous, as a self employed small business owner there is too much at stake if these vindictive thugs that rule us wanted to "rip me a new one" and you would be surprised at the growing disgust felt by common decent folks concerning the actions of campbell cops&co."

When small business people live in fear of what's supposed to be a business-oriented government, we know there's been a serious malfunction. The Liberals aren't governing for all British Columbians, they're not even governing for all the British Columbians who voted for them, they're governing for themselves and the people who bankroll the BC Liberal Party. The NPA are doing the same thing at City Hall. These people don't govern, they copulate with a cadre of corporate criminals, manipulate the mass media, and post platoons of police to pulverize the proletariat. Alliteration is nine tenths of the law.

The concern raised by my enterprising, anonymous, fearful correspondent begs the question: what is to be done? It appears there are a growing number of people in Vancouver and British Columbia who reject the current regime and its blatant disregard of the social contract, but don't do anything about it because:

1. The current system of electoral politics is established to reinforce power structures rather than change them. Democracy and winning elections are simply not the same things, particularly in a province where the distribution of retribution is treated as a solution but leaves nothing in its wake but corruption and pollution. As long as majority governments are the rule rather than the exception, the Liberals can continue to play the New Democrats off against the Greens rather than enact meaningful social AND environmental policy.

2. Those wishing to challenge the powers that be feel that they have too much to lose. Those currently challenging the powers that be have nothing to lose. The B.C. Federation of Labour has a lot of members who are probably making payments on a new van. The Anti-Poverty Committee probably fits in the back of a new van. There was a time in our history when if people were pissed off enough, everybody would hit the streets and agitate for change. Of course, that was when the labour movement was more of a moral exercise than the legal exercise it is today. Why do union members now have to go to a labour history course to learn "An injury to one is an injury to all"?

3. We just don't talk about this kind of stuff to each other. When you're riding the bus and it's overcrowded and stuck in traffic, do you ever turn to the person sitting next to you and say "Wow, if this is bad, imagine what it'll be like if the Gateway Project goes through?" We talk about ourselves, we talk about people we know (and judging by the poularity of Entertainment Tonight, Extra, E-Talk Daily & MTV a lot of people we don't know), but do we ever talk about what's really important? With apologies to Judy Rebick and David Beers, nobody reads Rabble or The Tyee except for political nerds who write political blogs and have no life. Frankly, I'm relieved that this page has as few hits as I do, it probably means people are doing something important.

That means the person responsbile for spreading the word about what's really going on is Time magazine's person of the year: YOU. The four words that can turn this whole thing around are "WHAT DO YOU THINK?" When you're spending time with your friends or family, you're not obligated to discuss American Idol, the game last night, Brangelina, or whatever weapon of mass distraction is being unleashed that moment. You are allowed to talk about social housing, fish farms, public transit, raising the minimum wage, tuition hikes, offshore oil, factory farms, a woman's right to choose, the stupidity of killing Afghans, and anything else that burns within you. Your opinion is going to matter more to the people who know you and care about more than it is to an editorial board or a government MLA. When we realize we are more important than our televisions, we can build critical mass, where can build numbers, where we can build the collective consciousness and consensus to confront the carelessness of capitalism. Nine tenths of the law.

If you're someone in the know, damn it , let it show. No one speaks Truth to Power without the Word of Mouth.

Know Your Role

In the wake of Tuesday's ANTI POVERTY Committee action at B.C. Liberal offices in downtown Vancouver, Premier Gordon Campbell is furious with the media for not doing the job of the Vancouver Police Department. There is nothing wrong with your browser: after over a decade of getting whatever his BC Liberals wanted out of our newspapers, radio stations, and TV networks, Furious Gord is throwing a tantrum because something attached to a microphone and a camera didn't go his way.

I'm sorry Mr. Premier, but not every assignment for a local TV crew is going to play out like that joint BCTV/RCMP raid on Glen Clark's house a few years back, an exercise in police harassment and yellow journalism that you should be more than familiar with. Sometimes reporters in the field forget little details like how much money Canwest/Global donates to the BC Liberals, or that your Finance Minister Carole Taylor is a former CBC President who's kept a lot of connections. Sometimes journalists would rather report the news than make the news, and most journalists I know like to leave telling someone to stop smashing things to the police.

Let's review: Protesters are not criminals, Journalists are not Peace Officers, and Gordon Campbell is not much of a Premier.