Protesters block logging crews on Cortes Island
November 30, 2012
Sing, Stand, and Send I.T. on its Merry Way!
November 29, 2012
Protesters block logging road access on Cortes Island
Nov 27th, 2012
Cortes Island citizens prepare for logging protests
Nov 27th, 2012
Alberni groups protest McLaughlin logging
November 22, 2012
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December, the month I analyze media articles about homelessness, poverty and food insecurity. The month in which homelessness and hunger are given the most mainstream media coverage, usually via articles about charitable kindness and the deplorable sadness of being ‘Homeless for the Holidays.
Exceptions always exist that delve deeper into ‘the issue’ but it is rare that any encourage us to take action in ways that confront the status quo. This season there is a slightly higher number of articles, in ‘Canada’ and the ‘US’ media, about Housing First programs, and the logic underpinning them. (-That it is cheaper to house people than let them be homeless). So progress is there, but incremental progress, as usual.
The whole Housing First idea has been the dominant policy point that anti-poverty activists have been pushing for over a decade. Actual Housing First programs (funded by the government) have been around about as long as that. A radical analysis/approach to the idea of Housing First involves (as with everything) a critical dissection reflecting a preference for autonomous community action and resistance to systems of oppression and control.
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The Leonard Q. Visitor Show is a radio show I do every Wednesday on CKTZ-FM 89.5, Cortes Island Community Radio.
This is my first attempt at capturing the audio stream. For some reason, the first 10 minutes and the last 20 or so minutes are missing, but it’s still over two hours of music.
This weeks theme is war and peace, and the ceasefire in Gaza.
Here’s a track listing:
1. Lowkey- Long Live Palestine
2. Black Sabbath- War Pigs
3. Edwin Starr- War
4. Pink Floyd- Two Suns in the Sunset
5. Saul Williams- Pledge of Resistance
6. Spearhead- Bomb the World
7. Rafeef Zadiah- We Teach Life, Sir (poem)
8. Marvin Gay- What’s Going On?
9. Buffy St. Marie- Universal Soldier
10. David Rovics- They’re Building a Wall
11. Cat Stevens- Peace Train
12. Bob Dylan- Masters of War
13. Eric B and Rakim- Casualties of War
14. MC5- Looking at You
15. Temptations- Ball of Confusion
16. Nena- 99 Red Balloons
17. System of a Down- B.Y.O.B.
18. Country Joe McDonald- Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die
19. Patti Smith- People Have the Power
20. Phil Ochs- I ain’t Marching Anymore
21. D.O.A.- War
22. Barry McGuire- Eve of Destruction
23. Dixie Chicks- I hope
24. Metallica- One
25. Beastie Boys- In a World Gone Mad
26. Neil Young- Living with War
26. Ani DiFranco- Self-Evident
I recently spent 6 days on unceded Unis’tot’en/Wet’suwet’en territory as part of a group of activists invited by the Unis’tot’en (the Big Frog Clan) and Lhe Lin Liyin (the Guardians) to witness their stand against the Pacific Trails Pipeline (one of 7 pipelines proposed to run through that territory.)
“The Unis’tot’en and Lhe Lin Liyin, along with other strong uncompromising allies will stop this destructive path, for the future generations, for the biodiversity, and for solidarity with our neighbours living amidst the heavy impacts in the Tar Sands affected areas in northern Alberta, and regions heavily affected by fracking natural gas and shale oil, as well as communities impacted by refineries, pipelines, and fuel terminals and port expansions.” reads the Unis’tot’en Action Camp website.
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My imminent departure for Unis’tot’en Camp has me thinking about my role at these kinds of events. My decision to go in general has involved a great deal of pondering about what my purpose is for going.
We have been informed by our hosts that the caravan will be met by Unist’ot’en people at the bridge leading into the camp, who will ask us why we are there and determine whether to grant us permission to be there. I started thinking about what I would say before I found out that my crew will be represented by a spokesperson (there are over a hundred of us going, so I think this is to speed up the process). Regardless, there will be lots of informal discussion about these things once we enter the camp, and there is no avoiding the question, even for those of us with group representation.
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Next week I join a caravan of activists travelling to unceded Wet’suet’en territory to join grassroots community members there in opposition to oil and gas pipelines. This departure will, for me, also represent an indefinite departure from the ‘Greater Victoria/Capital Region District’ area.
I have no immediate plans once I join the caravan. If an opportunity to stay in the camp presents itself and resonates with me, I would stay, but I will likely get back on the caravan headed south and venture off along the coast somewhere, perhaps to Cortes Island (Klahoose/Sliammon territory), where a resistance (mostly settler-based as far as I am aware) to industrial logging is forming.
What I orginally sat down to do here is reflect upon the five years I have spent in ‘Victoria’.
But before I do, I want to explain, if you aren’t already familiar, the quotation marks I use around the word ‘Victoria’.
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I got quoted in a Toronto Star article last week, which is no big deal to the dozens of people quoted in the paper every day, but I grew up in Toronto, and have been in the papers here in Victoria many times, but have never been in the Toronto Star. Anyway, here’s what this is about…
If you’re a long time reader of my blog, or a friend of mine, you may be aware of my very brief attempt in 2007 to walk across Canada. In preparation for this walk I researched previous walks, and wrote a blog post entitled “Other People Who Have Walked Across Canada”.
The B Channel News site is an example of a website I built using the WordPress platform.
The above hosting deal includes unlimited storage and bandwidth (perfect for video) and unlimited (web-based) email accounts (with unlimited inbox space). Goodbye gmail and yahoo mail. That same price also allows for unlimited websites. (though additional domain names are extra).
This offer is limited to helping you set up a site using the WordPress Content Management System. This blogging platform, similar but much more versitile and customizable to the wordpress.com blogs (such as this one), can be custom configured to be used for a variety of purposes, including your online small business.
This is a great option if you want a site you can update and maintain yourself. Perfect for individuals and small organizations.
Check out http://bchannelnews.tv for an example of my work with the wordpress platform.
You’ll need to register your domain name and set up a hosting plan using your credit card. I reccomend http://midphase.com.
It takes 24 hours or so for the order to go through, then we can set up your blog/website. If you need any assistance choosing a plan or navigating the midphase.com site, I can help walk you through the process.
chris (at) bchannelnews (dot) tv
I thought I was being controversial, writing as I did about things like the doctrine of discovery, broken (and lack of treaties) and other such things underlying the lack of legitimacy behind the founding of British Columbia.
It seems that there are a few of us who have chosed to write dissenting opinions on the City of Victoria’s 150th birthday celebrations, and my own piece is probably the tamest of them all.
Soon after I had written my piece and just before it appeared in No Fun City (a new local publication), Simon Natrass published this column in Monday Magazine, the local ‘alternative’ weekly. In it he quotes someone saying “Really when we look at 150 years for Victoria, what we’re celebrating is genocide.”
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This is a story that illustrates some of the adventures one can experience once they start making biodiesel.
There was a certain brand of drain cleaner that we use as a catalyst for biodiesel, as it’s contents were 100% sodium hydroxide (lye), which is pretty much all a homebrewer can use for making biodiesel with.
One day a few years ago I came across a piece of news that the company who made the lye was changing it’s formula, and was no longer offering a 100% lye product, in order to discourage people who were using it to make methamphetamine. I read the news on a biodiesel homebrewer forum, along with the news that homebrewers across the country were buying up the last of the existing stock as quickly as they could.
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