Another Empty Building Burns

The reader comments that follow some online media articles are one of my favorite parts of the article. Aside from the fact that I would not want to support deforestation by purchasing a newspaper, I would miss reading what my fellow citizens have to say about the issue.
The anonymous nature of the comments allows for [...]

Inside B Channel

So today was our regular Sunday afternoon B Channel meeting.
There were only a few of us there, and we discussed the next story that we’ll work on.
Andrew has some footage of the City of Victoria’s Official Community Plan open house, and I’m writing an article about this confusing process.
The public meeting we went to last [...]

Street Beautification or Social Cleansing?

(Gregory Hartnell over at the CCC Blog (my vote for best local political blog) just reposted a letter that I had published in the May issue of Street Newz that was entitled ‘Open Letter to the Mayor of Victoria’, so I thought I would also post it here, as I had not done it before. [...]

B Channel and Street Newz

Hello friends and other curious web surfers.
I imagine there are one or two, or if I’m lucky, three people out there wondering what has happened to this blog. Used to be I’d repost interesting news articles every day, but then nothing.
Life happens sometimes.
Every so often, though, I decide that I’m going to start some actual [...]

Why this blog has been so dead

So the good news is that I am in a new home, and it seems like it will be a stable situation.
The bad news is that I don’t have internet access where I am.
I am able to access a few public computers, but I have lots of communication that I need to do in regards [...]

New Solutions For Homelessness

by Fiach Johnson
It’s not often that I talk about my own personal life here on this blog. Mostly I keep it focused on reposting media articles on homelessness related activism and eco-defence (among a few other things.) However, there is some cross-over here, in the sense that I’m also involved in the things I write [...]

City Backs Down on Tent City Eviction Threats

by Fiach Johnson, Victoria Indymedia Collective
When I arrived at tent city at 6:30 this morning the only person up was David Arthur Johnston, keeping vigilant watch for the by-law officers who we were told would be coming at 7am to dismantle the tents.
As we sat sipping coffee and watching the sun come up, friends, neighbours, [...]

Spencer Road blasting riles neighbours

So the annihilation of a mountain sacred to many continues, with pieces of hir raining down on the beings at hir feet, who have lived on the hem of hir slopes, who have loved hir, fought for hir, cried for hir. Now s/je cries on them, with them, pieces of hir sinking into the lake [...]

Whose Land to Protect?

-by Chris Johnson
Let me first begin begin by stating that the opinions I offer here are mine alone, and do not represent the Vancouver Island Community Forest Action Network, of which I am a director.
VIC FAN has a mandate to speak for the protection of forest ecosystems in the region. That goal alone is fairly [...]

Anarchist Takeover of Civic Infrastructure

by Chris Johnson
What is anarchy? Is it black-clad youth throwing bricks at bank windows? Is it academics writing essays about systematic oppression and abuse of authority? Or is it an pro-active alternative to top-down governance; a practical solution for distant, beurocratic control of the basic functionings of our society?
Pedal to Petal Urban Agriculture Collective is [...]