Sarah Palin's Canadian Roots

When Sarah Palin spoke last night in Hamilton, Ontario, she said the Palin family -- her husband's family -- have two grandfathers from Canada, one from Saskatchewan and one from Manitoba. But she said she visited Canada often as a child with her own family.

Here's a verbatim transcript of Sarah Palin's comments about Palin ancestors in Canada:

"Relatives from Canada too. We have the foundation of the Palin family, one grandfather was born in Manitoba, this was a farming family there. And then another one born in Saskatchewan and there were some pretty funny stories of our relatives who were bootleggers I guess. This was many, many years ago. Don't blame me. There's never a boring story when it comes to the Palins."

Todd Palin's grandfather, Frederick Palin, was born in southern Manitoba, in the town of Hartley, Brad Coe, a history buff in Hartley, told the Toronto Sun. Coe says Frederick Palin eventually moved to Washington state where his son James Palin -- Todd Palin's father -- was born. Todd Palin was born in Alaska.

On her comment that some of the Palin ancestors were "bootleggers", Coe said that was a common way to make money in Canada during prohibition in the U.S. “A lot of guys fed their families that way. It was money, and you couldn’t get it otherwise. We had a lot of connections with rum-runners. They would make hooch up here, and then run it down to the States."

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I've always thought the vilification of Palin in the media was rooted in classism. Rex Murphy had that take on it too in his recent column in the National Post. He thinks Palin is "smart" and that the vilification of her is rooted in class snobbery.

I recall when Palin was running as VP, I was listening to Ian Punnett hosting Coast to Coast radio, a guy who presents himself as a liberal Episcopalian minister. He opened the show by sneering at Palin for "dropping her g's" during a debate. He didn't talk about positions she took during the debate, just the fact that she was dropping her g's. I saw Punnett as a snob at that moment, and have never really shaken that impression of him.

These phony liberals are a constant on the Downtown Eastside. Like Brenda, who years ago worked at the Livingroom on Powell. Her ex-boyfriend told me that she lived on Bowen Island so that she didn't have to run into anybody from the Downtown Eastside on her off hours.

This morning I was walking up Main St. with a guy who was complaining about Pivot hypocrisy, but I told him I hear far more complaints about Carnegie. He said he knew what I meant, that management at Carnegie expects you to act meek. "Just look at the way they talk to people", he said, as though he knew he didn't have to elaborate.

Leonard, a guy who drops in to Carnegie but is not prone to criticizing staff, was chatting about them a few months ago. "They look down on us, you know", he said in a voice tone that suggested he thought they didn't that know he knew.

Just as it upset povertarians when Downtown Eastsiders started blogging to reach taxpayers with their opinions, I think it bugs elites that Sarah Palin can sit at her kitchen table in Alaska and twitter and reach voters.

Canwest Deletes Article by Teenage Blogger/Writer Criticizing Human Rights Commissions after Lawsuit Threatened

Teenage blogger and newspaper writer, Walker Morrow, has become something of a balloon boy for older bloggers in Canada who have been crticizing erosion of free speech and other constitutional rights by Human Rights Commissions. They watched in amazement as media giant Canwest abandoned Morrow when legal action was threatened over his article, “Questionable Conduct of CHRC”. The article was published in The Cowichan Valley Citizen newspaper and on various sites in the Canwest chain. First it was up. Then it was down.

Morrow described on his blog, Blog of Walker, how readers lost sight of his article:

''I wasn’t aware of the article’s disappearance at first, but I got a couple of emails, from one of the posters at Free Dominion and from a blogger acquaintance of mine, who were asking what had happened to the original article. You see, it had been published in the print edition of the Citizen, on the Citizen website, and also on Canada.com, the website for the print section of the Can-West media empire, of which the Citizen is a part. The text of the article on Canada.com had disappeared, although the title remained, and at first I thought it might just be some weird glitch in the HTML of the page or something. So I pointed at least one of the concerned parties ( can’t remember right now if it was both ) toward the version on the Citizen website. But that, too, soon disappeared; all that remained was a small piece of text telling the web-page viewer that the article was no longer available. The article had been picked up by Global Calgary; that version disappeared as well. The only available version left was up on Free Dominion, where one poster had posted a copy of it. The Free Dominion copy remains about the only one available - although I think another web forum or two have picked it up; I would say Free Dominion remains the most credible.”

Morrow’s editor told him that legal action had been threatened by Richard Warman, an Ottawa lawyer who was apparently representing himself. Warman’s name is well known to bloggers monitoring the Human Rights Commission. Warman has initiated a number of complaints against groups and individuals, alleging violations of the Canadian Human Rights Act. He also launched a libel suit in 2008 against three Canadian bloggers, all outspoken critics of the CHRC - Ezra Levant, Kate McMillan and Kathy Shaidle — and the owners of Free Dominion, a conservative chat site.

After Morrow’s article disappeared, he and a parent, the Citizen’s editor and publisher, and a Can-West representative held a conference call. Morrow got a chuckle out of learning during that call that Warman had threatened the wrong newspaper at first, mistaking “the Citizen” for the major paper, The Ottawa Citizen. Morrow was able to provide his sources to Canwest.

Canwest nonetheless asked Morrow to sign a retraction. His parent told him to get legal advice first. Then Canwest asked him to sign an even stiffer retraction. He refused. Can-West ran the retraction anyway, without his name.

Can-West, a media empire with newspapers and television stations across Canada, is in bankruptcy protection. That may be the reason Canwest abandoned him, Truepeers, a blogger at covenantzone.blogspot.com who regularly criticizes the CHRC, told Morrow in a comment on Blog of Walker:

”This Warman threat is just a necessary bump/challenge….As for the newspaper I figure it’s a cold business decision from a bankruptcy case. Tough break not to get their full support; but such are the evils of our world. You will have the support of much of the blogosphere….”

Struggling to stay afloat itself, Canwest was apparently in no position to struggle to keep free speech afloat.

Please Don't Film your TV Commercial in Vancouver

Thinking of filming a commercial in Vancouver?  Please don't.  Make your commercial in Burnaby or New Westminster or Surrey.  Anywhere but Vancouver.

The City of Vancouver Film Office under Muriel Honey is tainted by human rights abuses.  If you do business with them, your company could end up tainted too. 

Here's an example of abuse by the Vancouver Film Office:  Despite verbal promises to a Downtown Eastside resident sickened by a generator outside her street-level window ten years ago during the filming of a Honda commercial on a hot day with little wind, staff at the Vancouver Film Office and their Manager Muriel Honey did little to ensure that she was not sickened again. After a battle that went on for years, Honey promised the poisoned resident in writing that there would be no more generators parked outside her street-level windows.   Honey said that even film trucks would not be situated there.  

Honey lied.  

Over the years, Honey has repeatedly violated the agreement that she personally put in writing.  

Last night the agreement was violated again.  The poisoned resident told me that Honey and her staff arranged for a generator to be parked outside her street-level windows until 2 a.m. while a commercial was being filmed.   "I don't care if they film a commercial," says the resident, "I just want them to respect our agreement." 

Honey didn't just ignore the agreement with the poisoned resident, she ignored the City's agreement with all residents in the vicinity: that the City notify them in advance of filming. "I didn't see any notice; usually, they're taped to the front doors",  says the resident.  She says a friend had offered to pick up some off-sale beer and meet her back at her place, but she would have told him to skip it if she'd known that they'd have to put up with fumes wafting into the apartment all night.  There are no other windows in the apartment to create a cross draft, just those facing Powell St., she explains.  

There is no point in going to Muriel Honey or her staff about last night's fumigation.  The only thing to do is take the problem to the marketplace and ensure that customers know what companies are profiting from deals with a City of Vancouver enterprise that too often relies on deception.  And that deception includes their pointing to the annual outdoor turkey dinner on the Downtown Eastside as evidence that the film industry 'gives back' to the community, while year after year fumes and agreements are ignored in the neighborhood. 

There are alternatives for any company wanting to film a commercial on a location with a century old feel to it, a feel that attracts companies to the Gastown-Downtown Eastside area. They can get that feel in New Westminster, a city older than Vancouver and one with no reputation for a corrupt film office.   

Does anybody know the name of the company that was filming a commercial in the middle of the night on Saturday, May 2-3, 2009, on Powell St. on the Downtown Eastside?  It's important that their name be published on the internet along with Muriel Honey's.  

Honey will usually get you better results than vinegar.  Not in Vancouver.

Sharon Get your Gun

There is something so Canadian about the reactions of women runners to the murder of Wendy Ladner-Beaudry in Pacific Spirit Park at UBC. Over and over again, women have been telling the media that they will get a whistle.  One woman said she will be giving out whistles.  American women would be holding taser parties or applying to get real guns.  But Canadians seem to be long past thinking along those lines.

Except for Sharon Gregson.  

Gregson, a Vancouver School Board trustee, caused a furor when she posed on the cover of a gun magazine and stated that she believes that women should be allowed to carry guns for personal protection.  

Actually, if there is anyone who should be feared it's Sharon Gregson.  Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry have a paper trail of evidence establishing that Gregson is one of the trustees who has been covering up the use of criminal tactics and political psychiatry by the School Board to deter bullying complaints.  These tactics are behind the current international boycott of Vancouver School Board diplomas.  Gregson is not roaming the woods ready to pounce and murder but the tactics she has tolerated at the VSB, particularly smear tactics involving the manufacture of psyhiatric and police records to destroy the reputation of a complainant, could conceivably result in the death of a targeted citizen.   But when it comes to Gregson's gun stance, I'd like to hear more from her.  

Over the past month, the American radio show Coast to Coast radio has twice had a guest -- I'm trying to remember his name -- who did his Ph.d research on gun violence.  He claims that gun men on shooting sprees in the U.S. consistently choose places where guns are prohibited; unarmed people make easier victims. In Vancouver yesterday, the would be jewelry store robbers on Robson St. ran out of the store immediately after the owner fired one shot.  I was surprised the owner even had a gun. 

Dr. Laura has a gun.  She's a karate expert but she's not relying solely on that to protect her if she is a victim of crime.  She has a problem with California's gun law though, that requires that you keep your bullets separate from your gun.  Dr. Laura makes fun of the fact that when being attacked you have to stop and load the bullets into your gun.  That's about as effective as jogging in Pacific Spirit Park with a whistle.   A whistle is better than nothing, but I think women jogging should at least carry a knife; afterall, they have to have something on them to carve up the apple they take with them for a snack. 

Aboriginal Activists Lose their Tongues over Killing of White Man under Supervision of Aboriginal Cop

Photo: Corporal Benjamin 'Monty' Robinson (center)

When an aboriginal man, Frank Paul, was dragged into an alley by Vancouver Police where he died, aboriginal activists didn't let anybody forget it. For years, they held media events to raise awareness about this death and the police misconduct that led to it. And rightly so.

But when an aboriginal man, RCMP Corporal Benjamin 'Monty' Robinson, supervised what would prove to be the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski -- his mother prefers the term 'murder' -- at Vancouver Airport, aboriginal activists lost their tongues.  Not a peep out of them after it happened.  And not a peep out of them during last week's Braidwood Inquiry -- even though these activists are generally media microphone hounds.  They didn't ask any questions about why a fellow aboriginal would think it was ok to shoot a man five times with a taser gun, even though the first shot left him on the ground writhing in agony.  Long before I noticed that the cop supervising these shots was aboriginal -- he looks Cree to me -- I thought the videotaped shooting resembled the killing of a moose.  Even the ending where Robinson mounts the shot man lying on the floor, pressing his knee against his throat, seemed like a hunter in the finale of a moose hunt.  

I didn't expect aboriginal activists to go all out and hold street marches and demonstrations for Dziekanski the way they did for Frank Paul. But in a case that has become Canada's Rodney King with the videotape being viewed around the world, they could have at least made a brief statement.  

Actually one aboriginal man did make a brief statement, a volunteer dishwasher at Carnegie who tops up his welfare cheque with the 80 cents an hour that white povertarians pay him. This aboriginal man spoke up in the cafeteria line-up at Carnegie last week; he said that aboriginal cop should buck up and tell the truth -- lawyers demonstrated Robinson to be a liar at the Inquiry -- and give the victim's mother a sincere apology.  But he's not an activist.  He's a dishwasher, not a spin doctor maximizing cash flow from the Indian Industry.

Robinson was accused at the Inquiry of doing little to help Dziekanski survive after the excessive tasering.  This is not the first time Robinson's been accused of neglecting the medical needs of a non-aboriginal.  An assault victim and former pizza restaurant operator, Greg Garley, alleged in 2005 that Cpl. Robinson and another officer failed to respond to his medical needs. Garley got himself to a hospital for treatment.  Garley's lawyer, Robert Levin, says the allegation against Cpl. Robinson amounted to "neglect." The matter has been settled but the terms have not been disclosed.  And you can bet aboriginal activists as high up as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, who has repeatedly made public statements about police indifference that has led to aboriginal deaths, won't be delving into this one.  

From now on when I hear aboriginals on the Downtown Eastside ending made-for-media events with their prayer for "All my relations", I will be thinking of Robert Dziekanski taking it like a moose.

Brian Adams Hosts Juno Party at his Downtown Eastside Studio

Brian Adams came home to Vancouver for the Junos this weekend.  He had a party Saturday night at his studio at Powell & Columbia on the Downtown Eastside.   

I could see a live band in the upstairs window.  

Downtown Eastside Man Collecting Beer Cans says Police Ignored Stabbing Victim Bleeding to Death on Street

When I read that a Vancouver Police spokesman told reporters that Tyson Edwards had been “rushed” to hospital after being stabbed around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1, I thought of a man collecting beer bottles and cans that night who tells a different story.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Roughly ten days after 21 year old Tyson Edwards, who was becoming a dog-trainer like his father who has worked with the dogs of Marilyn Manson and Sheryl Crow, was stabbed to death outside Richards on Richards nightclub in Vancouver, I heard Jim A. talking about how the cops hadn’t seemed too interested.  ”Are you talking about that young Black guy who got stabbed?”, I asked Jim when I overheard his conversation in the Carnegie Library on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.  I had seen the victim’s mother on the front page of the Vancouver Sun pleading for witnesses to come forward, and his father who had come up from Los Angeles standing in the background. “He was Black or East Indian,” Jim said, “It happened two weekends ago; there’s a memorial outside Richards on Richards.”  He was talking about Tyson Edwards.                                                                                                                                                                                                         Jim, a thin white guy in his fifties, who unlike some Downtown Eastsiders doesn’t make a habit of criticizing police, had been walking around downtown collecting empty beer cans and bottles.  He arrived at Richards on Richards just after Edwards was stabbed.  ”I saw him lying in the curb,” says Jim, who didn’t witness the actual stabbing. There were no police or other emergency workers there yet.  ”I felt for the guy…As soon as I saw him, I could see he needed an ambulance.  ”Take it easy”, Jim said to Edwards and then went for help. “The first thing on my mind was the guy needed an ambulance”.  As Jim walked away, he heard somebody yelling, “He’s dying, he’s dying.”               

                                                   

Photo: A VPD constable at Richards on Richards on Sunday, Feb. 1.  Edwards had been stabbed at roughly 2:30 that morning.

Jim told the doorman at Richards on Richards that there was a man who needed an ambulance. "I told the door man, the Black door man, he was the first one I told,” Jim says.  ”He just ignored me.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

“Then a cop pulled up and I said, ‘This guy needs an ambulance, he’s been stabbed in the chest and he’s bleeding; they [the people with Edwards] rolled him over, he needs an ambulance right now’.”  Jim dipped his hand into his pocket to imitate the constable’s response: “He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his radio and says, ‘I need back up.’  And he puts the radio back in his pocket.”  He didn’t call for an ambulance.                                                                                                                                                                                       

“I was kind of frantic to get an ambulance right away”, Jim says.  

Jim went up to another white male cop, “a big, bald, guy” who had just arrived, and told him that there was a guy over there that needed an ambulance right away, that he’d been stabbed in the chest.  ”He friggin’ ignored me,” Jim says.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Next Jim approached a white female cop who was talking to a civilian male; she was either checking his ID or searching him; Jim couldn't remember exactly.  He told her that there was a guy over there who needed an ambulance right away, that he had been stabbed in the chest.  But she, like the male cops, ignored him. “She was more interested in crowd control”, Jim said in a disgusted tone of voice.”                                                                                                                                                                                                           

I told at least three cops and none of them paid any attention”, Jim says.  He was clearly still upset.  I heard him telling his story to friends on three separate occasions.   

Maybe somebody had already called 911 and the police knew that an ambulance was on the way, I said.  Jim replied that he had noticed people with cell phones but, based on his estimation that “15 to 20 minutes” passed before an ambulance arrived, he speculates that they may have asked for police, not an ambulance.  ”It took so dammed long for the ambulance to get there, I couldn’t believe it.”  He said there is a building just a few blocks from there where ambulances are dispatched and he believes he could have walked over there, gotten hold of some ambulance attendants and walked back, and “would have been there faster than the ambulance.”  [Ambulance paramedics recently threatened to strike, one of their grievances being that ambulance response times are becoming slower.]                                                                                                                                                                      

Regardless of whether an ambulance was in transit, Jim believes police should have checked on Edwards right away, after being told that he had been stabbed and needed immediate medical help.  He says Edwards was obscured from the view of police by “a crowd of Black guys standing around him.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Jim was amazed at the amount of back-up that arrived for police.  ”I’ve seen back up before but I’ve never seen so much back-up. There were cop cars everywhere, lights flashing, paddy wagons, but no ambulance.”      

                                                                    Photo:  Tyson Edwards' mother points to a photo of the two of them at his funeral in Burnaby.                                                                                                                                            

Jim was “perturbed” by the conduct of police as the victim lay bleeding on the curb and would later mention it to a journalist at the scene.  ”I told the CBC guy about it and he just laughed.  I said, ‘It’s not funny, a guy lost his life’.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Jim readily acknowledges that he’d had a bit to drink that night. “But I wasn’t drunk,” he says. When he’s picking cans and bottles on weekends, he explained, it’s common to find a half empty mickey or bottle of wine that bar-goers have left in an alley or parking lot.  He generally sips on one while he walks around picking cans.  Jim has lived on the Downtown Eastside for 30 years and he is known as a guy who enjoys going to the Pacific or the Regent Hotel to drink beer.  But he is not known to get aggressive or nasty when he drinks.  And he’s not a drug user; he even hates marijuana.                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Before the ambulance arrived, Jim left the scene and walked around the block picking up more cans and bottles.  When he passed by Richards on Richards again, he saw that the ambulance had arrived.  ”The ambulance was there; it was behind yellow tape”, he said in a low voice.                                                                                                                                                                          There’s an old tv show in which each episode ends with a male voice saying, “There are eight million stories in the naked city, you’ve just heard one of them.”  There are also millions of sides to those stories.  You’ve just heard one of them.     

Daring to Utter the I-Word on International Women's Day

On International Women's Day, what crossed my mind was the Violence Against Women exhibit I had walked past in the lobby of the Central Library on Dec. 6th, and the photos I had taken there but never found time to post. The exhibit marked the anniversary of the murder of 17 women at L'ecole Polytechnique in Montreal by Marc Lapine but was intended to raise awareness about violations of women everywhere.

The women hosting the display had posted an assertion on one of their billboards that they believed it was important to identify themselves as "feminists" in a public space.

They were willing to use the F-word in public space but apparently not the I-word.  The fact that the shotgun murders of these 14 women was at least partially a product of the misogyny of Islam is one that has been largely censored by feminists as well as the mainstream media in Canada.

Marc Lapine was born Gamil Gharbi but he changed his name at the age of 14.  His father was an Algerian-born follower of Islam, whose Canadian-born wife discovered, as she told a divorce court, that he "had a total disdain for women and believed they were intended only to serve men." It’s not an accident that he had that attitude. That’s what Mohammed taught, the prophet who spoke for Allah.

And it may not be an accident that his son Marc Lepine was yelling “alla akber or something…” (sounds suspiciously like "God is great" in Arabic)  as he gunned women down, a female witness told a radio station on the day of the massacre. That was reported by writer Mark Steyn, whose source was a good friend in Montreal. But that radio interview was never to be heard again. Censored.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalia-born devout Muslim who became a feminist and has written about Islam’s misogyny, says that Islam, unlike other religions such as Christianity and Judaism, is determined to push the world back into the 7th Century. Islamists responded by issuing a death order. She now needs 24 hr. guards. That’s the way Islam deals with feminists. It’s hardly surprising that Marc Lepine yelled, “feminists!” as he gunned down women at L’ecole Polytechnique.  

But western liberals, leftists, feminists -- with a few exceptions such as the feminist writer Phyllis Chesler who was once married to a man from Afghanistan -- protect Islam. Take an example from the Downtown Eastside:  when Islam's misogyny was mentioned on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer, a woman who lives at the Lori Krill Housing Co-operative, a bastion of political correctness on Cordova St., sent us a message accusing us of making "racist commentary about Muslims". Being Muslim isn't a race.  But never let the facts interfere with shaming critics into censoring themselves about Islam's trampling of women's rights.

In the days leading up to International Women's Day, the Islamic court in Saudi Arabia upheld the marriage of an 8 year old girl to a 47 year old man to pay off her father's debts.  In the days following International Women's Day, the Islamic court sentenced a 75-year old woman to 40 lashes and a prison term for being in the same room as two men who were not relatives, even though they were just delivering bread.

Married eight-year old 

Next year on International Women's Day, do women a favor:  use the I-word in a public space.  

A Thousand Israel Supporters Turn Out to "Battle for Truth" Rally in Vancouver

Roughly a thousand people turned up at the sprawling Schara Tzedeck Synagogue on Oak St. in Vancouver on Thursday evening to a high security – no purse or back pack got through the door unexamined -- “Community Solidarity Gathering for Israel”. Some in the overflow crowd at the rally organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver were turned away. There was simply no more room. Even the balcony was jam-packed.


“There is a battle for truth,” speaker Dr. James Lunney, Member of Parliament and Chair of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Committee, told the crowd.

Loud applause.

“Hamas fired more than 450 rockets into Israel in the week leading up to Israel’s response”, Lunney said. The Canadian government sees the conflict this way: “Hamas is responsible for the current crisis.”

You won’t find the current Conservative Canadian government in the middle of the road on the Israeli-Gaza conflict, Lunney explained. Being the MP for Nanaimo-Alberni on Vancouver Island, he used a forestry industry analogy: If you’re driving along the road and you turn a corner and see a logging truck coming toward you, the last place you want to be is in the middle of the road. Laughter. On the Israeli-Hamas conflict, Lunney said, “The middle of the road is neither a right place or a safe place.”

Yet the middle of the road is exactly where past Canadian governments have been, Lunney said. They have taken a “moral equivalence” approach to the two sides in Israeli-Palestinian tensions, “condemning neither, supporting neither”. That’s over. “The Canadian government sees no moral equivalence between Israel, a vibrant if imperfect democracy, and Hamas…”, Lunney said. He described Hamas as “terrorists who use military aggression…using their neighbors, including women and children as shields.”


Like Lunney, grade 12 student Igal Raich sees the Israel-Hamas conflict as a battle for truth. There was one lie Raich was particularly eager to set the record straight on when he took the podium: “Israel does not intentionally kill women and children but attacks rocket launchers. But they [Hamas] are using women and children as human shields.”

Raich, who announced that he will be joining the Israel Defense Forces when he graduates this year, is a product of the David Project at King David school in Vancouver. “The David project empowers us to confront and respond to anti-Israel bias”, he said. In the Project, students are taught “historical accuracy, moral decision-making, and activism.”

Raich went to the anti-Israel demonstration in downtown Vancouver on Dec. 29th. “I didn’t go to cheer them on”, he said. “I went to protest against the continual bombardment of Southern Israel by Hamas.”

A giant video screen at the front of the room allowed the crowd to see speakers, including Anglican Reverend Dr. Richard Leggett who said they had been told to "keep it short".

Setting the record straight was also a goal of Dr. Michael Elterman, Chair of the Pacific Region Canada Israel Committee. Claims made about Israel in the media, he said, are too often “ill-informed and intellectually lazy”. He saw the claim that Israel is contributing to a “cycle of violence” as a prime example. “It confuses the pyromaniac with the firefighter.”

Another on the long list of claims Elterman challenged was that Israel is using “disproportionate force”. “Israel under reacted for 8 years,” he said, “which only acted to encourage Hamas.”

The dearth of balanced reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict was a problem that Elterman saw as extending to anti-Israel protesters – including the fifteen or so standing on the sidewalk outside. As Israel supporters entered the rally, protesters had stood on the sidewalk loudly chanting, “Hey, hey, Israel! How many people have you killed today!” Elterman asked the crowd, “Where were the protesters outside tonight when Israeli civilians were being terrorized and rocketed for eight years?” When you leave tonight, he urged, “Ask them.”


The Vancouver rally was one of several held in major cities across Canada on Thursday evening. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud spoke to the rally via a pre-taped video. He explained that in response to Hamas “firing rockets, missiles, and mortar shells directly into population centers”, Israel was pressed to act to ensure the “security and safety” of it’s citizens. “This is what Canada would have done for the people living in Toronto”.


After the rally, which ended with a “Song of Peace”, the anti-Israel protesters were nowhere to be seen outside. But uniformed police were everywhere.

Program

To read the speakers list from the rally, enlarge the photo below by clicking on it.

Neon Sign Turned on Today at Opening of Pennsylvania Hotel for the Poor and Screwed Up

This morning was the "Grand Re-opening" of Vancouver's historic Pennsylvania Hotel at the corner of Carroll & Hastings on the Downtown Eastside. About a century ago, it was a swank hotel advertised as having a telephone in every room, but it has recently been turned into supportive housing for the poor and screwed up.


The Pennsylvania Hotel, which many Downtown Eastsiders call "The Portland" as that's what it's been called for years, has been empty since 2000. A hand-out published by the Portland Hotel Society which will be operating the Pennsylvania didn't conceal their disdain for gentrification in the neighborhood. "We didn't want it to become condos or turned into a Backpacker or Tourist Hotel."

So they worked to turn it into supportive housing. "Eventually, we cobbled together the money to renovate the building so that each room has its own bathroom and small kitchen. The Hotel will also receive a subsidy allowing for rents of $375/month and 24-hour staffing."

Photo above: Portland Society Co-Director Liz Evans on the stage in the basement of the Pennsylvania Hotel.

Photo above: Liz Evans behind microphone during second part of the opening which took place outside the Pennsylvania on the corner of Hastings & Carroll St. Mayor Robertson is on the right of the photo.

Liz Evans who co-directs the Portland Hotel Society with her spouse Mark Townsend -- the PHS also operates Insite, the supervised drug injection site on the same block -- was MC at the Opening. Evans is a psych nurse and about 15 years ago was listed in the Globe & Mail as one of Canada's young up and comers to be watched. But a few Downtown Eastsiders believe there are other reasons she should be watched.


Psych nurses have gained a reputation for unchecked abuses of power on the Downtown Eastside. A few years ago, when evidence surfaced to support serious allegations against nurse Don Getz of making fraudulent entries in a psychiatric report arranged for political ends against a normal Downtown Eastside resident, a few Downtown Eastside men came forward and said, 'While we're on the topic of psych nurse abuse, why not look at Liz Evans?"

There are allegations that early in her career in Vancouver, Evans abused her influence as a psych nurse to contact a psychiatrist and falsely portray a woman, Christa, as needing mental health intervention. This tactic was allegedly used during a struggle by Evans and her spouse to get lease-holder Christa, to move out of a house they shared in the Strathcona neighborhood. Terrified of being committed, Christa, moved out of the house. According to a friend, Christa gets 'chills up her spine' to this day when she comes across Liz Evans. [Jim Green, who helped found the Portland Hotel Society and would later run for mayor, also lived in Strathcona; he met Evans in the neighborhood and recruited her to work on supportive housing. He gave her a kiss at the opening today.]

There is also an allegation that during the same period of Evans' career, she had a sexual relationship with a mentally ill man she had been hired to care for; he later had a breakdown.


Evans would no doubt deny these allegations. But if she is going to be operating "supportive" housing for the government, there should be an independent investigation into such allegations made by men who knew her at the time this alleged misconduct occurred.


That was then. This is now. But it remains important that an investigation take place as today's praise by Evans and her PHS associates of their 'partner' in the development of this supportive housing, the Carnegie Community Action Project -- the praise appeared in the introductory paragraph of the glossy handout at the opening -- suggests that not much progress has been made. The endorsement of Carnegie suggests that Evans is willing to overlook the very type of abuse that Downtown Eastsiders fear could occur at the Pennsylvania: people who can't afford lawyers will be easy targets for fraudulent claims entered into reports should they criticize staff [CUPE members].

Carnegie is notorious for this type of abuse of the poor and the homeless. One of many cases is that of homeless William Simpson who was barred from entering Carnegie after he managed to get himself elected to the Carnegie Board. When the barring was exposed, the damage control strategy involved concocting entirely unsupported claims about Simpson posing a "WorkSafe risk".


When I saw the throng of reporters packed around the stage where Liz Evans stood in the basement of the Pennsylvania, and heard a panicky CKNW reporter pleading with people on the jammed staircase to let her get down there, I wondered why such a big deal was being made of this opening. But when Evans introduced Mayor Gregor Robertson and Housing Minister Rich Coleman, I understood. Homelessness is a big deal. Politicians are eager to show local voters and the world that action is being taken on homelessness. (This morning Vancouver radio host Nicki Renshaw said that when she was in London, England for Christmas, the tv news was reporting that homeless people were dying on the snowy streets of Vancouver.)


Robertson reminded the crowd that homelessness was a priority of his government. But first he doused the crowd with political correctness by stating that this event was taking place on "Coast Salish traditional territory". Robertson also said that organizers of the Pennsylvania had spent many years of their lives bringing this supportive housing project to completion. He didn't mention that many were well paid for their time; we have no idea how much PHS executives were paid because they wouldn't release those figures when the Courier newspaper asked them to. And Robertson thanked the ultimate supporter of this supportive housing, "the taxpayer".

Photo above: Rich Coleman, BC Minister of Housing

BC Housing Minister Rich Coleman also spoke to the packed crowd in the basement of the Pennsylvania. Coleman said of this supported housing, "It's not about bricks and mortar; it's about people."

Photo above: Pennsylvania resident Earle Crowe stands behind the microphone on the left of the photo as Housing Minister Rich Coleman (seated) looks on.

The crowd also heard from Earle Crowe, a resident of the Pennsylvania Hotel. Crowe said he'd moved in after being homeless for 3 years. What he didn't say is that he had the right connections and the right politics to get in. It pays to be on the political left or to at least be non-threateningly apolitical if you want to get into social housing on the Downtown Eastside. A few years ago, Crowe worked for the Carnegie Street workers; I remember seeing him slumped over in Pigeon Park on drugs during that period. That was the period when street workers were involved in an illegal scam to silence a victim of alleged (but well supported by documentation) political psychiatry by psych nurse Don Getz. The person's medical confidentiality was breached, a description of this person was passed around amongst street workers and street nurses for no apparent reason than to expedite harassment of them on the street. The victim reports no harassment by Earle Crowe though. He appears to have been otherwise occupied.


Before spectators and speakers left the basement, drummer Gail Bowen -- Burton Cummings learned to play harmonica on her veranda in Winnipeg -- performed a "peace prayer". But first she reminded the crowd that she agreed with Robertson, that this is "unceded Coast Salish territory".

Above photo: Judy Graves, a publicly-funded advocate who walks the streets and approaches the homeless to help them get welfare and a place to stay.
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Although much of the opening ceremony took place in the basement of the Pennsylvania, the final leg took place outside on the corner of Hastings & Carroll St. A switch was flicked in front of the crowd, turning on the neon "Pennsylvania Hotel" sign. Actually, this sign has been turned on for over a month now but it was turned off earlier today so that it could be ceremonially turned on again at the opening. A low income guy watching commented loudly that the sign had cost a fortune. "For the cost of that sign," he said, "they could have built more social housing."

I like the sign. I like seeing it shining at night in the neighborhood. But with povertarians claiming to be improving the lives of Downtown Eastsiders while ignoring the epidemic of human rights abuses that they or their allies are inflicting, it will take more than a neon sign to light up the darkness.



[Thanks to the Downtown Eastsider who took photos and emailed them to us.]

Your Tax Dollars at Rest

Unmarked police car parked across from the Vancouver Police station on Main St. near Hastings.

Christmas night, Dec. 25

Boxing Day as it snowed.

Boxing Day night as it rained.

Denis' Dinner

I just received this photo of a meal which Denis, the French-Canadian caretaker at Somerville Place social housing near Oppenheimer Park, made for anybody in the building on Christmas. It was his Christmas gift.

Denis apparently went to Superstore on the Saturday before Christmas, and was stuck there for two hours because there were 6 cashiers for roughly 200 customers.

Being from Ottawa, Denis was really on top of the heavy snowfall. He got the sidewalk in front of Sommerville Place cleared quickly, residents report. He used salt. When you looked at his sidewalk, you'd think it was summertime, a neighbor said. Compare Denis to staff at the Police station a few blocks away who were much slower to get on top of the snow.

Salvation Army: Turkey with a TV Camera

Salvation Army Harbour Light near Cordova & Main St. on the Downtown Eastside served a full turkey dinner on Christmas day. There were volunteers of all kinds. There was even one boy about 13 years old serving from a steam tray. Another teenage boy was serving tables. There was a Jewish couple, Ezra and his wife, serving from steam trays. All the volunteers were friendly and warm.

The dining hall was full, with new people constantly coming in from the waiting room. The wait was about 15 minutes in the waiting room where they played Christmas music. There was a red banner at the front of the room with something on it about accepting "Christ", but there was not a heavy emphasis on religion.

There was the occasional double-dipper. One guy who looked downtrodden said he had come through the waiting room twice so he was on his second turkey dinner, but he was too full to eat a second apple pie. So he offered it to the guy beside him who thanked him a couple of times. Another guy eating a dinner asked a middle-aged male server if he could take a second dinner home in a take-out container. The male server said they occasionally allow that but don't like to make a practice of it; a little later, a female server gave him a second dinner in a styrofoam take-out container.

Everybody who ate dinner was handed a gift as they walked out the door. The gifts were things people could use, like winter gloves or socks. And the gift packages included a couple of candy canes, a mini chocolate bar, and chocolates wrapped to look like large gold coins.

The Salvation Army runs on government funding as well as donations. But the people serving were volunteering their time.

There was a television camera at the dinner for a while too. But not during the entire dinner.

Snowy Jack

The Gassy Jack statue in Gastown in Sunday's snowfall. (Photo taken Sun., Dec. 21, 08.)

Up to 20 cm. of snow is forecast for tomorrow.

Merry Christmas.

Brian Adams' Music Studio just before a White Christmas

A meteorologist on the radio said that Vancouver has a white Christmas about once every ten years. This is one of those unusual years.

This photo of Brian Adams' studio in Vancouver was sent to me just after it was taken this afternoon at around 2:30 p.m.

In previous years, I've seen Christmas lights in the windows when I walked by Adams' studio, but the photographer said there don't appear to be any this year.