Man Stabbed in Eye at Savoy Pub

Photo above: A Vancouver Police officer guards the door of the Savoy Pub this afternoon.

A man was reportedly stabbed in the eye this afternoon at the Savoy Pub on Hasting St., just east of Main & Hastings.

According to a witness, police took everybody out of the pub, stopping traffic to get them across the street to the police station for questioning.


The Savoy Pub is close to Main & Hastings, seen in the background.

Photo above: Vancouver Police officer guarding door of Savoy Pub this afternoon chats with a passerby. He was turning people away as they arrived to enter the pub.

Firemen Climb onto Roof of Best Pizza to put out Fire

It's the second time it's happened. Late Monday afternoon, something on fire was thrown from the Balmoral Hotel at 159 Hastings onto the roof of Best Pizza next door at 151 Hastings. It was a sweltering sunny day. Four fire trucks and an ambulance arrived.

Three firemen climbed onto the roof of the pizza joint. A fireman later told two Vancouver Police constables -- police arrived after the firemen had finished their work -- that there was lots of trash and needles on the roof.

After the fire risk was over, a Muslim man -- one resident says he thinks the guy is Kurdish -- who runs Best Pizza, made a point of walking up to one of the firemen to thank the fire crew for coming.

Lots of Downtown Eastsiders buy pizza slices at Best Pizza -- they sell for about $1.25. A few customers claim to have been short changed there though, and one fellow says he found a couple of worthless foreign coins in his change.

"Volunteers for Comrade Lavrentiy Paulovitch Beria" Re-election Campaign headquarters

submitted by dag,

For immediate release:

I want to vote in the up-coming Carnegie board of directors election. I want to vote for Lavrentiy Beria. He's from Georgia, originally. Please let me explain why I want to vote for him as member of the board of directors, and once I have, I'm sure you'll want to vote for him to. You'll even want to vote for his wife!

Lavrentiy (Paul) Beria, was a povertarian politician and chief of the security and secret police apparatus at the big-time Community Centre. Hooray! Beria worked in the security service of C.C. in Azerbaijan, a sub-section of Surrey. He was a police agent in that country too. How cool.

Beria joined the Cheka - the original secret police force of the povertarians. An NDP (New Dhimmi Povertarian) revolt took place in the Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Povertarian Army subsequently invaded. The Cheka was heavily involved in the conflict, which resulted in the defeat of the poor and the formation of the Georgian Community Centre. Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Cheka's successor, the OGPU.He's got a great resume.

He led a killing campaign against Georgian nationalists. He sure showed them. After the uprising he had another 10,000 people executed. Are you starting to see why I think he's just right of the Carnegie Centre board of directors? I think that a man with his skills should also be the writer and editor of the Carnegie newsletter. He's done some fine work already. For this display of "Povertarian ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the Downtown Eastside OGPU and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner Food Stamp. He gets lots of free food stamps and subsidized public housing too.

Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and was introduced to fellow Georgian, Ethanol, becoming an ally in Ethanol's rise to power within the Community Centre party and the NDP regime. Some historians, however, claim that he was more henchman than ally, working to further his own cause by wooing Ethanol in order to gain access to the inner circles of the NDP regime. Ethanol's no dummy. She kept him in the back room where he cranked out death warrants. Ha. His time is coming. He began to attack fellow members of the Georgian Community Centre, particularly Comrade Simpski; Beria ordered the killing of both of Simpski's brothers - Homeric and Bartelby - who held important positions in the Cheka and the Community Centre party respectively. Eventually, Simpski was charged with violating Article 58 for alleged counter-revolutionary activities and suspicion of blogging and was executed by the orders of the NKVD troika. Even after moving on from Georgia, Beria continued to effectively control the Community Centre party until it was purged in July. He really knows how to fight for the rights of the poor. He kills them. Yeah, I hear you saying, "Dag, this guy is a seriously insane psychopath who wants power so he can kill people." Well, fcuk dude, chill. I mean, why be so judgmental?

Beria was one of Ethanol's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Ethanol's entourage with a lengthy newsletter titled, "On the History of the Povertarian Organisations in Downtown Eastside" (later published as a book), which rewrote the history of Downtown Eastside politics, emphasizing Ethanol's role in it. When Ethanol's purge of the Community Centre party and previous board of directors began, after the banning and assassination of Rachel Daviski, Beria ran the purges in Downtown Eastside, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent Downtown Eastside. In June, he said in a speech, "Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Daviesovitch and Ethanol, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed". He is also credited with the slogan, "When you stop murdering people by the millions, they start to get notions."

In August, Ethanol brought Beria to Vancouver as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the ministry which oversaw the state security and police forces of the Community Centre. Under anonymous povertarian hacks, the NKVD embarked on the Great Purge - the large scale oppression and persecution of millions of people throughout the downtown Eastside who were perceived to be "enemies of the people". By the up-coming election, however, the oppression had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure, economy and even the armed forces of the nanny state, prompting Ethanol to wind the purge down. In September, Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he succeeded a crazy shit-monkey as NKVD head (Pezhov himself was executed). The NKVD itself was then purged, with half its personnel replaced by Beria loyalists, many of them from the Caucus.

Although Beria's name is closely identified with the Great Purge due to his activities while deputy head of the NKVD, his leadership of the organisation marked an easing of the repression. Over 100,000 people were released from the labour camps and it was officially admitted that there had been some injustice and "excesses" during the purges, which were blamed on Pezhov. Nevertheless this liberalisation was only relative: bannings, arrests and executions continued and, as board elections approached, the pace of the purges again accelerated. During this period Beria supervised the deportations of people from Poland and the Baltic states following the occupation of those regions by povertarian forces.

In March Beria became a candidate member of the Community Centre party's Politburo. Although he did not become a full member until later, he was already one of the senior leaders of the nanny state. Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, the highest quasi-military rank within the Community Centre police system of that time. And that is just one reason why I want to vote for him.

On March 5 Beria sent the note (no. 794/B) to Ethanol which stated that welfare recipient prisoners of class war, kept at camps and prisons in western Vancouver are declared enemies of Comminity Centre and advised members of the Community Centre Politburo to execute them (see Katyn massacre).

In February he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars or Poverty Advocacy, and in June, following a visit from the local M.P. to the "Community", he became a member of the State Defence Committee (GKO). During the strike II he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labour camps for wartime production on picket lines. He took control of production of sandwiches for strikers and (with Malevelance, a guy on the dole) aircraft and aircraft engines, submarines, muffins, and coffee. This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malevalence, which later became of central importance.

As the Salvation Army were driven from the Downtown Eastside, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the Chaida, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars and the Volga Botemens. All these were banned from the Community Centre to Soviet Central Park Bench Under the Stars. What a Hero of the People is comrade Lavrenty Paulovitch.

In December, Beria's NKVD was assigned to supervise the Community Centre atomic bomb project. In this capacity he ran the successful NDP espionage campaign against the atomic weapons cut-backs programme of the liberal party, which enabled the Community Centre to obtain the public grant money required to build and test a bomb in the Seniors' Lounge. However his most important contribution was to provide the necessary volunteer workforce for this project, which was extremely labour-intensive. The Gulag food stamp system provided tens of thousands of people for work in uranium mines and cafeteria and the construction and operation of uranium processing plants, as well as the construction of test facilities such as those at Semipalatableinski and on the Nowaya Zemlya Cashcorner archipelago. The NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project by banning people who sneezed or farted in the reading room.

In July, as Comunity Centre police ranks were converted to a military uniform system, Beria's rank was converted to that of Marshal of the Community Centre. Although he had never held a military command, Beria, through his organisation of wartime strike production, made a significant contribution to the Community Centre's victory during the strike.

With Ethanol nearing losing her sinecure, the poststrike years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among her lieutenants. At the end of the strike the most likely successor seemed to be Karl Mackovski, party leader in the pub during the strike, then in charge of all cultural matters. Even during the strike Beria and Mackovski had been rivals, but after that Beria formed an alliance with Mackovski to block Simpski's return.

In January Beria left the post of the head of the NKVD, while retaining general control over newsletter security matters from his post of Deputy Ppovertrian, under Ethanol. The new head, Somersaltski, was not Beria's protégé. In addition, by the Summer of 07, Beria's loyalist **** was replaced by **** as head of the MGB. **** and **** then moved expeditiously to replace the security apparatus leadership with new people outside of Beria's inner circle, such that very soon Deputy Minister of MVD **** represented the only remnant of it outside with foreign intelligence, on which Beria never really had a a grip. In the following months, **** started carrying out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Mackovski, and sometimes on Ethanol's direct orders. Some observers argue that these operations were aimed---initially tangentially, but with time more directly---at Beria.

One of the first such moves was the Anti-Zionist Fascist Committee affair that commenced in October and eventually led to the murder of **** and the arrest of many other members of the public. The reason this campaign had negatively reflected on Beria was that not only did he champion creation of the committee, but his own entourage included a substantial number of fascists.

Mackovski was banned suddenly in August, and Beria and Malevaloventkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Mackovski's associates known as the "Carnegie Affair". More than 2,000 people banned and executed.

Ethanol's growing mistrust of Beria echoed in the Milgrimian Affair in which many of Beria's protégés were purged, resulting in the decline of Beria's power in the Lower Eastside.

Ethanol was fired on March 5, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria when they read a blog piece on the internet. The political memoirs of Molotovcktle, published in the Newsletter, claim that Beria boasted that he had poisoned Ethanol. The story about the writing of the piece on Ethanol by Beria was elaborated on by Dag, who's not going to confess to it in print.

After Ethnol' firing, Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Newletter hack and, given Malevolenkov's lack of real leadership qualities, was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself.

Beria was at the forefront of liberalization after Ethanol's firing. Beria publicly denounced Ethanol as a "fraud," investigated and solved the banning of Simpski and effectuated an amnesty that unbanned over a million non-political prisoners from forced labour camps in the park. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in the Seniors' lounge prisons.

Some writers have held that Beria's liberal policies after Ethanol's firing were a tactic to maneuver himself into power. Even if he was sincere, they argue, Beria's past made it impossible for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Community Centre. The essential task of board member reformers was to bring the secret police under party control, and Beria could not do this since the police were the basis of his own power.

Others have argued that he had represented a truly reformist agenda, and that his eventual removal from power delayed a radical political and economic reform in the Community Centre by almost forty years. Uh huh. I believe that, which is why I want to vote for Lavrentiy Paulovtich.

"Beria: Enemy of the people". TIME newsletter cover, July 20

Given his record, it is not surprising that the other Community Centre leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this.

Accounts of Beria's fall vary considerably. According to the most recent accounts on June 26, during an attack on Beria, he was accused of being in the pay of Fraser Institute. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, "What's going on? Why are you picking fleas in my trousers?" Others then laughed and also spoke against Beria, and **** put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malevelenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to group of armed security officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria.

Beria was taken first to the Seniors' lounge ("gauptvakhta") and then to the bunker of the headquarters of Re-elect the Fat Lady.

Beria's henchmen were also arrested.

Pravda announced Beria's arrest only on July 10, crediting it to Malevelentkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Part volunteer fund." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize cash in the Community Centre and restore a refridgerator."

Beria and his henchmen were tried by a special session of the seniors' lounge with no defense counsel and no right of appeal.

Beria was found guilty of:

1) treason; It was alleged, without any proof, that "up to the moment of his arrest Beria maintained and developed his secret connections with the Fraser Institute". In particular, attempts to initiate peace talks with Hitler through the offices of DERAOSH were classified as treason; it was not mentioned that Beria was fulfilling the orders of Ethanol in this respect. It was also alleged that Beria, who was involved in the organisation of the defence of the North Vancouver College Caucus, tried to let the students at the Learning Centre occupy the office without the presence of a volunteer. There were also allegations that "planning to seize power, Beria tried to obtain the support of imperialist Salvation Army at the price of violation of territorial integrity of the Community Centre and transfer of parts of Ethanol's turf to capitalist states". These allegations were due to Beria's suggestion to his assistants that in order to improve foreign relations it was reasonable to transfer union members to East Germany or Siberia.

2) terrorism; Beria's order to execute 25 political bloggers in October without trial was classified as an act of terrorism. Go figure!

3) counterrevolutionary activity during strike.

Beria and all the other defendants were sentenced to death. When the death sentence was passed, according to a later news letter account, Beria begged on his knees for mercy, but he and his subordinates were immediately executed, or so the Mainstream Media would have us believe. Obviously he still lives and is running for the board of directors at the Carnegie Centre. Duh.

However, according to other accounts including his son's Beria's social housing unit was assaulted on 26 June by military units and Beria himself was killed on the spot. A member of the court which tried Beria subsequently allegedly told Beria's son that he had never seen Beria alive. And that just proves the point that Comrade Paulovitch is a fucking zombie who cannot die. Just the man we need on the board of directors. We'll never have to worry about having to replace him.

No Community Centre police chief ever again held the kind of power Beria had wielded. Now is the time to restore him and correct such a cosmic injustice. Elect Paulovitch, I say!

Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could be considered a victim of the system.

Charges of sexual assault and sexual harassment and sexual sadism against Beria were first made in the speech by some ungrateful crack slut July 10, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Slutalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted syphilis as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Slutalin referred to a list (supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard) of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex, if you call that kind of thing "sex." This is a family campaign I'm running for Comrade Paulovitch here, not a porn site. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. **** in his blog wrote: "We were given a list of more than 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Ethanol. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills..." Afterwards he would drop off his charge and the chauffeur would give them a bouquet of flowers. One pregnant victim, having refused his advances, was accidentally given the flowers. Upon noticing, Beria shouted, "It's not a bouquet, it's a wreath. May they rot on your grave." She was later arrested.

The sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. In an interview, there are secret minutes of a meeting that reveal a specific sexual game Beria is said to have forced upon young girls before picking one of them to be raped, which is how the alleged practice got the name "Beria's Flower Game".

Numerous stories have circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. But nobody's perfect. We need this man on the board of directors. Since the 1970s, malcontents have been retelling stories of bones found in the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London Daily Telegraph reported in December 2003: "The latest grisly find—a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones—was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled. In the basement, Anil, an Indian who has worked at the embassy for 17 years, showed a plastic bag of human bones he had found in the cellars." According to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, Beria personally tortured Nestor Lakoba's family, driving his widow mad by placing a snake in her cell and beating his teenage children to death.Look, it's just a hobby. He's not a bad guy, really.

Such reports are dismissed by the people close to Beria, such as his son and a couple of winos in the alley who used to drink with him. So, knowing all this you can see why I highly recommend you vote not just once for Der leader Paulovithcski. No, dear reader, you should vote for him not at all, because he doesn't need you vote. He's entitled to his position. He's fucking special. Look at all the things he's done. Imagine how many people would be alive now if not for Comrade Paulovitch. He's just what this city needs. A comrade who destroys anti-social elements like poor people, and who does it in the name of the people. Once in a generation do we find ourselves confronted with the likes of Paulovitch Beria. How lucky you are to have such a guy. Thank him. Bless him. Get on your knees and beg him to forgive you. Grovel. Lick his sandals. Lick your bloody teeth off the floor. You are lucky to have such a god as Paulovitch!

Paulovitch for board of directors.

Vote for his wife too. Or else.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrenty_Beria

Carnegie Election on June 5th

It's a better deal than the Dollar Store just around the corner. Pay a dollar for a membership to Carnegie Centre and you can come to the general meeting on June 5th to vote for a new Board of Directors.

But hurry up. You need to have had a membership card for two weeks to be eligible to vote in the Board election. According to a poster at Carnegie, the last day you can purchase a membership card and still be eligible to vote is May 21st.

If you want to run for the Board you need to have had a membership card for 60 days.

To register to vote, you have to be at the theatre on the first floor of Carnegie at 5 p.m. If you come late, you won't be allowed to vote. The actual meeting starts at 5:30 p.m.

After you register, you can run upstairs to the cafeteria and get a seafood dinner for three dollars. They serve seafood every Thursday. Or you can get a bowl of soup for 75 cents.

Free coffee is provided at the meeting.

Rachel Davis -- many Carnegie members know her as Rosetta from the music program -- was new on the Board this past year and wrote about it: The Year I Spent a Decade on the Carnegie Board. Lou Anne, a Carnegie member who has overcome a brain injury, praised Rachel at a Board meeting a couple of months ago and said we need more "new blood" on the Board. Some people have spent too many years on the Board, Lou Anne pointed out.

You have to wonder if it is time to vote Jeff Sommers off the island. He spoke against a motion by Davis to hold a review of the barring of William Simpson, a duly elected Board member, from the building and Board meetings. The fact that Downtown Eastsiders, whose interests Sommers claims to represent, had voted for Simpson and were being denied representation while he was relegated to the sidewalk outside during meetings, didn't seem to phase Sommers. He argued that if Simpson's barring was reviewed, everybody who was upset about being barred would want their case reviewed.

But Sommers will probably get re-elected. At this very moment, he may be burning up cell phone minutes rounding up people to come out and vote. And Jean Swanson -- that would be the homeless advocate who didn't speak up when a homeless Board member, Simpson, was denied entry to Board meetings -- will no doubt be using her e-mail list of reliable comrades to get the vote out for Sommers and others who avoided speaking up for the right of an elected Board member to come to meetings.

Close But No Cigar

At a meeting at Carnegie Center on Vancouver’s low income Downtown Eastside on Thursday evening, Chair Margaret Prevost told Rachel Davis to “Shut up”. For many members present that about summed up what was behind this Special meeting to change Carnegie’s constitution: silencing Rachel Davis.

Davis and two others elected to the Board, William “Bill” Simpson and Sophia Friegang, had become thorns in the side of the hard line left-wingers on the Board who are in favor of free speech as long as it follows their script.

Simpson was completely off script. He was an outspoken critic of the Downtown Eastside poverty industry in which Carnegie Board members and staff tend to be immersed.

Although more politically aligned with the Carnegie Board than Simpson, Davis and Friegang became targets of overt hostility by the Board when they spoke out against the barring of Simpson from the Carnegie Center and Board meetings just two weeks after he was elected. Friegang argued that the Board was complicit in abuse of “human rights”. Definitely off script. She was ignored. She resigned.

Two down, one to go.

As Davis continued to sit on the Board, she became the target of tactics ranging from verbal abuse to a secretive meeting by Board members to discuss her advocacy on the Bill Simpson matter. She was sent a letter from the Board requesting her resignation. But she wouldn’t take that train to Siberia.

Shortly after Davis refused to resign, the Board called a Special meeting to pass a resolution to change the way Board members got elected. The timing left Carnegie members suspicious. “Why is this in front of us now?”, a man called out from the audience at the meeting.

If the resolution passed, it would do away with guerilla election tactics. Currently any member who hangs out amongst the low income Carnegie Center population can simply turn up on election night, get a pal to nominate them, give a three minute speech, and get elected if they’ve asked enough of their pals in the Center to show up to vote. The long term members of the 15 member Board, who rely on abysmally low election turnouts to re-elect one another year after year, are caught off guard.

Bill Simpson caught them off guard. He had been barred from the Carnegie Learning Center on the 3rd floor for allegedly blogging about Carnegie – that was a few months before he was barred from the entire Carnegie building – but on the day of the June 2007 election, he asked his acquaintances in the Centre, “What are you doing at 5 o’clock? Would you be willing to vote for me?” A troop of Carnegie members trailed him into the election and Holy Brazen Blogger, Batman! Bill Got Elected!

If the new resolution passed, there would be a gap of a month between the nomination of candidates and voting. Never again would the current Board, which has members such as Jeff Sommers who have sat on the Board for decades, be caught completely off guard.

At Thursday evening’s meeting, Board member Peter Fairchild spoke in favor of the resolution, saying that every year on the evening of the election, “A whole bunch of people wander into the room who have never been involved.” The proposed requirement that nominees wait a month before the election, he argued, would “give people time to consider whether they actually want to do it.” He insisted that the Board was not attempting to “restrict” participation.

“Would you close the door and lock it,” Board Chair, Margaret Prevost, sitting beside Fairchild, called out to the door man checking membership cards of people arriving late to vote.

Rachel Davis spoke against the resolution. The current system “encourages positivity” in campaigning, she said. “It’s only negative campaigning that this will make easier. . .It will give a time period in which to do it in, a whole month.”

Jeff Sommers spoke in favor of the resolution. He’s the Board member who last year spoke against the request by Davis and Friegang for a review of the barring of Simpson, arguing that everybody who felt they had been unfairly barred would want their cases reviewed. “If you want to talk about shutting down democracy,” Sommers said on Thursday evening, “it’s not letting people campaign. . . .We’re one of the few community centers that doesn’t allow campaigning.” But as Carnegie member Wilf Reimer has pointed out to members in the past, Carnegie is not funded as a community center; it is funded and supervised by the City’s Social Services Group.

Karl MacDonald said he could see both sides of the debate but his concern was this: “It could end up as a smear campaign against people who for one reason or another are not accepted…It could end up like Pink Floyd ‘Up Against the Wall’.”

Jean Swanson, an activist with the Carnegie Community Action Project who has been outspoken about the treatment of Vancouver’s homeless but has seemingly lost her tongue when it comes to the treatment of homeless Bill Simpson, spoke in favor of the resolution. “Listening to Karl made me think if we voted yes, we could have an All Candidates Meeting where people would get a chance to say what they’re all about and answer questions.”

Joan Morelli, an anti-poverty activist and 35-year resident of the Downtown Eastside opposed the resolution. “I think that this Board should do it’s best to be inclusive of everybody in the neighborhood. Making it easier for people to participate should be the rule. Now they’re told they have to come twice.”

A man with a grey beard who volunteers as a tutor in the Carnegie Learning Center, said, “If people want to run for the Board, they should be willing to come to two meetings.”

Board member Gena Thompson was concerned that members were accusing the Board of “taking their voice” with this resolution. “Frankly, I’m starting to get angry.”
But Peter Fairchild saw the glass half full: “I’ve never seen so many people in the room for a meeting.”

“Yes you have Peter!", yelled former Board member Michael Read from the audience. "When William Simpson packed the meeting!”

Apparently picking up on the distrust in the room, Fairchild and Whitty counted the ballots in front of the membership. Each ballot was held up for the membership – those with stellar eye sight — to see.

Despite the many people who spoke passionately against the resolution though, the majority of the 52 people who cast ballots voted in favor of it. But the resolution failed to pass. That’s because the bar is high for a change to the constitution; seventy-five per cent of voters must vote in favor.

When the result was announced, Jeff Sommers immediately piped up, “There’s enough support here that we can do it next time.”

“Who said you had the floor?”, called out Wilf Reimer who, along with Davis, had insisted throughout the meeting that Roberts Rules of Order be followed to curb people speaking out of turn and interjecting abusive comments. Sommers would eventually snipe, “Do you have to have a rule to take a piss?”

Davis says Fairchild later made a point of telling her that the resolution had failed to pass by just one vote.

(photo of Rachel Davis taken by Wilf Reimer)

Shigella Outbreak Not Helped By Carnegie Cafeteria Filth

There is an outbreak of Shigella, a rare food-borne bacteria, amongst people using Carnegie Center. Center staff are aware of this and have posters up in the washrooms and cafeteria reminding people who have diarreahea, stomach cramps, or fever to wash their hands thoroughly. The posters specifically mention diarreahea with blood in it -- that is a key sign of Shigella.

A Carnegie staff person has also given a handout on Shigella to members who are sick or know someone who is. It is mentioned on the handout that Shigella is highly contagious. It is so contagious in fact that it is recommended that people avoid sharing the same toilet with a person with diarreahea from Shigella.

But Carnegie is failing where it counts. Last evening, they didn't even have clean trays in the cafeteria. If a person needed a tray to carry their dinner and dessert and drink to their table, they had to use a tray that somebody else had eaten off of. When people put their food on a tray and walk to a table in the Carnegie cafeteria, they often leave it on the tray as they eat, as it is common for the tables to have remnants of other people's food on them.

One individual who was diagnosed with Shigella last month, after eating regularly at Carnegie Center -- although this person cannot be certain they got it at Carnegie -- was shocked to learn that people are being expected to use other people's dirty food trays. "I was really sick for two weeks but it's been five weeks now and I'm still not totally over it," this person says. "They need to clean that cafeteria up." Carnegie just got an expensive new dishwasher, another concerned member pointed out.

At least one staff person does make an effort to keep the cafeteria tables clean. Members report seeing Jacquie wiping down tables, but many of her fellow CUPE members seem reluctant to do this job, claiming that it should be done by "volunteers".

A Carnegie member reported seeing a food server wearing rubber gloves, and operating the cash register as well, pick up a piece of food and put it in her mouth with her fingers. Then a customer ordered a piece of banana bread and she picked it up with the same hand that had just been in her mouth. Generally, cake at Carnegie is wrapped in cellophane but on this occasion the member says, the server "reached into a bag to get it." The member knows this food server -- who "volunteers" and is paid in food vouchers -- and says she is a drug abuser.

Public Health officials are tracking Shigella in the Vancouver. Time for them to swoop down on the Carnegie Center cafeteria and enforce stricter health standards.

The problem of the Carnegie cafeteria being unclean is an ongoing one under the administration of Director Ethel Whitty. The Downtown Eastside Enquirer has mentioned this and other inadequate provision of services previously, and drew the ire of Whitty who at one point was involved in a "witch hunt" at Carnegie to find tattle-tale bloggers.

Homeless Blogger Gets Elected

Holy brazen blogger, Batman! Bill got elected!

William "Bill" Simpson, a homeless man in Vancouver who was barred from the Carnegie Learning Centre for allegedly blogging, won a seat on the Board of Directors at Carnegie Centre last Thursday evening.

Carnegie is a community Centre operated by City of Vancouver management staff with input from a Board of Directors elected from the membership of the Centre. Carnegie doubles as a left wing organizing base in the Downtown Eastside neighborhood. It publishes the left wing Carnegie Newsletter, in which editor Paul Taylor has admitted in writing that he censors submissions not ideologically compatible with his views. When a blog, The Downtown Eastside Enquirer, deviated from the party line, it drew fire from Carnegie staff, Board members, and the Newsletter.

Simpson opened his candidate's speech at the June 7th Annual General Meeting with, "I am not the blogger." The crowd laughed.

But laughs don't get you elected. Votes do. So Simpson brought a contingent of Carnegie members with him to the meeting. In the days before the election, Simpson, a tall, blue-eyed man in his mid fifties with wavy, light brown graying hair which he wears in a short ponytail, says, "I talked to people and asked them if they'd be willing to come to the AGM and support me."

Simpson says he actually does not blog on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer, but adds, "If I did, I would be proud of it." These are words Simpson first spoke late last year to Bob Sarti, a Board member who waved his finger at Simpson in the corridor outside the Learning Centre and yelled, "Tattle tale Queen of the Carnegie! Tattle tale Queen of the Carnegie!" The stress of publishing power in the hands of the masses appeared to be taking its toll on Sarti, a retired Vancouver Sun reporter who was organizing the Anarchist Surrealist Jamboree which took over the Carnegie Centre in Janaury 2007. After decades of left wing activism, Sarti and fellow Carnegie Board member Margaret "Muggs" Siguirgson retired to Hornby Island, famous for Dr. Hornby marijuana plant fertilizer.

But Sarti got in a parting shot at alleged blogger Simpson before departing in January 2007. He voted along with other Board members to bar Simpson. On Dec. 15, 2006, Simpson was met at the door of the Carnegie Learning Centre by teacher Lucy Alderson and escorted to the office of "Skip", the Head of Security for Carnegie. There Simpson was informed that he was barred from the Carnegie Learning Centre for blogging on the DTES Enquirer blog. In the Dec. 15, 2006 edition of the Carnegie Newsletter -- a newsletter subsidized by the City of Vancouver which provides free office space, etc. -- Sarti was credited with being the "unsung hero" who outed the "now-verified blog bozo."

The Downtown Eastside Enquirer gives a voice to political dissidents inside Carnegie and on the Downtown Eastside, people who deviate from the party line of the left wing establishment in the neighbourhood. Alderson, along with Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty, Education and Arts Co-ordinator Rika Uto, and others had been given low marks on the blog for too frequently locking students out of the Learning Centre or evacuating students in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday -- always with the excuse that a volunteer (usually somebody with a known drinking problem) hadn't shown up.

For a short time, the blog tracked closures of the Learning Centre and Computer Room on the 3rd floor of the Carnegie Centre, facilities which would close despite up to $500,000 worth of management, supervisory and support staff having offices just meters away on the same floor. On the coldest evening of the year when Vancouver's underclass flocked to Carnegie to keep warm by passing the time watching television or using the internet, Whitty allowed them to be locked out of the Computer Room near her office. She took off out the door of the Centre.

This new accountability-by-blogger has met a hostile reception at Carnegie. Just a couple of weeks ago, long term Board member Jeff Sommers accused Simpson of writing for "that stalker rag" and refused to talk to him. Sommers was re-elected to the Board along with Simpson on Thursday evening.

Although Simpson has become a symbol of blogger repression at the Carnegie Centre, he has not been the only one targeted. Simpson was barred during what has been termed a 'witch hunt' for bloggers in 2006-07. Volunteers were interrogated by staff and encouraged to turn in bloggers posting on the DTES Enquirer. One long term volunteer is now on record as stating that he was interrogated by numerous staff persons -- Director Ethel Whitty, Learning Centre teachers Lucy Alderson and Betsy Alkenbrack, and Volunteer Co-ordinator Colleen Gorrie -- about who he may have seen blogging on the DTES Enquirer. He stated that he was pressed on separate occasions by all of these staff persons – all of whom claim that empowering this Downtown Eastside "community" is their priority -- to finger a close friend of ten years as "the blogger", a friend who incidentally is not a blogger but had been caught in the net of staff suspicion.

Being under suspicion is enough to get a person barred. Carnegie Board member Gena Thompson admitted in a comment this year on the internet news site NowPublic.com that Simpson had been barred based on suspicion:

"…I am a Carnegie Board member and took part in several of the decisions criticised in DTES Enquirer, including the decision to bar the suspected author…."

Thompson argued that a blogger making criticisms of Carnegie should come out from behind their internet name and release their real name – but she acknowledged that such a blogger would risk becoming a target of Carnegie repression:

"After all, all he risks by having his identity known is that Carnegie may choose to refuse him access to its public computers."

Carnegie staff do not appear to have a problem with all bloggers -- only those who criticize them. In fact, the Carnegie Learning Centre hosts Homeless Nation, a Canada Council funded project which teaches people to blog about their experiences as homeless and poor people and blame their problems on centrist or conservative politicians. Did I mention that nobody using Carnegie Learning Centre computers to blog on the Homeless Nation is homeless? Revealing such inconvenient truths was what made the DTES Enquirer a target of repression at Carnegie in the first place. Staff and Board members were livid last fall when the opera "Condemned" was performed in the Carnegie Theatre and the DTES Enquirer pointed out that Ethel Whitty and others were falsely presenting it to newspaper reading taxpayers as written and performed primarily by homeless people. The DTES Enquirer pointed out that the vast majority of those involved in that opera were not homeless and were, in fact, well-ensconced in some of the best social housing in Canada. Gena Thompson's name was mentioned in this regard, apparently leading to her claim that she had been "flamed" by the DTES Enquirer and therefore supported barring "suspected author" Bill Simpson.

After last Thursday's AGM, Simpson says, Director Ethel Whitty shook his hand and congratulated him. "I remain cold to her," he says of this manager from the City who was instrumental in getting him barred for blogging. Like other Carnegie members, Simpson has lingering questions about what, if any, role Whitty played in directing Vancouver Police to contact him at Carnegie recently to chat about the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. He told police he did not write for that blog. Other past and current Carnegie members have also been contacted by police.

One Carnegie member, an American, has observed that the repression of bloggers by Vancouver City government staff is reminiscent of that being practiced by governments in European counties where free speech laws are limp. "This isn't police work", he said, "It's police state work."



Election Results: Carnegie Board of Directors elected June 7, 2007

Incumbents:

Gena Thompson
Dora Saunders
Peter Fairchild
Jeff Sommers
Gerald Wells
Margaret Prevost
Sophia Freigang
James Pau
Grant Chancey
Michael Read
Mathew Mathew
Stephen Lytton

New Board members:

William Simpson
Rachel Davis
April Smith

"Mr. Black" gets ten

Before Dennis Knibbs was sentenced for second degree murder this morning, his lawyer Glen Orris told the judge that he had been involved in such events as Black History Month and had been named "Mr. Black" as an "award in 2004 in Vancouver". Later in the morning, Judge Arne Silverman told the packed courtroom that Knibbs' past involvement "in a positive way with the Black community and Black community activities" was being taken into account in the sentencing.

Knibbs sat in the glass prisoner's box wearing a bright red, long sleeved t-shirt, his head slightly bowed, He did not seem to notice when Orris got his age wrong, telling the judge he was 41 instead of 31 years old. And he did not turn to look when his supporters streamed in a little late, or when one of his male supporters verbally harassed the victim's mother.

Knibbs has family support

Orris told the judge that Dennis Knibbs had been born in Montreal to parents originally from Jamaica. Knibbs' mother and father are separated but his mother remains in Montreal, along with other members of his immediate family, "all gainfully employed". "His mother was here at the start of the trial," Orris added, but she had to return to her job in Montreal. While out on bail awaiting his murder trial, Knibbs worked in a cousin's restaurant on Commercial Drive. Judge Silverman would later mention that Knibbs had "good family support".

Knibbs has two sons from a previous relationship -- one was mentioned as being eight years old -- whom he "sees regularly" and helps support "when he can."

Knibbs, the judge would later add, "left school" after grade 11.

Knibbs' criminal record before murder: the bad and the good

Before sentencing, the judge reviewed Knibbs' criminal record, a record he noted the jury had not been aware of when recommending that he serve the minimum of 10 years before being eligible to apply for parole. Knibbs' record conveyed messages, both good and bad. Knibbs had a "minor" conviction in 1995 for possession of a narcotic and received a $75 fine. Knibbs had three convictions for "trafficking in a narcotic" in 1996 and was "sentenced to 28 months for each of those three to be served at the same time." Knibbs' latest offense of murder had occurred in a drug trafficking context. Bad. Between 1996 and his arrest for murder in 2005, Knibbs had no convictions. He had, the judge said, "been free and clear" for almost a decade. Good.

Harassing the victim's mother

Like Knibbs, Trumaine Abraham "Ekoh" Nabib, also has family. His mother Lanre Aba Nabib, a slim, youthful -- her son was 21 yrs. old when he was shot two years ago -- Black woman, with very short curly hair, showed up for the sentencing. On this sunny but nippy spring day in Vancouver, she wore a soft, wool, beige and black sweater, an off-white skirt, and a long light green blazer. She sat quietly in the front row.

But one of Knibbs's supporters would soon get to her. He was a tall, twenty-something Mulatto man, who had filed in late with a group of young people and sat behind her. He wore a new black t-shirt with a large red heart depicted on the back, a heart with 8 small round holes in it and long drips of what looked like blood coming from it, and a small crack breaking it apart from the top. After sitting down, the man seemed to recognize the victim's mother. From his seat behind and two seats to the left of her, he gazed at her for a prolonged period; it was not a hostile gaze. But he reacted with disdain when the judge turned to a Victim's Impact Statement she had submitted on behalf of herself and her other children.

The young man reacted instantly as the judge noted that in the Statement in front of him, Habib's mother was "speaking in a positive way" about her son, noting that he had entered the world of drugs "only recently". The young man looked her way and began making remarks, making it difficult for people in the vicinity to hear the judge reading the Victim's Impact Statement. The victim's mother turned around and responded to the young man. He shot back, and the two exchanged comments for a few seconds, in low but unfriendly tones. Finally, Lanre Habib said, in a low, terse tone, "Shut up", and turned back around. He did shut up. But by that time the Statement was over. The sheriffs hadn't noticed. Knibbs hadn't noticed.

Neither the victim's mother or Knibbs' supporters are prone to such exchanges in court. Lanre Habib has sat quietly during previous appearances in court. (She introduced herself to me, the blogger, during a court break and was polite, saying that she was pleased to have met me. She has never attempted to influence coverage of the case.) Knibbs' supporters are young and sometimes whisper too much when court is in session, but they haven't come looking for trouble. One of Knibbs' male friends with long corn rows was clearly angry in the minutes after the verdict last Saturday, but waited until he got into the hallway to express his anger about "lies and rumours".

The judge has the power to change just one number
The judge explained to the packed courtroom, which he observed included "well dressed young people from a school", what a second degree murder conviction means. It automatically means "life in prison" with a 25 year sentence, and a requirement that a minimum of 10 years be served in prison before eligibility for parole. The judge added that most of this punishment is out of his control -- except for one number. He can top up the minimum 10 year period Knibbs must serve in prison before he is eligible to apply for parole. Prosecutor, Michael Luchencko, asked him to do that, to jack up the minimum sentence to anywhere from 10-13 years.

Judge Silverman explained to members of the public in the court room that when Knibbs becomes eligible for parole, it "doesn't mean he gets out; it just means he gets to apply."

What worked in Knibbs' favour during sentencing

In deciding whether to top up the 10 year minimum, Judge Silverman listed facts that he was considering in Knibbs' favour:

In the days leading up to the deaths of Habib and Liscombe, the judge said, Knibbs had intervened in an "altercation" between the two. Knibbs had given Habib "one punch" and "ended the altercation".

In the minutes before the murders, Knibbs and his cousin had questioned an associate of Habib's, then escorted him out of the building. He was "not assaulted or anything", the judge noted.

One thing that the judge found to be "most favourable" to the accused was that the victim had fired the first shot. Then events "unfolded quickly", over five to six seconds. The judge noted that this murder was not even close to first degree; it lacked planning or deliberation: "It was reaction."

Another factor that the judge said he considered "significant" was "the fact that the victim brought the shotgun to the scene." "Habib acquired the shot gun on an instantaneous basis", the judge said. He noted that a witness, 19 yr. Leroy Charlie, had testified that Habib entered his room on the afternoon of the shootings and pulled a sawed off shotgun out from under his trench coat. "It is possible that if Mr. Habib had not have brought the shotgun, Mr. Knibbs would not have shot him."

What worked against Knibbs during sentencing
Judge Silverman said he is convinced that Knibbs did not plan to go to Habib's room to kill him, but he and his cousin "were certainly going to confront him". After Habib fired the first shot, though, Knibbs had a "quick reaction that came with an intent to kill or to cause bodily harm" severe enough to result in death. "There is no question in my mind", the judge said.

What is very clear from the verdict," Judge Silverman said, "is that Mr. Knibbs was not acting in self defense and he was not provoked in the sense that the law means that word." Silverman continued, "When Mr. Knibbs shot Mr. Habib, Mr. Habib no longer presented a threat of violence to Mr. Knibbs...he had been disarmed or his weapon was no longer working and Mr. Knibbs knew it."

Judge listens to the jury

After Saturday's verdict, the judge told the jury that if they recommended a minimum sentence, he would definitely take it into consideration. He said he would listen to them. And he did. He ruled that Knibbs will be eligible to apply for parole in ten years.

The judge told Knibbs, that he is "barred for life from possession of a firearm." Knibbs must also provide a DNA sample.

The trial: the last business of your child's life

Writer Dominick Dunne, whose young adult daughter was murdered, once said he thought it was important for the parents of a murder victim to make appearances at the trial: "The trial is the last business of your child's life."

I saw Ekoh Habib's mother a few minutes after the sentencing, when I came out of Tim Horton's with a take-out coffee in my hand. She was sauntering along in her green blazer in the spring sun, looking down at the sidewalk.

Vancouver Police caught lying at murder trial

False testimony was provided by a Vancouver Police officer Wednesday at the murder trial of Dennis Knibbs in B.C. Supreme Court. We know it was provided by either Constable Mark Naufeld or Constable Eileen Volpatti? Which one was it?

When Constable Naufeld and Constable Volpatti separately testified today about the handling of evidence – a black athletic bag with DUNLOP written on the side containing a shot gun -- which was discovered outside the New Wings Hotel just after two people had been shot in a room upstairs.

Constable Naufeld testifies

When Constable Naufeld, in his 20’s, Caucasian with short, black, wavy hair, arrived at the scene, he saw several VPD officers dealing with “various women” who were exiting the New Wings through the front door. He stopped one of the women. He had observed her carrying a black athletic bag but that was not the reason he stopped her; police were stopping everyone coming out of the hotel. “She was carrying [the bag] by the straps as she exited the hotel.”

Naufeld told her to put the bag down and stand near a wall. She “put the bag at her feet”, he said. “She moved at least 10-15 feet from where she had placed it.”

He later confirmed that she was Lauren Lee Wayne, a native woman in her early twenties, with a “13” tattooed on her stomach. “Did she remain standing at the wall?”, prosecutor Alisha Adams asked. She did, Naufeld said.

“Constable Volpatti then arrived to assist you,” Adams said. “Constable Volpatti showed me what was in the bag”, Naufeld said. He saw “what appeared to be a sawed off shotgun” inside the bag.

Then Naufeld said, “I returned to stand with Ms. Wayne.”

Constable Naufeld contradicts himself

When cross-examined by defense lawyer, Glen Orris, Naufeld started out with basically the same version of events that he had given the prosecutor. When he arrived at the New Wings after the shooting, he had seen Ms. Wayne exiting the front door with “four or five” other women. He told her “to put whatever’s in her hands on the ground”, and she complied. “Then you asked her to move away from the entrance area”, Orris said. Naufeld added that he had “walked her 10-15 feet away from the bag.”

Then what did you do? “I stayed with her”, Naufeld responded. Naufeld asked her to identify herself and then “verified it on the police computer system” in a police car. It was beginning to sound as though he had left the witness unattended at the wall. But he corrected that impression by stating that other police units had begun to arrive so he had asked another officer to check “your witness and mine.” Wayne’s name was punched into the computer and the “The description and photo matched,” Naufeld said. “Then I went back to stand with Ms. Wayne,” he said.

Then Constable Volpatti got your attention, Orris said. “Are you still by Ms.Wayne?,” Orris asks. Naufeld confirmed that he was.

At this point, Naufeld claimed, Constable Volpatti “asked me to look at the evidence.” She “asked me to take a look inside the bag.” He then added, smiling slightly, “I had a peek into the bag” and saw a “sawed off shot gun.” Orris suggested that Naufeld must have separated from his witness to walk 10-15 feet over to the bag to which Volpatti had drawn his attention. “She had the bag in her hand,” Naufeld quickly added. I’m confused, said Orris, seemingly playing dumb. “Constable Volpatti comes over to you and says, ‘Look in the bag’.” Then Orris reminded Naufeld that he had just testified, minutes earlier when questioned by the Crown prosecutor, that he had looked into the bag containing the shot gun “and then went back towards Ms. Wayne.” Naufeld is then nailed down on a claim that Orris no doubt anticipated Constable Volpatti would contradict: “At all times, you where standing within a few feet of Ms. Wayne.” Constable Naufeld responded, “Correct”.

Constable Volpatti contradicts Constable Naufeld

Constable Volpatti, 30ish, white, tall, thin, came to court wearing a black leather sports jacket -- unlike Naufeld who wore his uniform -- with her wavy brown hair in a pony tail. She testified that when she arrived at the New Wings the night of the shootings, she saw five women standing in front of the hotel with police. She began a “safety pat down searches” of these women to make sure they had no weapons.

Behind two females, she spotted the black duffle bag on the sidewalk. She “pulled it to the side of the sidewalk” and unzipped it. She saw a 15 inch “sawed off shot gun” in the bag. Volpatti confirmed that she “looked in it while it was on the ground.”

Defence lawyer Orris: Did you pick it up at any point?
Volpatti: No, I did not.

Volpatti then confirmed that she had asked the women on the sidewalk who the bag belonged to – although she claimed, “I don’t recall raising my voice”, as had been suggested by Orris. She confirmed that the bag was in the “middle of the sidewalk” at this time.

Orris reviewed Volpatti’s testimony one more time: “You see the bag on the ground…pulled it away a couple of feet.” “Two or three feet,” Volpatti interjected. When Orris asked her if she had ever picked up the bag, she responded, “No”. Then he nailed this point down a second time:

Orris: So you never picked up the bag, never touched it again?
Volpatti: No.

So Volpatti didn’t move key evidence, the bag with the shot gun, ten to fifteen feet away for ‘Show & Tell’ with Naufeld, as he had testified. Or did she? Which one of these officers is lying?

This lie is not a casual one. Both Naufeld and Volpatti were thoroughly questioned by Mr. Orris on the movement of the bag containing the shot gun. If either officer couldn’t remember something, they had ample opportunity to admit that – but one of them seems to have chosen instead to give false testimony under oath.

Orris is transparent about his strategy. He explained it in front of the jury on Monday: If he can show that a witness is lying about little things, it can be assumed that they could be lying about bigger things.