Vancouver Library Eliminates Public Computers for Seniors at Carnegie

A million dollars worth of City management staff put their heads together and decided that the popular public computers in the Carnegie Seniors Lounge that had been going full tilt 13 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the past 15 years, were best eliminated.

Those computers were one of the most in-demand services in the Centre. People would sign up and sit and wait for half an hour or more for their turn. Ever notice the crowd on the front steps of Carnegie in the morning when you drive by on your way to work? They're not all buying drugs; some are waiting for a security guard to swing the doors open at 9 a.m., so they can rush past him and dash downstairs to the basement Seniors Lounge and get onto a computer, ahead of the next guy. People use those computers to check email and to look for jobs on sites such as Craig's list.

But those computers had become a source of embarrassment to the million dollars worth of City Hall and Carnegie management staff, from Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty to City Manager Penny Ballem, who have been exposed for allowing security to block access to them as punishment for free speech. This harassment of people who speak up has been previously documented on this blog so I won't go over it again. But the VPL librarian, Beth Davies, and her supervisors in the VPL administration have colluded with this withholding of library services -- often it involves blocking access to the entire VPL branch at Carnegie for months or years -- and this removal of VPL computers looks like an extension of that collusion.

Now that the internet-surfing poor will have little reason to show up at the Lounge, the poor who operate more within the comfort zone of CUPE and City management will have the lounge to themselves. You can find them sitting in there any afternoon staring at the big tv, filling in the gaps between welfare cheques and staff pay cheques. Movies made available in this City government Lounge generally fall into the range of cowboys, gangsters, and that new federal government category, "busty hookers."

Now that VPL computer access in the Lounge has been eliminated in favor of allowing big screen TV access to predominate, it's important that the savings be passed on to taxpayers. The computers and the steady stream of people who came to the Centre to use them were under the supervision of Seniors Co-ordinator, Marlene Trick (formerly exposed for supervising the City's now defunct "Teddy Bear Picnics" for full grown functional adults.)

The computer program in the Seniors Lounge was also a rich source of make-work projects for Security guards who would be called to infantalize computer users who stood up to the belligerant coffee-seller, a ritual which involved security guards writing "incident reports" and executing barrings as punishments, and holding follow-up meetings. All of this will be gone now, meaning that less labour hours will be needed for the co-ordinator to co-ordinate and security guards to punish.

The cramped computer room by the bathroom at the back of the third floor at Carnegie remains open. In fact the computers in there have been replaced with new ones. But Seniors have to compete with other age groups to get onto a computer there, increasing the number of people on the waiting list. People sitting in the waiting area for their name be called to get onto a computer can sometimes get frustrated and ask the monitor questions like, "How much longer do you think I'll have to wait?," and some monitors -- not all -- get annoyed at the ongoing pressure and if a disagreement ensues, security may be called.

This tension can be expected to increase with the elimination of Seniors' computers by the million dollar management, which of course includes CUPE's Dan Tetrault who is Assistant Manager at Carnegie and, like BP CEO Tony Hayward, has a yacht which can be helpful for clearing the head of the problems of the "small people".

One Small Step for Skip Everall, One Giant Step for Carnegie Membership

It's the same old story. I hear it so many times.

A photographer complained last week to Carnegie Security boss Skip Everall about the threats being directed at him when he attempts to use Vancouver Public Library computers at Carnegie Centre. The photographer said a native woman -- he said her name -- who is sometimes on duty as computer monitor is abusing her access to publicly funded Carnegie "security" guards. If an issue comes up with a computer user (sometimes issues have to be worked out such as whose turn it is on the waiting list) that actually requires communication, she skips the communication, and tells the person, "I'm calling security." End of discussion. If the person doesn't become passive, she carries through with the threat.

Last week, this monitor threatened to call security on this photographer when a disagreement arose. She didn't actually carry through with the threat on that occasion, but she has previously, so he lodged a verbal complaint with Carnegie Security Co-ordinator, Skip Everall.

The photographer did not know that he was not the first person to lodge a complaint about the use of the threat at Carnegie to "call Security" as a substitute for communicating with Downtown Eastsiders. This substitution was previously brought to the attention of City Manager Penny Ballem in writing in 2009 and during a meeting in January 2010. The photographer used a term that others have used though, to describe this substitution: "bullying".

The photographer was not unhappy with Everall's response. Everall told him that this particular computer monitor had been doing that often.

This is a step forward. Everall was essentially admitting that the right to call security is being abused at Carnegie, at least in this case. Mind you, this computer monitor is a volunteer; it is unlikely that Everall would make such an admission in cases where the threat was being uttered by staff, his fellow CUPE members -- and there are many such cases.

Everall's admission is nonetheless a step in the right direction in a City of Vancouver community centre where threats to call security have become the default method of dealing with low income people who know their rights and expect them to be respected.

VPL Asked to Suspend Library Assistant Wanda Power over alleged use of Carnegie "Security" for Political Ends

Shelagh Flaherty, Director of the Vancouver Public Library, has been asked to stop allowing Carnegie library staff to call "security" to repress freedom of expression. "I'm calling security" is a shortcut regularly taken by Carnegie staff unwilling to communicate effectively with the low income people they are well paid to work with, preferring instead to turn assertive people over to security forces for bullying.

Flaherty has also been asked to ensure that a recent alleged offender, Carnegie library assistant Wanda Power, is suspended without pay for a minimum of two weeks. Power is accused of acting with malice in lodging an unfounded security complaint against a non-violent female for purposes of intimidation and defamation.

Photo: Shelagh Flaherty, Library Director

The pattern on the part of Carnegie library staff of calling security on non-violent people makes a mockery of the VPL vision statement: "The library inspires and enriches the human spirit."

Carnegie "security" forces which are plain-clothed guards with a plain-clothed boss, are routinely called by CUPE members at Carnegie Library and throughout Carnegie Center in response to assertiveness in low income people. The Vancouver Public Library branch at Carnegie Center has been participating in this type of abuse for years. For at least a decade, denial of access to VPL public-access computers has been used at Carnegie to punish assertive individuals, individuals who have dared speak up about issues such as sexual harassment. Even daring to get oneself elected to the Board of Carnegie can, if you're politics don't match those of Carnegie staff, get you barred from all Carnegie services, including all VPL services.

For years a library assistant (now retired) -- a short female with dyed blonde hair -- would call security multiple times a day as a substitute for communicating with Downtown Eastsiders. When Larry, a fork-lift operator at a fish plant, had to interact with her at the book check-out counter and told her politely that he was finding her rude, her only response was to walk out to the lobby of Carnegie Center and get a security guard. The security guard whispered to Larry, "What did you say to that bitch?" Security guards seem weary of well-paid staff steadily delegating the work of communicating with Downtown Eastsiders to them. There was a sense of relief when this library assistant retired. But a new library assistant, Wanda Power, is exhibiting the same tendency to call security as a substitute for doing the work of communicating with Carnegie members, work she is paid to do.

A recent incident with Power began in the upstairs cafeteria at Carnegie on the afternoon of Sunday, June 7 and ended in the library with her announcing that she was calling security. Power allegedly used her status as a staff person to incite a man who was yelling and berating a woman with a skateboard in the food line-up, repeatedly poking his cane at her.

The man, in his late 70's with a German accent, began yelling at the woman after she set her skateboard on the counter in the cafeteria momentarily as she searched for money in her bag. The wheels were not touching the counter, she says. "I knew I shouldn't do that. I picked it up right away," she insists. (I have seen people set all kinds of things on the cafeteria counter, from large bags they drag back and forth from homeless shelters to pack sacks with shoes and cups dangling off them, even bags of cans they have collected on the streets or from garbage cans. People don't set food directly on that counter; they set their trays on that counter.)

After the woman picked up her skateboard from the counter and was again holding it in her arms, the elderly man began yelling at her that she shouldn't have set it there. She said it was a mistake and that she was now holding it, that there was nothing that could be done about it now. But he continued yelling. He continued making the same point over and over and over, jabbing his cane toward her face each time he made it. He made one additional point too, that she should carry a bag at all times and put her skateboard in it, according to one of the numerous witnesses in the line. The skateboarder told him to stop yelling at her, that he had made his point. He continued. She raised her voice and told him, "I don't need your opinion." They went back and forth like this.

Wanda Power, a notoriously officious library assistant trained to check-out and re-shelve books, was up ahead in the line when this incident began. Almost immediatedly after the man started yelling, witnesses say, Power called out to him that she supported him, that she had seen the skateboard on the counter. "It was like a game of 'I spy my little eye' that kids play", the skateboarder recalls. By this time, as the skateboarder was reportedly holding her skateboard, the rantings of the cane-rager and the support he was getting from Power were gratuitious, not to mention disruptive to others standing in the line.

The skateboarder alleges that Power's conduct served to reinforce the cane-rager. "The more she told him she agreed with him, the worse he got. He was enjoying the attention." The skateboarder stepped out of her place in the line to avoid his cane.

There is no doubt that this cane-rager knew that his behaviour was being legitimated by a staff person. Power's I.D. card was dangled from her neck as she encourged him. Even without her I.D. card, many of the people in the line would have recognized her as staff. I rarely go into that library but I knew immediately who she was when people described her as being short, fortyish, with shoulder length wavy dark hair and a spare tire. Wanda allegedly continued to abuse her position of authority to incite this man, even when the skateboard had been off the counter for several minutes.

After Power paid the cashier, witnesses say, she picked up her tray and turned to leave, then stopped. "It was like her grand finale," says the skateboarder. Power held her chin in the air like she is prone to do -- I've seen her do this Obamaesque chin-to-sky pose too, even when she's walking along the sidewalk -- and announced once again that this man had her support. She then looked back the cafeteria cashier and encouraged him to support the man too as, "He has a point". The fact that he was using the end of his cane to make his point over and over again apparently didn't phase her. Neither did his verbal abuse. Once again he was reinforced and continued his tirade as Powers exited stage left. "What a fcukin' drama queen," one man said of Power, having previously witnessed her interventions over the slightest infractions in the library.

The skateboarding woman had the confidence -- confidence is barely tolerated by Carnegie staff -- to go to the library afterwards and tell Wanda Power that she had been wrong to intervene in that situation and encourage the cane-rager. Power said it was within her rights as, "I'm Center staff." The skateboarding woman responded, according to a man standing around the corner listening, "You're Vancouver Public Library staff; the library is separate from the Center." Power had no reply to that.

The woman asked Wanda for the name of her supervisor. It was there that Wanda got slippery. That fish called Wanda reportedly said, "Come with me to security, now". The skateboarder refused. Only at the City of Vancouver's Carnegie Center is female assertiveness considered a "security" issue. And only at the City of Vancouver's Carnegie Center does expressing concern about the conduct of a staff person make you a candidate for a meeting with "security".

A meeting with security generally results in a report being written on you -- never on an offending staff person -- and typed into the City of Vancouver "security" database. It is impossible to have such a report expunged. Should you even start asking questions about this report, you may find that anonymous witnesses will suddenly be entered into the report. You will never, of course, be given the names of these anonymous witnesses, never be told what they said, and never be able to adequately defend yourself. In fact, demonstrating persistence in clearing your name is deemed an additional offence, justification in the eyes of "security" of barring you from the entire Carnegie building including the library. This is the Guantanamo Bay in which the fish called Wanda swims.

Power responded to the skateboarding woman's request for the name of her supervisor by giving her the name of the Carnegie librarian, Beth Davies. When it comes to civil liberties abuses at Carnegie, Davies has shown about as much spine as an oyster buried in the sand of Guantanamo Bay.

Powers, of course, knows that Davies will hold her accountable for nothing as the two are pals. At the library they spend extended periods of time, along with other library staff, laughing loudly and socializing behind the partition that serves as their office.

Like most women who go to Carnegie though, the skateboarding woman is capable of looking after herself, setting boundaries, that sort of thing. She told Power not to interfere in her life in future, that she had no reason to interact with her and that if she had a grievance against her in future, she could communicate it through one of the other library staff. (She alleges that Powers has interfered with her previously over petty issues. Power twice told a man talking to her in the library one evening to be quiet, while allowing other people to whisper or even talk loudly in the library. As mentioned earlier, Power herself regularly laughs and talks loudly with other staff for extended periods of time. Power also told the skateboarder on a previous occasion not to bring food into the library; the skateboarder complied only to witness Power bringing the full meal deal on a tray into the library. Mice in the library don't distinguish between crumbs left by staff or patrons.) Power responded that she had a right to interact with her if she was in the Library. Rather than discuss this issue further, Power announced, "I'm going to talk to security." Power strutted out of the library and up to the front desk in the lobby and spoke to a security guard sitting with the websurfer-boy receptionist.

The skateboard did not take the bait. She left.

The skateboarder knows what many Carnegie members know, that "I'm calling security" is code for, "I'm arranging to have you bullied." Carnegie security staff have no more ability to work out Power's dispute than she does. A grade ten education is required to work as Carnegie security, as confirmed by job postings that appear on the Centre bulletin board. Some of the security people have been fired for drug problems. One is an alcoholic routinely seen cavorting with prostitutes in the neighborhood, at times with his Carnegie security I.D. dangling from his neck. Being ill-equipped to deal with disputes, Carnegie security men routinely resort to bullying tactics, giving orders like, "Another word out of you and you're barred!". If you ask Security boss Skip Everall his name, he may tell you, "You're barred from the building now!" And security personnel are in no position to give a fair hearing to any complainant; they're CUPE members and the union would be displeased if they started writing-up fellow CUPE members.

To be fair to security guards, they are being used and abused by the higher ups at Carnegie. It is not part of the job description of security guards to have contentious issues between staff and Center patrons delegated to them for resolution. They haven't taken the social work courses or advanced communiction skills -- "I hear you" -- that Ethel Whitty and other staff have taken. But staff from Director Ethel Whitty to Library Assistant Wanda Power have images as "progressives" that they won't tarnish by telling low income people to put up and shut up, so they delegate this dirty work to the rough-around-the-edges security personnel. Then if Whitty gets a complaint about abuse by security personnel, she concludes that she can't take sides because, 'I wasn't there, I didn't see what happened'. But she knows exactly what is happening.

It is time the Vancouver Public Library pull out of Guantanamo Bay. And it is time fundraisers such as the Libary Foundation and Friends of the Vancouver Public Libary start fully disclosing to donors the rampant human rights abuses being perpetrated by libary staff. (We previously reported that Library assistant, Johann, called security on a man who farted in the library. He didn't have time to communicate effectively with the man because he (Johann) was in the middle of a chess game.)

If you don't have the communication skills to deal with people at Carnegie Center -- in other words, if you lied in your job interview about how much you 'enjoy working with people' -- request a transfer to the basement of the Central Branch and finish out your career reinforcing book spines. It's time those at the VPL crushing the spirits of low income people with their addiction to calling security and those telling library donors about the VPL's committment to enriching the human spirit made an effort to get onto the same page.

Library Square

Acrobats practiced at Library Square on Friday, May 1/09.  (Sorry, my camera is broken and stuck on an old date.)

Young people demonstrated at Library Square on Saturday, April 25/09 about the use of child soldiers in Uganda.  A spokesperson said that the U.S. is the only country that has made any effort to put a stop to it.

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Bride at the library on Saturday, April 25, 2009

People sit in the sun on the steps in front of the Central Library on Friday, April 24, 209. 

An acquaintance commented that it seems as if we've gone directly from winter to summer this year, skipping spring.  

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.  

Waves of Gentrification

photo: Waves coffee shop at Main St. & Cordova, Mar. 2/09

They say that with gentrification comes dog walkers and specialty coffee shops.

Another Waves coffee shop is opening on the Downtown Eastside, just two blocks from the first one that opened last year at Main & Pender.  The new Waves at Main and Cordova will open on March 16th, in the now renovated space that used to house Vic's Coffee Shop, where you could get good coffee and the occasional bout of e coli.

There were lots of staff in Waves today, all wearing the same dark uniforms.  At first, I thought the place was swarming with cops.  

The new location may prove profitable if the Vancouver Police building across the street once again becomes police headquarters, a move Chief Chu supports.  Chu told the media last month that he would like to move VPD headquarters back to the Downtown Eastside, as the move to Cambie St. allowed the Downtown Eastside to deteriorate.  Even police officers driving to and from work in the neighborhood, Chu said, can deter open crime.

Waves has free internet access which there is never enough of on the Downtown Eastside.  An increasing number of Downtown Eastsiders, frustrated with the unreliable access to Vancouver Public Library computers at the Carnegie Center computer room where Director Ethel Whitty too often allows staff to lock the poor out, are purchasing netbooks now that the prices have come down. But often they don't have internet connections at home.

Boxing Day Deception at Carnegie

A thirty-something man says he travelled in the falling snow from 41st Ave. and Victoria Dr. to Carnegie to use the Vancouver Public Library public-access computers because "all the other libraries are closed." When he arrived, the computer room on the third floor of Carnegie which houses most of the public library computers in the building was closed.

This is false advertising. The computer room was scheduled to be open on Boxing Day. Carnegie is funded to be open 365 days a year.

The closure of the computer room was frustrating to a number of Carnegie members. One regular computer room user said the volunteer who supposedly hadn't shown up, Norman, had actually left two months ago and the Carnegie Volunteer Co-ordinators Colleen and Sindi hadn't replaced him. Director Ethel Whitty seems to make no contingency plans for the holiday season or any other season to ensure that services stay open even if a volunteer doesn't show up.

The closure of the 3rd floor computer room means that the few other computers available in the building are heavily taxed with line-ups.

(Above photo taken from inside the Carnegie Library at around 3:20 p.m. today as snow falls outside.)

Central Library Evacuated due to Fire Alarm on Roof

At around 8 p.m. this evening, a loud bell started ringing - bing bong, bing bong -- at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library. A woman came on the loud speaker to say that the fire alarm on the roof had gone off and she would keep us posted.

Later she came on the loud speaker again and in a more excited voice told us to evacuate. She said something about "the roof" but I didn't hear exactly what, because of the noise the alarm was making.

I asked one of the staff persons putting on an orange neon vest where the fire was and she said, "I don't known, one of the upper floors".

Patrons came down the elevators and streamed into the lobby. As seen in the above photo, two firemen entered the library.

Suddenly there were staff everywhere wearing orange neon vests. It was obvious that staff have emergency response training.

One staff person, a middle aged woman without an orange vest, zipped into the washrooms to make sure there was no one in them. She kept leaning on people lingering over the first floor computers to get a move on.

I wasn't paying close attention but it seemed to me that the entire library was evacuated in under five minutes. At the risk of sounding like I have Stolkholm Syndrome after being a taxpayer held hostage by library staff this summer, I will say I was impressed by the performance of library staff.

Some staff and patrons went outside and stood on the snowy steps. From the steps, billows of what looked like steam or smoke poured off the roof. People were saying it was probably just steam. One guy looked around and said that none of the other buildings had it.

At about 8:40 p.m. staff were allowed back inside the library. A few patrons were lined up in the lobby in front of the locked doors at about 8:45 p.m. when I left.

Author at VPL "Freedom to Read Week" Denies being "Jew Hater"

Greg Felton says he doesn’t hate Jews. But at the Vancouver Public Library last night, City Librarian Paul Whitney went into damage control mode over the decision to feature Felton and his book, “The Host and the Parasite: How Israel's Fifth Column Consumed America”, during Freedom to Read Week. Whitney explained that the library “must stand by the principal of freedom of expression” and therefore decided not to cancel Felton’s appearance, despite pressure from the public, including many Jews. "Intellectual freedom is not always an easy principal to uphold.”

There was tension in the crowd. One middle-aged man showed me the steel-toed, beige and white, alligator-skin cowboy boots he had worn in case a fight broke out. I sat at the back row near the exit door, just in case.

“The United States has been under Israeli occupation,” Felton stated as he spoke about his book. “Oh f--k off”, a woman in the audience blurted out. She later identified herself as a dosent at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center, when she took the microphone to call Felton “an anti-Semite, a Jew baiter, a Jew hater.”

Felton stayed calm.

He explained that he sees a “fundamental distinction” between Jews and Israel. “I have never spoken ill of the people who died under Hitler,” Felton said. “I have never spoken ill of Jews. It is possible to speak honestly without being anti-Jewish.”

Truepeers, an audience member and writer at Covenant Zone blogspot, was not buying it. When he got home, he wrote, "[I]t was like a parody of a classic libel of the 'enemy within', which Felton now dressed up, most carefully, as "anti-Zionism": here is a man who obviously knows from experience that he must distinguish "Zionists" from "Jews" and profess sympathy for ordinary Jews in order to appear 'respectable'."

Felton was not without supporters though. That was clear from the clapping that drowned out the groans when he said, “Israel was actually created quite illegally in 1948.”

A man who was clearly not a supporter took the microphone and identified himself as having been a professor of American history for 30 years. The VPL’s Freedom to Read Week appeared to have become “an excuse for an attack on Israel”, he said, noting that he was not Jewish. “Just when will you use Freedom to Read Week to mount an attack on Arabs or gays?” Whitney responded that there was “no systemic bias” at the VPL. He also mentioned that he had not been personally involved in the selection of Felton as a featured speaker. The professor shot back, “Do you have an anti-semite working for you?”

A woman took the microphone to talk about how difficult it has become to talk about this issue. Speaking with an accent that sounded East Indian, she said people can criticize India without being called “anti-Hindi”. “You can’t say one thing critical about Israel without them getting defensive.” She was sensitive to the fact, she explained, that Jews had been “persecuted”. A woman called out from the audience: “I think the word is 'killed'." It was the Holocaust Education Center woman again.

A middle-aged man took the floor to say “Jews aren’t perfect”, he had “worked in Jewish sweatshops.” “But why not give them a homeland?, he asked. Felton responded that “Jews from Europe had no business going to Israel displacing 800,000 Arabs.” More clapping.

A woman took her turn at the microphone to suggest that this event be balanced by inviting other speakers such as Irshad Manji. Manji is a woman raised Muslim who has written the book, “The Trouble with Islam Today.” But such a level of freedom of expression was not going to be tolerated by a man with a Middle Eastern accent who had earlier taken the microphone to defend Felton's right to freedom of expression, even though he disagreed with some of his positions. The man began shouting that Manji is a “hate monger”. “She’s your daughter! We don’t want her! We hate her!”

Turned out Felton wasn't crazy about her either: “I have a problem with a Muslim woman who is funded by Zionists.”

A member of the audience pointed out that Manji had previously spoken at the library. Whitney agreed. Whew!

Whitney closed the event as defensively as he had opened it: “The library is not endorsing the views presented by individual speakers.”

Felton got the last word. He thanked “the library for having the courage to stand up to the barrage of insults and intimidation”, adding that the "Israel Lobby" -- a phrase he used repeatedly throughout the evening -- "came here and hurled insults at me.”

CUPE's Back: Blocks Poor From Computers at Carnegie

CUPE came back. The inside CUPE 15 workers returned to work today at Carnegie Center in Vancouver. But they are not allowing the poor to return to work. CUPE members are blocking the poor from the public access computers inside Carnegie.

There are public access computers in Carnegie in the following locations: three in the basement Seniors Lounge, eight in the third floor computer room, 6 in the third floor Learning Center, and two in the Vancouver Public Libary branch on the first floor (although those inside the library branch are primarily for looking up titles of books and other library materials.) Of course the doors of the small Carnegie branch of the Vancouver Public Library remain locked since the VPL workers voted not to accept this week's contract offer by mediator, Brian Foley -- so nobody expected to get into the library to use those computers. But what about the computers elsewhere in the building? The poor who want to use them have been told to take a hike.

The poor have been told that the reason the computers in the building are off limits to them is that they are run by the Vancouver Public Library. Indeed, the VPL logo is on the desk tops on the screens of these computers.

Only three computers are accessible to the public in the Carnegie building. They are three of the six in the 3rd floor Learning Center. That's because those three are operated by the Vancouver Community Net, not the VPL.

So what are well-paid CUPE members who have returned to work going to be doing with their time. A primary job of Colleen Gorrie is to work to keep volunteers in the areas in the building where there are computers. The volunteers keep an eye on the computers and get people to sign-in before using them. So what is she doing now? Twiddling her thumbs?

Maybe she could use her free time to answer questions about the WCB/WorkSafe claim she made. She claimed that a blog about Carnegie was making her feel "unsafe". A man who doesn't even blog, Bill Simpson, got scapegoated and barred from the Carnegie Center as a result of this claim. (Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty revealed this reason after the barring, although the official written reason given to Simpson in a letter on City letterhead was that he "links" to the blog in question.) Now that Gorrie and some other CUPE members, like Assistant Director Dan Tetrault who delivered the barring letter to Simpson along with Whitty, will have time on their hands, it would be a perfect time to launch an investigation into the legitimacy of this WCB claim. As Carnegie Board member Grant Chancey, a pro-union guy, pointed out, there was nothing threatening whatsoever on the blog in question. "And I've looked and I've looked and I've looked." When it comes to this claim, the opinion of several bloggers is that WCB, CUPE, and a few individuals in the City legal department have some splainin' to do.

Vancouver Public Library stays open Christmas Day

What do you do on Christmas Day when you have no money but time to kill between free turkey dinners on the Downtown Eastside?

You go to the library.

"I'm glad the libary is open," one guy said as he walked into the Vancouver Public Library in the Carnegie Centre. "Everything else is closed."

The Library is paying a staff person to keep the library open, one of those Library Technicians who don't cost as much as a real librarian. She is not actually alone though. The Carnegie security guards are hanging around in the lobby just outside the wide open doors of the library.

The Library staff person looks sullen on Christmas. She's twenty-something; she looks like she's of hispanic descent. But the thing that stands out most about her is that she does not go out of her way to fuck with people. Not like the other woman who worked there for 20 years, who I haven't seen lately. She was a middle-aged, white woman with dyed blonde hair. She was wicked. You wouldn't want her around on Christmas.

This woman was rude to a Carnegie regular who works as a fork lift operator in an nearby fish plant -- $14 an hour, non union -- when she was checking out his books. So he told her that he was finding her rude. I believed L.M.'s version of events because this woman has been rude to me to; she's rude to everybody.

According to L.M., the wicked library worker responded to his complaint by marching out to the lobby to complain to Security about him. I believed that part of his story too because that's the way the Library staff and most other unionized staff at Carnegie operate: they've long ago forgotten the "enjoy working with people" emphasis on their resumes; they more often than not opt to call security rather than talk things through with Downtown Eastsiders. And if there are complaints about their work performance, who they gonna call? CUPE, to cover their asses. That's what they pay union dues for.

But even the security men were getting fed up with this wicked Libary worker asking them to run interference over every little thing. So one of the security guards, after listening to her and showing her the utmost respect, said under his breath to L.M., "What did you say to that bitch?" I laughed when L.M. told me. Bitch is a sexist word that I would be the first to say is best avoided. But I'll make this one exception.

There is another Library staff person, Johann, who worked earlier today. Johann, is generally respectful toward the public. But one evening a few months back, he was playing a game of chess with his pal at the end of the check-out counter when a man farted at the nearby open window. Johann jumped up and ordered the guy to leave, according to eye witnesses. 'I told you before not to do that!', Johann yelled. The guy yelled that Johann should take a walk through Canada Packers sometime. Johann kept telling him to leave the library and the buy, obviously feeling humiliated, kept repeating the Canada Packers suggestion. Johann called security who escorted the farter out of the Library. The security guards and the library clerk are both CUPE and the farter knew and the witnesses knew that he has no recourse.

But today there was no trouble in the Library. There were candy canes and an assortment of other candies provided free at the check-out counter, a tell tale sign that today was a special day. There seemed to be a temporary suspension of the practice by staff of having Security bully people who talked back or farted, people who could only wish for the protection afforded by union dues. They are no match for CUPE members for whom every day is Christmas.