Telus: asparagus and meatballs with a dash of political psychiatry

Last Tuesday was "Telus Tuesday". That's when Telus turns up at the Salvation Army on Cordova near Main to give the Downtown Eastside poor a good feed.

They served asparagus, "overcooked", a homeless man reported. And mashed potatoes. "And meatballs." The meatballs were good and they gave a generous helping of them, he said in a voice tone that sounded pleased.

And black forest cake. He described it as one of those "cheap" ones, but that it tasted good nonetheless.

The homeless man had enjoyed the lunch enough that he was talking about it to some friends about five in the afternoon. By that time, he was trying to figure out where to go for a free dinner.

Telus Tuesday, which comes every month or two and is not advertised, is a hit on the Downtown Eastside.

But Telus' reputation is tainted on the Downtown Eastside due to the fact that 20-yr. Telus employee, Allan Wong, was involved in the use of Chinese communist style political psychiatry tactics to deter political free speech by a Downtown Eastside resident. Although Wong's involvement in political psychiatry has been in his moonlighting role as a Vancouver School Board trustee, he has chosen not to entirely separate that role from his role as a Telus employee. During the two consecutive VSB terms in which political psychiatry was instigated and evidence of it suppressed, Wong had promoted himself to voters in the School Board election as a long term Telus employee.

According to Telus ads, "The future is friendly." But for people targeted by political psychiatry and tagged with life long libelous labels, the future is unfriendly.

Man at Cobalt Hotel Attacked With Hatchet

Why would the cops call a man hit over the head with a hatchet lucky? Because he walked away with only minor injuries. Late Friday night, the 49-year old man was attacked at the seedy Cobalt Hotel at 917 Main St. where he was staying on the Downtown Eastside. A 26 year old man is facing charges for the assault.

Jim A. who has lived at the Cobalt for years was attacked there a few months back. He makes a point of not mixing with the other tenants because many of them are crackheads. But when a native woman asked Jim, a fifty-something caucasian guy, to store a few bags of her belongings in his room, he agreed to help her out. She later returned to pick up the bags and he wasn't there. There has been a misunderstanding. She was angry and told him so later, throwing his dishes and other things around in his room to drive the point home. But Jim is very slow to anger. "I guess she could see she wasn't getting to me," he said. She pulled out a knife and sunk it deep into his forearm. He was spraying blood and as he was pushing the door at the top of the hallway stairs open, he was holding the cut with his opposite hand to stem the flow of blood. He lost his balance and fell, cracking his ribs. He went to the hospital and to this day has a bit of numbness in his hand, although he has made an almost full recovery.

Jim couldn't take a job he had lined up as a forklift operator the next day. He didn't call the cops because he said, "I don't want to be a rat."

Guess what the woman who stabbed him did a week later? She asked him if she could store some of her stuff in his room.