Elizabeth Alexander's Inauguration Poem: Love but Pay the Reparations

Elizabeth Alexander read a poem at Barack Obama's inauguration today. He had invited her to write it for the occasion. The poem was called, "Praise Song for the Day".

I listened to Alexander read her poem live and the part about love stuck with me:

"What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance."

It sounded to me like she was saying, 'Love, but don't let it interfere with paying the reparations.' "

Alexander wouldn't want grievances preempted as identity politics has been a family business. She is head of African American studies at Yale. Her mother has taught Black women's history for years.

[A few minutes later, civil rights leader Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, now in his eighties, injected a particularly dated version of identity politics into his inaugural benediction. "Lord...we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back ...when white will embrace what is right."]

When Alexander was recognizing the working class in her poem, including the Black working class, who had "laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce", it reminded me of the speech former social democratic Premier Dave Barrett gave when he was announcing the BC Day holiday. I didn't hear the speech but a friend recently was reciting what he remembered of it. Barrett had apparently said this holiday was in recognition of the people who had built the bridges ...he listed types of labour done by the working class, just as Alexander did.

The left has definitely gained ground in the U.S.

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'Praise Song for the Day' - Transcript

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Vancouver Community College Annual Post-Christmas Turkey Dinner Gets an A+

There was a long line-up on Saturday for the free turkey dinner cooked and served by students in the cooking, baking, and food service programs at Vancouver Community College, Pender St. campus. One man in the line said he'd never seen the line-up so long at the annual dinner. The line-up snaked from the first floor lobby, up the stairs, and around to the cafeteria area on the second floor. It went fast though. And students served fresh coffee -- cream and sugar if you wanted it -- to everyone in the line up.

Students and staff were super courteous, just like servers in expensive restaurants.

The only place where the crowd control broke down momentarily was in the cafeteria where the line forked into two as people picked up a salad and fresh-baked roll, and then merged again into one line as people picked up a plate of turkey and vegetables. One woman in the line called out to the people in front of her, “Don’t back up any more!”, as people stepped backwards to let others merge back into the line.

I thought the stuffing was the best part of the turkey dinner. It wasn't too salty and didn't have that out-of-a-box taste. There were bits of carrots and celery mixed in with the bread crumbs. I said to the friend sitting with me, "This stuffing tastes as good as if it were cooked inside the turkey."

Everybody got a mixture of brown and white meat with gravy, mashed potatoes, and a steamed vegetable mix of carrots, brocolli, and cauliflower. The cranberry sauce tasted fresh-made and wasn't overly sweet. There was also a lettuce side salad with a tangy oil and vinegar dressing.


The free dinner came with a million dollar view. We sat in the "lower dining room" of the split level cafeteria, and had the above view of Victory Square.

You didn't have to be poor to attend the dinner but many people there were from the Downtown Eastside. It's the tail end of a five week welfare month -- cheques come out this Wednesday -- so even the most hardened Downtown Eastsiders were in a good mood as they got a free full course meal. And got treated like they had gold credit cards.

New Homeless Shelter a "Disgrace" says Former Council Candidate

Audrey Laferriere, who ran for Council on the homeless issue in last November's civic election, passed these photos of a new shelter in Vancouver along to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer. "It is a disgrace," in Laferriere's view, "that the aboriginal community has agreed to use this building/warehouse when Storyeum [in Gastown] is being used for storage."

Laferriere says the address being provided to the public for the shelter -- "201 Central at Western - near the Main St. Skytrain Station" -- is not accurate. "It is 420 Northern Street," according to Laferriere. I understand what she means about confusion over the address. When a friend pointed the new shelter out to me, I told him I didn't think that was the address I'd read in the paper. Laferriere hopes these photos will help people figure out where the shelter is located.

Laferriere also hopes the photos of the shelter will give the public an idea of the run down state it is in.

"My knowledge is that there are no toilets or showers or heat. Might be wrong", she wrote in her email to the DTES Enquirer.

According to Laferriere, $500,000 was provided for this shelter." The hours of operation of the shelter are from 8:00 at night to 10:00 am.

The shelter is near McDonald's restaurant at Main & Terminal and Science World which can be seen in the background of the above photo.

Mayor Robertson Making Progress 

I have noticed in the last week or two that there are less people sleeping on the streets, which suggests that Mayor Gregor Robertson's HEAT team are getting something done.

I still see the occasional homeless person though. Last night when I walked a friend home at about 10:30 p.m., I noticed a woman with a shopping cart huddled at Columbia & Powell, beside Columbia St. housing. She was there a day or two earlier as well. Maybe she doesn't know that the First United Church-Mission shelter takes shopping carts.

Last night a homeless guy who brought his shopping cart into McDonald's restaurant on Main near Terminal was told to leave. He left yelling. Last week, he cut his hair and shaved in the eating area. That guy might go to a shelter if he knew the one at First United takes shopping carts.

First United Church Now a 21-Hour Shelter but "not doing a very good job getting the word out"

(Photo of First United Church taken late Dec. 2008)

Geez it was cold last night.

First United Church at Hastings & Gore on the Downtown Eastside is now operating as a 21 hour shelter, according to Audrey Laferriere who ran for Council on the homeless issue.

Photo: Audrey Laferriere holds microphone at All Candidates meeting at Carnegie Center on Downtown Eastside in 2008, as she talks about homeless issue.

Laferriere wrote to the DTES Enquirer today,

"There still is a lot of homeless that do not know that the First United Church Mission is now a 21 hour shelter. The shelter providers are not doing a very good job getting the word out. I emailed HEAT (Mayor Gregor Robertson) on December 23rd that each lamp standard in the City should have a poster advising of this needed shelter but never heard anything from him. I was at the First United Shelter yesterday and was told that they had very little problems considering the 200 plus they look after each night."

The shelter accepts pets, carts, couples, singles, children, and teenagers. "Nobody turned away,"announces a poster put up this afternoon on the bulletin board at Carnegie Center.

The shelter opens at 8 p.m. in the evening and stays open until 5 p.m. the next day.

First United Church stopped functioning as a church with regular services and was turned into a mission some time ago. First United's former minister, Ruth Wright -- nicknamed 'Ruthless Wrong' by homeless William Simpson when an employee at the DugOut Drop-In, funded by the United Church, allegedly whacked two people across the head with a two by four -- once told the media that she should qualify for campground funding considering the number of homeless sleeping there.

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

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


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

Loud applause.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Program

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

Speeding Driver Loses Lottery

High speed appears to have been a factor in a two car accident beside the Shell station at Main & 2nd Ave. at about 11:00 p.m. Thursday night.

“They were definitely going fast, very fast”, said Gafar, the cashier inside the Shell station who was serving a customer when he heard the crash. It is unclear whether both vehicles were traveling at high speed though.

“They had to cut him out,” Gafar said, pointing to the open flap on the hood of the red car which lay on its side.

Gafar said he overheard one of the cops say, “We were looking for him.”

Gafar said there wasn't just one noise upon impact but a long sequence of loud noises. “I heard ‘Pow!, Pow!, Pow!, Pow!, Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!” Gafar estimated that these noises had continued “for one or two minutes”. He asked his customer what had happened. The customer’s first response was, “Maybe the bus crashed.” But Gafar said they soon realized that the cars were right outside the window of the store.

“They were both unconscious,” said Gafar, who saw one victim removed from the red car on it’s side and another removed from a black car sitting right side up a few meters up the street.

Gafar asked one of the cops about the victim in the red car. “Is he dead?” The cop responded, “We’re working on him.”

Gafar said the accident could have been much worse. He pointed to the gas tanks outside the convenience store where there is a constant flow of people driving or walking through.

Gafar, an immigrant who speaks competent English, emphasized that it was his impression that there had been a "chase" going on when the accident occurred.





A male bystander said, "I think one of the wheels on the car is missing."