Conrad Black Not a Prisoner of Political Correctness

Conrad Black wrote in the May 9th National Post,

"The Europeans have become frightened by their own weakness; by their own failure to regain great influence in the world for the European Union; or even to respond effectively to Islamic infiltration."

He may be in jail but he can see where the real erosion of freedom is going on.

Samantha Nutt Lends Star Power to SFU as it Dodges Responsibility for Sexual Harassment Ring

Simon Fraser University is attempting to make a name for itself as a world class university, as it passes the 20 year mark of evading responsibility for operating a sexual harassment ring targeting female students. And Samantha Nutt is helping them.

Nutt, a globe-trotting doctor who accepts awards for working to improve human rights and social justice and was named one of Canada's top five activists by Time magazine, is bringing her star-power to SFU’s international conference on global health issues this weekend. Nutt told Canadian Press that these conferences “make a difference” because they allow people to “share their experiences”. It would make a difference if she would remind SFU's President Michael Stevenson to finally arrange an investigation into the sexual harassment ring and allow victims and witnesses to "share their experiences". After all, Nutt wrote the forward for the book,"The Young Activists".

Phrases like "gender inequality", "gender gap", and "poverty" are a mainstay of this conference. But such words ring a little hollow while SFU remains unapologetic about it's record of offering female students a fast track to poverty by reducing them to crotches, resulting in at least one to drop out without getting her degree.

Colleen Phung, a researcher in SFU's new Faculty of Health Sciences which this conference is intended to advertise, will deliver her “findings on gender inequality”. SFU has no findings to deliver though on the gender inequality created by allowing a sexual harassment ring to openly operate at SFU for years. That's because they've evaded investigating it. Even when a woman dropped out of SFU due to stress caused by the sexual harassment ring, they evaded investigating the harassment. In fact, they gave one of the members of the ring, Greg Snider who had been seeking sex with students behind his spouse's back, a promotion to department head.

One of Phung's conclusions to be delivered at the conference is, "It comes down to the issue of empowerment, women not having control over their own lives." SFU seems more comfortable with empowerment of women, if they're on another continent. It's difficult for a female student to feel that she has control over her own life when she goes for an interview for entry into an SFU program and discovers she's being assessed as a potential sex partner for Greg Snider, a professor with a spouse and at least one child.

And it's difficult to feel empowered when you have to deal with Jeff Wall's habit of staring at your crotch and then looking you directly in the eye. Or when Wall is looking down your black v-neck sweater at your breasts. This was allegedly occurring at the same time as Wall was bringing another student to sleep at his Pt. Grey house, a student who discovered he had no intention of divorcing his wife. Empowering is not a word that would apply.

The woman who dropped out of SFU when she lost her ability to concentrate after being targeted for years by the sexual harassment ring and now lives in poverty, has nothing against health conferences. But she believes that as SFU extends it's global reach, it has an obligation to extend it's reach at home and to finally investigate the relentless sexual harassment ring that strained the psychological and physical health of female students on campus.

Woman Jumps from 7th Floor of Regent Hotel

The word on the Downtown Eastside is that a woman jumped from the 7th floor inside the Regent Hotel this afternoon. That's the hotel in the background of the above photo with red vertical lettering.

The woman whose boyfriend had reportedly hanged himself recently, died from her injuries.

One Downtown Eastsider said of people on the sidewalk outside the hotel, "Everybody was looking up."

We haven't confirmed that a woman jumped but two police cars and a ghost car were outside the Regent. Not just constables but a couple of higher ranking police officers were there as well. And an ambulance, we were told, had been at the scene earlier and ambulance attendants had gone inside the hotel.

A constable was questioning a civilian. You can see that if you look closely in the background of this photo, just below the Union Market sign.

At the Sally Ann soup line on Sunday night, a man was talking about the jumper at the Regent. He said that one under reported story is the number of people jumping from the Washington Hotel. One woman he said jumped but didn't die and is now a parapalegic.

"They Got Away With It"

When I walked past the line up at the Sally Ann soup truck at Main & Cordova (photo above) on Tuesday night, I spotted homeless Bill Simpson and stopped to chat.

Simpson mentioned that he had passed Ethel Whitty on the street on the Downtown Eastside a few days ago and she had said hi to him."It eats me up inside", he said. "What eats you up?", I asked. "The fact that they got away with it."

He was referring of course to the fact that when he was elected to the Carnegie Board of Directors last June, Carnegie management delivered him a letter a couple of weeks later barring him from the building. Ethel Whitty, Carnegie Director who is on the City payroll, told him that he would not even be allowed into the building to attend Board meetings. He stood on the sidewalk for meetings in the sweltering heat last summer. Rachel Davis, a fellow first-time Board member, loaned him a cell phone and tried to persuade the Board to at least let him have input and vote at meetings via cell phone. No go.

Carnegie and the City of Vancouver have now blocked this elected representative from attending Board meetings for almost a year.

Come out to this year's Carnegie Annual General Meeting on June 5th. Buy a membership to Carnegie for $1 by May 21st -- that's today! -- and you too can vote in the not so free election.

Poor Locked Out of Carnegie Learning Center on Saturday

On Saturday, Carnegie Center staff locked the Downtown Eastside poor out of the Learning Center. The Learning Center is supposed to be open Monday-Saturday all year long, including holiday weekends.

It was open today, Monday of the holiday weekend.

The poor were locked out of the Learning Center last Thursday as well. The reason was apparently that some of the volunteers had gone on a scheduled trip. But three Carnegie members have reported that Lucy Alderson, the Capilano College staff person who runs the Carnegie Learning Center, was present and could have kept the drop-in facility open.

The Learning Center was closed once last month as well.

These closures are an improvement though. The Learning Center used to lock the poor out more often, until the Downtown Eastside Enquirer started squealing to taxpayers.

The Learning Center is jointly run by Capilano College and Carnegie Center from Monday to Friday. Capilano College staff don't work on Saturdays so Carnegie staff are responsible for keeping it open on that day.

The door to the usually busy computer room just up the hall from the Learning Center was frequently locked in April, according to reports we got from members. (We recorded some of the times and dates of the closures.) But May has been a good month, with the computer room being steadily open.

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.