Chronicling community action, revolutionary and revealing thought

Monday, May 31, 2004

Meeting at Masaryk-Cowan and a reminder

meetingsTomorrow (Tuesday) the Raise the Rates of Welfare and ODSP organizing meeting is at the Masaryk Cowan Park (on Cowan south of Queen)- 6pm in the event of rain this event will be at the Parkdale Library - 1303 Queen W.

  • And don't forget that tonight's the Government hearing and comments on proposed changes to the Tenant Protection Act. See my previous post.
    Make your voice be heard.

Sunday, May 30, 2004

Homeless Under Gardner Expressway Update

Went to the solidarity stand with the homeless who live under the Gardner expressway. Everyone met at the corner of Spadina and Lakeshore, at least one TV news crew was there, Global. We all walked over to the location, and if you were expecting a dirty, smelly grimy living space, you'd be sorely disappointed.
  In a fenced-off area that had a voltage warning (it's not being used anymore) was a spacy place where Chris, a bespactacled man with long dark blonde dreadlocks, one of the homeless who took up residence there, had built himself some pretty decent lodgings with wood. I walked inside it and took a look around. He had potholders, insulation, a door, a small poorch area, and a bed at about eyelevel. Took him about a month to do from start to finish. He said with OCAP's help he'd stayed there 6 months longer than he would have otherwise.
  When I asked around what should be expected to happen, I was told the eviction notice would probably be just delivered. Food had been brought, and the supporters sat around and ate with the residents. I didnt feel like eating much, so I grabbed a couple slices of some cake and a can of pop. I've been spending a lot of time getting this here weblog off the ground, so I nodded off. By the time I roused, most eveyone was gone. I felt a bit sheepish. One female who was at the most in her mid-to-late twenties, was one of the persons displaced with the bulldozing that took place under the Bathurst Street Bridge. She was there with her 7-month cat on a cute purple leash. It was nice to know that depsite losing her home, at least on some level she had a sunny disposition. I don't know how I would feel if my dwelling place was demolished.
  Whether or not you consider it a "legitimate" dwelling place is something that would require a deconstruction of preconceived concepts on your part, as well as a willingness to open yourself to the possibility that the government is not doing what it should to help house the poor. And why criminalize poverty? Right across the place where we all met was a huge ad slapped onto the side of a building advertising new condos being built. Gentrification creeping up on you like mildew that won't go away. And what about affordable housing? Those are the kinds of thoughts that went through my mind as I did what I could by lending my physical presence.
  I got the feeling nothing would happen until the wee hours of the morning.
  Just like over at the Bathurst Bridge.
  Not a pleasant feeling, thinking that all one's efforts would come to naught.
  Now that I know precisely where it is, I plan on stoppng by sometime today, Sunday.
  I hope it's not too late.

The link

Saturday, May 29, 2004

Upcoming events

demonstrations Saturday, May 29 4:00 p.m.:-
 On Thursday May 27th, people living under the Bathurst Street Bridge watched their homes bulldozed and destroyed by a large crew of city workers, flanked by police from numerous downtown police divisions. What was once a small community is now surrounded by tall fencing. As well, OCAP has now learned that more of the same is set to take place, as residents living under the Gardiner Expressway were told by the police last night 'you are next'...
  On Saturday, people will gather for a meal at the site of the next impending eviction, where homes have been built.  You are invited to come out to lend a hand and show support for the community of people who are refusing to back down in the face of the City's anti-poor by-law enforcement.
 Meal under the Gardiner
 Meet at Bathurst Street Bridge
 (Bathurst, just north of Lakeshore, westside)
 4 pm
 They will be moving to the site of the next potential eviction at Gardiner and Spadina.
 For further information, visit their website. There's also background information on the story behind the people who lived at the Bathurst St. Bridge.



meetingsMonday, 31st May go and make your voice heard:-
Government hearing and comments on proposed changes to the Tenant Protection Act.

- The downtown Toronto meeting is at OISE, 252 Bloor St. West, on May
31st. Open house between 6-7 p.m. to be followed by the actual consultation at 7 p.m.
The government's questionnaire can be found on line at
www.mah.gov.on.ca/userfiles/HTML/nts_1_16885_1.html.
Other consultation materials are at www.rentreform.ontario.ca
Jennifer Ramsay
Advocacy and Outreach Co-Ordinator
Advocacy Centre for Tenants - Ontario (ACTO)
425 Adelaide W, 5th floor Toronto, ON M5V 3C1
(T) 416-597-5855, ext 5168 (F) 416-597-5821
www.acto.ca

The link

Thursday, May 27, 2004

To Vote or Not to Vote?

Heard that...Heard a recorded talk of Greg Palast's in the early hours this morning, as part of the formerly titled "Please Kill Me Show".
My ears perked up.
It was part of the research and information (damning, a lot of it) he uncovered as part of writing up his book "The Greatest Democracy Money can Buy." Heard of the book, but the information he uncovers will shock you if it wasn't news to you already. I mean the *extent* of it.
Here's part of what I heard:
In relation to that farce otherwise called the 2000 U.S. election:-
of the people not allowed to vote because they were "criminals" in the Florida database: 94,000 names were targeted. One person was not allowed to vote because he was supposed to have committed a crime on the 31st January, 2007! Apparently they had tried to cover up this fiasco by eliminating the dates they were supposed to commit the crimes- so you had a slew of people who had blank criminal dates- but they didn't eliminate their ethnicity. 54% were black.

He went on to talk about the Help America Vote Act Bush signed, a 600-page document that would require every state to purge votes and make the voting system electronic. He goes into some detail about just how "reliable" these voting machines are.

James Baker proclaimed every vote was counted 6 times. "Then what about the votes in the dumpster"? Palast asked. Those were "spoiled votes". Palast had a look at some of those so-called "spoiled votes". One had the name Al Gore circled, the other had "Al Gore" spelled correctly.

A factoid he unearthed was that the areas in Florida that had the highest proportion of black voters also had the highest proportion of spoiled votes. He took the information he'd found and went to the Civil Rights Commission. 1.4% of white votes were not counted, but 14% of black votes were not counted.

"But that's not the bad news" Palast said.

According to them, Florida was "typical". They had gone to the dumpsters all around America and 1.9 million votes were cast but not counted in the whole of the U.S. 1/2 of which were cast by black people. One million black votes missing. Palast commented that was a "big Jim Crowe thumb on that voting machine", and black people had earned the right to vote, but not the right to have their votes counted.

"In the white districts the voting machines worked but in the black districts..." They couldn't find the passwords and a whole slew of votes went uncounted. I may be spelling this wrong but this is how it sounded ("Brauer county")

In one district where new voting machines- "iboltronics" or something similar sounding- the machine's company founded by a Republican, no less, there was a sudden "surprise upset" by the Repubicans, three of them won by exactly 18,181 votes. Same thing happened in the State next door. (Didn't catch the name of the states)

He went on to relate his amusing enedavour to uncover and prove that there was in fact a letter from Jeb Bush implying him in the illegal removal of thousands of voters. The audience listening to him applauded when he told them how he finally managed to get it, and the document's dated September 18, 2000.

That's just what I managed to write down hastily while listening to this. Never mind the television coverage showing black person after black person frustrated that they weren't able to vote succesfully.

Interesting, don't you think?

The link

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

AROOO!

I have worked.
I have bubbled.
I have toiled, I have troubled.
And now...
I stand atop the pile of CSS that Blogger has thrown at me...
TRIUMPHANT!

*thumps chest*

AROOOOOOOOOOO!

I have beaten the CSS code with my stick, and thwapped it into submission, into shape.

*brandishes stick*

Bring it on!

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

test 2

see if this makes a diff in things I see
test. test...



  • test

  • test

Is This thing ON?

I'm just entering this to test and see if I can mess with this CSS stuff. What the hell.