Thursday, May 5, 2011
The Assassination of Osama Bin Laden
... In the carefully drafted speech announcing Bin Laden’s death Obama asserts as follows:
“…And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.”
That paragraph expressed a dramatic truth, but can not prevent honest persons from remembering the unjust wars unleashed by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, the hundreds of thousands of children who were forced to grow up without their mothers and fathers and the parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace.
Millions of citizens were taken from their villages in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba and many other countries of the world.
Still engraved in the minds of hundreds of millions of persons are also the horrible images of human beings who, in Guantánamo, a Cuban occupied territory, walk down in silence, being submitted for months, and even for years, to unbearable and excruciating tortures. Those are persons who were kidnapped and transferred to secret prisons with the hypocritical connivance of supposedly civilized societies.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
i'll bet someday they'll drop bombs on us
Strange as it may seem, being a feminist, I'm thinking about how grateful I am to my father at the same time I’m also really thankful for this little space I live in, with the beautiful view. Not in a “thank you oh patriarch, my god, my saviour” kind of way (because I do feel I’ve earned the right to afford to pay the rent here and I think, ultimately, we have to save ourselves), but because today was another day of significance in my own personal dental history. It’s a history I wish I’d recorded more carefully.I’m in a bit of post-dental pain, and some combination of that, plus medication and hockey and music, has inspired me to think about how lucky I am to have a safe and comfortable place to be inside. The wind’s still blowing cold out there. I’m watching my surviving low income friends age and lose teeth. It’s really difficult to see a person with a full set of teeth one day, and then missing one or two here or there a year or so after.
I’ve just, today, invested significantly in my own body. Thank you, dad. Almost three hours at the dental office, with tea and hot rocks and lavender towels and new beautiful onlays, (otherwise, more patriarchically known as “crowns”), and the main reason I can do that is because my dad was kind enough to reflect upon me prior to moving to the spirit world. And put his concern for me in writing so the lawyers could keep his small amount of stuff from being stolen by "the government."
So thanks, dad. I thought of you on your recent birthday, like I do every year. If you’re searching for a good place to reincarnate, I guess it’s appropriate to say “Happy Spring.” Thank you for encouraging my independence.
Vancouver: Celebrate Voices of the Street tonight
Now that the federal election is over, and you need to either celebrate or commiserate, Megaphone would like to invite you to detox from all the politalk by joining us for the official launch of our special literary issue, Voices of the Street. The launch is tonight at the Waldorf Hotel (1489 E. Hastings) from 8-10 p.m. (Doors open at 7). Tickets are $10.
Voices of the Street is a 68-page edition of the magazine that exclusively features stories, poems and prose from Megaphone's community writing workshop program, which is run in treatment centres, social housing buildings and community centres in the Downtown Eastside and downtown Vancouver. Megaphone vendors buy this issue for $2 and sell it for $5.
Tonight's event will feature powerful readings from marginalized writers published in this special issue. All proceeds will go toward Megaphone's writing workshop program. Buy your ticket here. (If you are going to skip the event for the Canucks game, you can purchase a ticket as a donation to our program.)
Sunday, May 1, 2011
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