DAVID SUZUKI, TELL US IT AIN’T SO!

That you haven’t “gone over to the other side”. That you are not going to hold hands with Gordon Campbell and VANOC and green wash their purple prose. Saints preserve us, is nothing sacred? And it isn’t just the degradation of previously intact eco systems like Eagleridge Bluffs that is on my mind. David, the Olympic Games are olympic only in the amount of money corporations and the government will rake in out of citizens pockets.

The spirit that prompted the games in the first place has long vanished. It’s no longer a meeting of young, spirited athletes longing to strike gold for their countries. Some of the athletes don’t even compete for their own countries. And as winning has increasingly become the only game in town, and with it the goodies that come with the gold, many of the athletes have taken to doing what the organizers and promoters and corporations do to get the fat contracts…they cheat. Who can blame them?
And the thousands of prostitutes who will be descending upon our city with the blessings of Sam Sullivan and Libby Davis who favor legalizing bordellos to service the johns? How do the women of Vancouver and British Columbia feel about this accompanying Olympic money maker? After all, having thousands of prostitutes flood into the city is not the same as promoting the cute, fuzzy little tinker toys that are supposed to represent the Olympics. Or is it?

I get a creepy feeling seeing you sitting with VANOC lending your credibility to an environmentally and spiritually bankrupt corporate endeavor that the Olympic Games have become while increasing numbers of people are sleeping in the streets. All this destruction to make more money for ethically challenged people who already have more money than they should be allowed to have. I don’t get it, David. I truly don’t.

Stones for Soup ? Or Showers of Blessing ?

By the end of my court hearing last Friday my mother’s presence was strong with me because one of her favorite gospel songs rang through my head. It’s called SHOWERS OF BLESSING and the chorus goes:

“Showers of blessing,
showers of blessing we need,
mercy drops round us are falling,
but for the showers we plead."

I think we got some mercy drops at the end of the court day on Friday. Not showers, but at least some mercy drops. Why? Because the judge reserved her decision on whether or not I will be allowed to take my case to trial. That she reserved is in itself a bit hopeful. It means it wasn’t just a slam dunk for Kevin Falcon, Kiewit Sons Co, The Corporation of West Vancouver and the West Vancouver Police who thought it would only take a few minutes to have my case thrown out.

Thank you, dear friends and gentle people. Your presence in the court room was wonderful, the good wishes of people who couldn’t come but who would have liked to, and especially I want to thank the people who contributed affidavits. It’s intimidating to be up against experienced Lawyers from these powerful offices when one is representing oneself. I couldn’t do it without the moral support you people have so unfailingly given me. And with it all I think we succeeded in getting across to the judge that my case is one of public interest as it profoundly affects the way we as citizens are allowed to protest the destruction of the environment. And perhaps, along with other issues I raised, were strong enough legally to convince the judge to allow my case to go to trial.

I’ll let everybody know as soon as I know whether the mercy drops are all there is, or if showers of blessing are on the way, or whether it will be stones for soup. I don’t want to get my hopes up to high. But I can’t help it.

Betty Krawczyk

Blog: http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com/

Books: http://www.booksofbettyk.com/

For more information contact
Betty Krawczyk
betty_krawczyk@shaw.ca
or
Monika Sheardown
monika@greendreams.com

Don't Shoot 'Em in my Back Yard

That’s become the new NIMBY for many people in Vancouver. It happened in my neighbourhood last week, just a few streets away. And the murdered man who died in a back alley behind his house on Napier Street had a partner in the real estate business. Pot and real estate is a natural business connection. Who would know better where the best grow-op houses would be, but real estate people? Since the RCMP estimates that the annualized retail return for marijuana cultivated in BC is six billion dollars some growers are willing to simply shoot it out to protect their lucrative territory. Even our esteemed Attorney General Wally Oppal, who says he hardly ever sees his brother who is connected with a grow op house, squirms uncomfortably when questioned about this blood connection, not to mention the drug connection with some ex ministers assistants and God and Goddess only knows who else will eventually surface in the legislature as the ruthlessly suppressed accusations unfold.

$6,000,000,000! Think of that. Could the ready drug cash for grow op houses have anything to do with the obscene prices even the most miserable hovels in the poorest parts of town be making most average income people house and rent poor? Just to make developers and speculators in additon to gang cartels even richer? Well, what else could it be? Just about everybody knows who has ever smoked pot or who smokes pot or knows someone intimately who smokes pot that it is a lot less harmful than alcohol. It’s alcohol that drives people crazy. It’s alcohol that causes fights, car wrecks, wife beating, and child abuse. When I am mayor of Vancouver I will make it a priority to work to legalize pot and tax the hell out of it, as ex-mayor Larry Campbell recently advised ( although I have to wonder why he waited until he was no longer mayor to advise it) and use the proceeds for reasonable housing for everybody. Doesn’t that sound like a workable solution? Why are politicians so afraid to say these things? Well, I’ll say them. And do them. When I’m mayor. When you make me mayor.

Betty Krawczyk