Night Music: Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)

Britannia Renewal Update: GWAC

This month’s Grandview Woodland Area Council (GWAC) meeting will take the form of a presentation on Britannia Renewal and a report on transportation in Grandview.

“Ms. Cynthia Low, Britannia Community Centre Executive Director, will be addressing the meeting, providing an update on the plans and taking questions from the audience.

You might also be wondering what is going on with transportation planning for the Grandview Woodland neighbourhood. Craig Ollenberger will be reporting out on that subject at the upcoming public meeting, too.”

The meeting is on Monday 9th April at 7:00pm in the Learning Resource Centre, under the Britannia Library. Everyone is welcome.

GWAC’s email newsletter also provides a useful response to: “What does GWAC do?”

“Quite simply, GWAC identifies issues which herald change for our community. We educate members about these issues, share our collective point of view with Mayor and Council, and encourage and assist members to take action. The Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods, an umbrella organization of which GWAC is a member, will assist with matters which affect all residents of Vancouver, such as blanket changes to zoning regulations.”

Reason #232 NOT to use Facebook

After all the scandal and revelation over the last couple of weeks of bad governance at Facebook, I am shocked and amazed that anyone still has an account there.

• 87 million people affected directly
• virtually everyone’s personal data has been shared;
• more Russian ties to data and misuse;

I truly believe that people are mindlessly surrendering themselves to the corporation for a quick buzz and constant contact. It is sad. Sad mostly because these chickens WILL come home to roost for everyone concerned. This may all seem a little like some titanic battle over how elections are run and won (correct at one level), but it has very important aspects much closer to home to do with your personal identity, your ability to freely choose, and your possible futures.

I would have hoped that the shenanigans revealed this week would make these series of posts irrelevant.  But I haven’t seen the kind of mass move to leave FB that reasonably should have happened by now.  So, I guess, I’ll just keep count of the staggeringly large number reasons NOT to use Facebook.

 

Previous Reasons NOT to use Facebook

In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Luther King

A Memoir of 1968

The dusty road had held us all day long. Huge trucks belching choking fumes had raced past us, barely missing our outstretched thumbs by inches it seemed. Sometimes they blared their industrial strength horns at us, scaring us, pushing us away from the road edge. There had been very few cars, and those mostly tiny SEATs already filled with farmers and dogs and kids, and certainly not looking to pick up two hippies dirt-encrusted from too much unsuccessful hitchhiking.

I guess we managed to walk three or four miles that day, in the blazing sun, just south of Valencia. We had expected better luck (“Gibraltar by evening!” had been our war cry as we emerged from a night in a roadside culvert) and had not prepared for such a long long day trudging through heat and dust and flies. We were exhausted, and more, we were dehydrated, the half dozen blood oranges we had each consumed notwithstanding.

Ahead of us we could see the outskirts of a village, and a village meant a cafe and Coca-Cola and even iced water, perhaps. It was one of those days when we knew we were willing to spend a few of our remaining pesetas. We stumbled forward, the dust scuffing beneath our feet, coughing. We must have looked liked ancient mummies straight from the desert as we finally collapsed into the two canvas chairs set out under the tin-roofed patio of a tiny cafe. I can only imagine the thoughts that were flowing through the old man’s head as he took our order for two Cokes.

We had been sitting for some minutes before we realized that an old radio was scratching its way through the late afternoon heaviness. And it may have been a minute or so more before we understood that it was speaking to us in English. American Forces Radio, probably from Germany. “…And as the crowds begin to gather from all across Memphis, we remind our listeners that President Johnson will speak to the nation this evening, on this day when Dr Martin Luther King has been shot and killed on his hotel balcony…”

The Cokes, glistening as the ice melted down the sides of the bottles, stood unremembered as our tears washed black gullies across our cheeks.