Think Haiti! Feel Haiti! Hear Haiti! And support local Haitians' relief efforts. Tomorrow night, that's Friday, February 5th the Society for Haitian Arts and Culture is doing a benefit at the Immigrant Refugee Community Organization, 10301 NE Glisan. 6 til 9 pm. Info at 503-257-1014 to reach Judith Gelin, Air Cascadia guest, or Martine Coblentz at 503-944-9821 or on line at www.irco.org or www.shacnorthwest.org. There will be Haitian music aplenty, reggae, arts & crafts food. This is going to be a knock-out event (And just $20!)
That's the best news I've got for you. But there's more...
In Vancouver BC, Olympic Resistance people are holding a 'Press Scrum'. There's a lot of public money tied up in this 'Imaginarium' - to the tune of $7 billion dollars. And the event's corporate sponsors are tired of waiting for a bad investment to get better: They want the money owed them on the Olympic Village and they want it now. Set a landspeed record, if possible. Possible, indeed...They stand to get bailed out a l'Americaine in order to avoid further international scorn and local opprobrium. All the same, according to Gord Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw nation, "The 2010 Winter Olympics are taking place on unceded indigenous land. As a result of the negative social and environmental impacts of the Games on Indigenous people our struggle against colonization has only increased, which poses a significant threat to Canada and Canada's image." It's that word, 'unceded'. That would be the legal term for stolen land. The land currently colonized by spectacle was never surrendered. Battles were won - but the war isn't over...
- KBOO