Category: #LandBack

PCRF communiqué

Date: October 14, 2023

A Humanitarian Catastrophe Unfolds in Gaza – An Appeal to the International Community

A catastrophe of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in what many refer to as “the most densely populated territory on earth”…the Gaza Strip.  Over the course of the last week, Gaza has plunged into a deep trail of destruction and unimaginable human suffering. The non-stop Israeli military bombardment of the civilian population in Gaza has now claimed over 1800 innocent lives, one-third of whom are children.  Over 500,000 people have been displaced and are seeking shelter in UN schools that have reached capacity. The IDF ordered one million people to evacuate northern Gaza for the south within 24 hours (as of yesterday, October 13th) in anticipation of an Israeli ground invasion.  This is being done without guarantees of safety or return to their homes, and what international legal experts say amounts to the forced transfer of inhabitants in violation of international law.

Essential resources like electricity, water, and food have been deliberately cut off, pushing the civilian population to the brink of desperation. The deliberate severing of vital services such as electricity, water, and food has magnified the suffering of Gaza’s people. Hospitals are overwhelmed and unable to provide adequate medical care due to the lack of medical supplies, electricity, and clean water. Emergency medical aid is being denied entry, ambulances are being bombed and vehicles carrying aid are being targeted by airstrikes. The urgent intervention of the international community is critical now more than ever.

In the face of this grave humanitarian crisis, it is imperative that the international community responds with unprecedented urgency and determination. The situation demands decisive, immediate action to alleviate the immense suffering of the over 2 million people trapped in a 140 sq. mile territory, roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C.

PCRF joins other humanitarian organizations and people of goodwill in calling on the international community to provide immediate humanitarian aid, intensify diplomatic efforts for an immediate ceasefire, ensure accountability for violations of international law, and actively support Gaza’s reconstruction. Silence in the face of such tragedy is complicity, and the time to act is now.

For any inquiries, please contact: Steve@pcrf.net

To Donate to PCRF’s Gaza Relief Efforts,  go to our website at www.pcrf.net

The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (“PCRF”) is a 501(c)(3) Federal Tax-Exempt U.S. Organization that provides free medical care to thousands of injured and ill children annually who lack local access to care within the local healthcare system in Palestine and other countries in the Middle East.

I’ve donated to PCRF twice, once a couple of years back and once in the last week. My donations were miniscule but I made them.

If you would prefer to donate in North America to try to stop this mess, here’s an interesting alternative.

wendell pierce said this on twitter

Warning Maui Fire Victims: As a victim of Katrina, we saw the criminality begin at this point of the disaster. 1) Insurance companies will abandon you after years of paying premiums. 2) If insurance companies do pay out they will collude with banks and pay off your loan, not you. 
3) Commissions & Coalitions will be put together with government & corporations without your best interest at heart. Demand you are included in the process of rebuilding.
4) Beware of those attempting to steal and expropriate your property. 5) Beware of no bid contractors 
(6) The land grab will be disguised with the declaration you cannot return to the area and should be returned to “green” space, later to be given to speculators. (7) Beware of “land swaps” that give you temporary housing but your original property never returned. 
Survivors of Katrina have seen all of these tactics over the 2 decades since our disaster that we are still dealing with. You as Hawaiians know to well how precious your land is and the history of criminality to steal it. Nothing has changed. Beware of those who want your land! 
Demand that ALL public land transactions in the affected area be frozen until the end of the year. Private sales allowed. Federal funding will be following end to the area, don’t allow your government to give out no bid contracts to political friends. 
Demand that all contractors do“First Source Hiring” meaning hire all temporary employees from the community first.Demand ALL Americorp chapters from around the country be utilized for voluntary workforce for cleanup & distribution of donated resources. Your taxes pay for Amercorp 
Utilize Americorp, and the National Guard. Contact the community leaders in Puerto Rico who went through Maria, New Orleans organizations who suffered through Katrina, and NY after 9/11. Unfortunately you have joined us in the fight for survival and restoration of our communities 

alex is here

He’s asleep still. We went to bed late. We are having fun.

I wrote this in response to a tumblr post which I found evasive and self-serving, regarding climate change.

Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people have a dance. It’s at least 10000 years old. In the dance, the men are the water, coming up and coming up inexorably and washing over the shore. (The eastern shoreline of what is now called Australia was eroded by hundreds of metres every year for years as the water from the last glacial melt came up – they would have been losing territory and hunting and fishing lands and watching with horror). The ancestors of the dancers knew this was important cultural knowledge. I hope the light goes on with this; humans have always had ways of transmitting and absorbing info about climate change. Settlers as a rule don’t value it because it’s not a book, attested, or a podcast, or an internet post. It’s not peer reviewed science, as if keen observation were not the basis for all science ever.

Indigenous people should be better respected. They’re carrying culture for every human on earth, not just on the lands they defend.

What do I do today?

Same thing I do every National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Pinky, reread the report recommendations, give thanks for the Treaty 6 source of my family’s health and wealth, and financially support Indigenous heritage language learners.

I’m certainly not flying up into Indigenous people’s timelines and asking for cookies.

(‘same thing I do every night Pinky’ is a quote from Pinky and the Brain, a cartoon)

Queen’s dead

I note it, but I’m turning the rest of my thoughts on the subject private, and will release them when the furore dies down. I’m suggesting white people in Canada stay still and listen for the other voices – to whom her existence was the worthy face, the nice conformity of colonialism, inescapable, unthinkably pervasive, destructive, violent and everywhere, dirty. Hold still, be still, be absorbent, and don’t be defensive. When you see what happens – the global party in colonial lands – you will realize in tiny portion what colonialism has done.

Robot Chicken and Alex Jones

  1. after years of saying we would, Jeff and I are finally rewatching Robot Chicken to make a goodies reel. Jeff, we need to include the danceoff, I changed my mind.
  2. Picture if you will a man who lies for a living. After 9/11, he fused the internet as we mostly now know it to lies about how 9/11 was a ‘false flag’ operation. Many people mostly on the right decided that there was no way 9/11 could have happened UNLESS high government officials and the standard issue global cabal had CAUSED it to happen; this man made money selling dietary supplements (which are also bunkum) to the people who took comfort in this worldview. Many millions of dollars of income later, he said that the shooting deaths of a bunch of children in a school shooting (Sandy Hook) was a false flag operation. That those kids didn’t die. Now, those kids did die, and even though the man who lies for a living knew they didn’t die, and said they didn’t die because people who are against the right to carry guns wanted to change the laws, his attitude toward the truth was not all that great, so the parents sued him for defamation.
  3. he lost. Total amounts owing along the lines of $50 million. Two more lawsuits in a similar vein are coming. His total net worth is in the vicinity of $150 Mil.
  4. perhaps he lost but he’s still very popular, as per “What does the Internet Think” website. 
  5. and in case you think this is bullshit, I give you Lee Pace’s results from the same website, BECAUSE NO ONE IS INDIFFERENT TO LEE PACE (ALSO I DO NOT APPEAR ON THIS WEBSITE LOL I CHECKED):
  6. while he was losing his lawyer’s employee accidentally (OR DID SHE LOL) sent two years’ worth of text and email messages from his phone to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The lawyers promptly asked the January 6 committee if they wanted the messages, which was truly inconvenient for the man who lies for a living.
  7. and his ex wife Kelly probably will be getting them too. She is – quite rightly – in a custody battle, and now his utter unfitness to have access to his children will soon be a matter of public record. She calls him “truly mentally ill” and a danger to society but what the hell else can you expect from an ex wife hunh?
  8. to recap, Alex Jones is a foam-flecked liar, and now he will be paying for it. It won’t stop him, and he’ll fundraise on it, but at least someone slowed him down for two seconds and between his wife, his involvement with the January 6 traitors and the Sandy Hook parents his wealth will get a shellacking.
  9. Watched ‘Prey’ which is a new film in the Predator franchise GODDAMN I LOVED IT. It’s set in Comanche territory in 1719. The French are the bad guys, just like life’s supposed to be (this is a family joke, not reality.)
  10. That dog was not trained. They had to use that dog because it’s very close to what an Indigenous dog would have looked like at the time, so holy shit the director had to put up with a lot from that dog.
  11. A version completely in Comanche is available.
  12. Watched the new Minions movie. It had a few good laughs and was about standard for the franchise.
  13. I’m feeling quite a bit better, but the weather’s gone hot again so the next couple of days will probably be uncomfortable.
  14. There’s a cat rescue outfit in Vancouver which would rather EUTHANIZE a cat that adopt it out to a transgender person. Infuriating, like it’s a REASON.
  15. 1207 words on new section, still going very slow also worked on fanfic ‘landslide’
  16. Watched the Frontline about the people living in Kharkiv for the first three months after the Russian invasion. Very scary, moving and the people there seem admirable in their resolve. The impact of the war on the elderly and disabled is just gross.
  17. For settler saturday consider a donation to Indigenous language revitalization.

how about something lighter

  1. United Church is the first denomination in Canada to elect an Indigenous woman as its leader.
  2. Métis from Batoche got some #LandBack
  3. Bear about town becomes bear into bin.
  4. Escaped farm pigs add to BC’s piggish sitch.
  5. Katrina Chen is now co-running David Eby’s leadership campaign. Given how much I’ve been peeing on Eby’s head (at last check Katrina follows me on twitter) this is amusingly embarrassing. Katrina also has a kid in the same school as Alex. hey at least it isn’t private school and Eby’s still superior to many of his cocontenders.
  6. People are very stupid about love. Just thought I’d mention it.
  7. practiced hard on my mandolin Otto, so glad he’s back.
  8. MIKE IS COMING tomorrow. yay. MUST GET TO STORE FOR DE-ALCOHOLIZED BEER.
  9. Mike Parker Pearson has a lot of archaeologists in UK upset (on twitter, what a row) over basically wanting to completely kibosh the tunnel that’s supposed to be DUG UNDER A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE GOOD GOD Y’ALL. Yes indeed. However people like Raksha Dave and Paul Blinkhorn aren’t as upset as all that so it’s definitely interesting AND OF COURSE EVERY TIME THEY DIG there’s archaeology so bizarre they need to take months to check it out…. Anyway it’s a done deal; how much of the diggings will get sieved remains to be seen.
  10. Ben Affleck – demonstrating once more that you have to be in the same room with him to understand his charisma – has managed to marry the evergreen beautiful workaholic known as J-Lo …. I know, I don’t get it either. But I wish them decades of happiness and hope that he can at least keep it in his pants this time.
  11. SHETLAND SERIES 7 TRAILER HAS DROPPED. Yeah!
  12. There’s a street fair walking distance from here, mebbe I’ll go.
  13. Probably I won’t.
  14. Jeff got me brekkie at Foreshore Restaurant yesterday AND I STILL LOVE THEIR SAUSAGE MAN IT’S SO FREAKING GOOD
  15. I think there’s still coffee from yesterday. No peanut butter for me thanks, I’m finally back to not itching as much.
  16. 540 words and I READ THE ENTIRE THING TO mOm YESTERDAY which is terribly ableist of me she needs it in written form but she puts up with me and I love her.
  17. People are still reading my fanfics. Not as much, and never any comments, but it’s nice to know people are still reading.
  18. One little comment from the last time I went walking with Paul. THE ELECTRIC BIKES COMING THROUGH THE TRAILS AT 40 KPH ARE NOT CONSISTENT WITH FRAIL ELDERLY PEOPLE TAKING A CONSTITUTIONAL. I predict that shortly a senior will be injured by a cyclist who WILL UNDOUBTEDLY TAKE OFF AND LEAVE ME THERE.

Three loads full

I give thanks to the people, the land and water, the sky and creatures, the weather and the seasons, of this place. I will keep working to restore the stewardship of the Salish peoples and uphold their immemorial relationship to the beautiful lands and waters. It is not mine although they share it with me. #LandBack

Three loads of laundry yesterday. I haven’t dragged it back up the stairs to put it  away but, apart from my lilac hoodie which I neglected to include and must be laundered right away because it’s foul with spilled food (sigh), my clothes be clean.

Schrödingers dishwasher – did I run the damned thing or not.

Cleaned out Buster’s gammy ear this morning. Normally he bats at me and protests, but he was purring and gave me a little thank you chirp when I was done, so I think he was mebbe a little itchy.

Paul straightened things out with his housemates, and acknowledged to me by phone that his behaviour was boned. But Katie’s mellowed and I have not talked to Keith. Still thinking about the driving issue.

Curls fell out of my do but it’s still really cute and I love it. A bad haircut can ruin you but not for long and a good haircut just makes everything better. Interestingly I thought my hair was all the same colour but the ends were both darker and more washed out, if that’s possible, and now all the hair colour seems quite even to me, and the silver shine is (according to my stylist) something people pay thousands of dollars to obtain and maintain. God (for some reason) thinks I’m cool to extrude this stuff, and it’s great, because I can be harassing someone on reddit or going to the bathroom and I can still grow hair with undiminished vigour.

I told the stylist that one liner from James C., one of my all time favourite coworkers at the big X. About 15 years ago, at work, I read something like, “Hair is a sexual signalling device” so I wrote all the coworkers that I liked a little email, asking what their hair says about them, and he said, “My hair stands straight up,” and it was the best joke ever because he didn’t swear or even say anything particularly rude but it SURE got the point across and it makes me helpless with giggles every time I recollect it. And that email would get me fired these days and I’m okay with that.

I want that turkey sandwich from Big Star with cranberry sauce for lunch, calice. If it’s as good as the number 27 I’ll be happy. If you charge twelve fifty for a sammich it had better be good, and that was superlative.

Fourteen kudos this morning including one from my third fave fanfic writer. So that was pleasant. I’m thinking of sending mOm a variant of the drunk on the beach story (I ended up writing THREE VERSIONS OF A SINGLE STORY – I wrote one version in word (I never do that) and LOST IT LIKE WHOOSH INTO THE ETHER WHAT IN THE ENTIRE FUCK and then rewrote it, and then rewrote it again to be even more sappy. BABY GOATS BRINGING THE RINGS TO THE GROOMS AT A WEDDING NOOOOO. Actually not but the idea of a baby goat gambolling down the aisle at an outdoor wedding and then running off with the rings made me laugh so hard I put it in to troll one of the characters.

STOP WAR AND EAT POUTINE says the pic from a recent antiwar demo in Paris. Apparently Vladimir Poutine is what some convoyancers call Justin Trudeau.

Pierre Poilevre has a fortune of 9 million dollars – which he got pandering to oil companies – and it’s more than Trudeau has – and he’s speechifying about Trudeau being a rich elitist etc. Get bent Pierre and while so posed please do ram a caltrop through your scrotum, you’ll never be PM. Some people want Trump to run Canada But I Sure As Fuck Do Not.

scanged from WorkingClassHistory on Insta:

Women Anarchists have become the terror of world’s police – Their Daring Crimes are said to have outstripped the deeds of brothers of the red

Search for the woman is becoming a safe rule in crimes proceeding from anarchistic violence – the guardians of the world nearly always find a woman implicated when a ruler is stricken down – EMOTIONAL WOMEN LOSE SENSE OF FEAR.

yeah baby

This is a poem called the nap

The resonant horn blowing up from Sto:lo tells the city to rejoice in the sun
There’s fog downslope, lain across the last few metres of ground, and tugs avoiding
Each other.

The river is still high. You can sense the irritation of the animals set to breed.
All stark the colours and straight the lines, urgent business.
You want to get out of the woods.

Crows are nesting already. They trim the dogwood, their accustomed favourite
For all its benefits. How it, springing new under their depredations seems to
Visibly laugh as it blooms, and blooms, and most years blooms again,
To mock the crows, even as it roosts them,
an excellent host this morning against a muted sky.

For once the neighbours across the alley aren’t building things. Their silence
Unnerving and unexpected. I myself have been wailing. I fancy myself
Quite expert on the kazoo. If I flatter myself, I’m not asking anyone else to.
All of that’s a relief. I keep trying to attend to things but I see myself
Eating and sleeping a lot, and maybe that’s okay. If I stay awake I’ll be
Angry at the world or angry at myself, and those choices seem so bleak
Asleep is what I’ll be. It will be another beautiful day,
And I’ll sleep through it.

——-

er… this poem is a mood, it’s not real, I have plans for today and I’ve already run the dishes… I have strange ideas in my head again, I want to go back to a previously energized project. I have to fight this sloth – it’s a very big, very claw-y Ground Sloth, and the fact it’s extinct does not appear to be impairing its efforts to impede me! Have at you sir! Ow! I can’t continue to pretend I’m blogging, if that indeed is the best description of this onanistic activity, when I’m being assailed by a Ground Sloth the size of a mini bus and fucksticks did I mention his claws already because that really should be close to the top of the in box if you know what I mean, okay, bailing now, hope this fucker doesn’t show up in your reality because he went through a custom door frame like it was fucking balsa wood and fucker left two wheelbarrows of shit wish I was kidding in the house already. Being in confined spaces makes him shit, okay great I feel like Chuck Darwin now.

er… I’m not actually floridly psychotic now I was just riffing on how easy it is for a person with ADD to be seduced by another project. Why, what did you think I was doing?