Vendor Levi Holland: "I tell people that there are a lot of women down here trying to help themselves": http://ow.ly/3M58w Jan 28, 05:14 PM
Follow us on TwitterANNALS OF INVESTIGATION A 2002 internal report by the Mounties found that they did an awesome job on the Robert Pickton investigation
TAX ON THE POOR Vancouver raked in $60,000,000 in casino money over the past 11 years
COO COO Neighbours of pigeon owner take court action
HOOF IT Liberal and NDP leadership hopefuls don't want to talk about such downmarket things like busses
DRINK IT UP Proposed new Water Act could allow BC's water to be sold to the highest bidder
AN EXPENSIVE SERIES OF TUBES CRTC ruling on usage-based billing threatens affordable internet access, critics say
ART FART Proposed Vancouver Art Gallery site reserves space for 'cultural hub'
WE'RE # 1 B.C. cities are world-class in their lack of affordability
B.C.'S FINEST RCMP tried to 'smear' kicked man: advocate
The Walrus had suddenly become the literary mouthpiece for the tar sands by way of key advertising space sold to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (or CAPP, if you’re on the golf course). Ridiculous ads showing scientists and workers expounding their alleged dedication to the environment—vis-a-vis their work at the tar sands extraction project—suddenly manifested as greasy, opaque spots on the magazine’s bleached pages.
Art Threat's Ezra Winton opinions that a combination of tactics are needed to end this ugly relationship between the culture and oil industries—it deploys the innocuous letter-writing kind, such as the one included below, and it includes actions like the one Shannon Walsh suggested concerning their finances: cancelling The Walrus subscriptions and boycotting the magazine until they adapt an ethical ad policy.
(Click here to read the full story)
Anyone who doubts the indomitable power of the human spirit should try talking to David Ngomane. An immigrant from South Africa, the founder of Bliss Hot Sauce exudes an airy charm while commanding attention with the subtle humility of someone who has seen it all. His customers have described his 100 per cent natural and organic sauces as addictive, but the history behind the product is perhaps even more gripping.
STOP, OR MY MUM WILL SHOOT BC Civil Liberties Association is horrified at plans to expand the powers of citizen's arrest
BIG DECISION City Council has scheduled their meeting on downtown building heights for February 1.
FREE FLICK Check out An Island by Vincent Moon for free at the W2
ONE TICKET ON A HUN David Eby watched some police offices investigate a camper in East Van, and was given a $100 fine for his trouble. (No bell on his bike!)
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN A nice story on how UBC decided to renovate its old buildings instead of knocking them down
NEVER SURRENDER West End renters win a fourth round against their landlord
In Megaphone #70 we start a two-part series on how Vancouver's homelessness crisis is growing in the city's suburban municipalities. Associate editor Jackie Wong writes about how rising real estate prices and cost of living is hurting the working class and vulnerably housed and breaks down what four cities/regions are doing to address the increase in homeless numbers.
We also look at the controversy surrounding Coquitlam's decision to open its first permanent homeless shelter; David Suzuki sounds off on the mass animal die-offs in the United States; we preview the PuSh festival and review Linda McQuaig's new book, The Trouble with Billionaires. We also feature writing and poems from our vendors and community writing workshops.
Please support our vendors by buying a copy from them.
WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH? Former BC Solicitor General scared that the Mounties are out to get him
IF YOU BUILD IT Painter says that new Vancouver Art Gallery should be as beautiful as the art it contains
MISSING WOMEN A gallery show of Vancouver's Missing Women that was cancelled by the Museum of Anthropology will have a special presentation for high school students
CRIME & PUNISHMENT Vancouver Police say they have a good success rate in combatting sexual abuse in the DTES
WHAT ABOUT THE PIGEON? Tranlink has narrowed its metropass name down to three silly monickers: Tpass, Compass, and Starfish
LOOKIE LOOS Take a free tour of Vancouver's public art
WHEW Here'a an amazing look at the proposed 1970 freeway that would have devastated Chinatown and Strathcona
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS This can't be good for business at The Province, as Vancouver has its lowest murder rate in 25 years
DEEPER & DEEPER Families at the Missing Women inquiry want to go back to the 1970s, when sex worker murders were not recorded
DOWN BY LAW Life in an American prison is worse if you are a Canadian, says Marc Emery
BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME? Poverty can't be determined by mere income
Megaphone, Vancouver's street paper, is looking for a part-time advertising rep to join our award-winning magazine. Megaphone is published bi-weekly and is sold on the streets by homeless and low-income vendors. Our mission is to provide a voice and an opportunity to homeless and low-income people while building grassroots support to end poverty.
Responsiblities
• Maintain contact with current advertisers
• Approach potential advertisers that correspond to Megaphone's values
• Ensure ads and payments are submitted in a timely manner
• Work with executive director on space/deadlines/bookkeeping
Qualifications
• Strong communication and organizational skills
• Ability to work independently and meet deadlines
• Ability to work constructively within a social enterprise
• Understanding of social issues affecting Vancouver
Pay
• 30% commission on sold advertisements
Send applications to executive director Sean Condon: sean@megaphonemagazine.com
Over the course of three months last year, journalist Matt Chambers with Vancouver magazine The Dependent formed a (relatively) trusting relationship with a small group of drug dealers working the alleys of the Downtown Eastside.
The result of this is Base Logic, a four-part feature series exploring in depth the ins and outs of our local drug economy and the daily lives of the people involved.
In the quasi-illegal grey area that is the drug trade around here, Chambers finds a very delicate ecosystem wherein everyone fills a different niche in contributing to the game.
We see unaffiliated groups of dealers (not gangs, as the bosses insist) working alongside each other, sharing the common interest of evading the predatory grasp of the Vancouver Police Department. It all reads like an episode of The Wire, with dealers on the corner chatting about cars and joking about girls while constantly keeping an eye out for cops.
You've gotta hand it to Chambers—at those tensest of moments that would send other journalists crawling back to the drawing board to conceive of another way to tackle the story, he stands strong and continues conducting his interviews. But in a way, by hooking up with one of the men in charge, he is protected:
"My guys are the morning crew, and with them my presence is tolerated but not quite trusted. Dealers, unintroduced, stop mid-sentence to demand: who the fuck is this guy?
After addressing the intricacies of the dealing hierarchy, Chambers delves toward the relationships between the users and suppliers, a line which is often blurred and is always mediated by the threat of violence.
In the aforementioned legal grey area of the DTES' open-air drug market, police scramble to enforce from a harm reduction standpoint, and that means focusing on violent attacks over the costly busting of small-time dealers and users; this is where it gets tough journalistically, where the dealers are understandably least forthcoming and the interactional wall between subject and interviewer is thickest.
"According to everyone I speak to," he notes, "nobody sells heroin and nobody beats up workers."
Still, in spending months with these dealers, Chambers learns that in the same way mere circumstance or misguided life decisions are a common theme in the personal histories of this neighbourhood's vulnerable addicts, the dealers are often no different.
"You think I like standing in this piss-smelling alley dealing with these fucking people all day?" one 17-year old contends. We hear of another worker whose engineering credits from Iran weren't accepted here, dumping him back to square one after four hard years of study.
It all makes unfortunate sense, though: despite all the predatory criminal behaviour and violence we see stemming from the drug trade, it's undeniable that for many of them this lifestyle is more about survival than anything else.
Does that make it all okay? It's debatable, though society at large would probably say no. But while the Base Logic series presents these issues without commentary or analysis, these stories certainly point to very important questions, on a much larger scale, that we need to be asking.
Questions about why BC has the lowest minimum wage in Canada (unchanged since 2001) despite the astronomical cost of living, leaving otherwise legitimate-minded individuals to seek other sources of income.
Questions about whether, by not regulating these drugs, government policy creates opportunities for naive kids to get caught up in the game through the allure of making hundreds of dollars a day.
Questions about what more we can do to protect those susceptible to all aspects of the illegal back-alley drug world.
After all, the "real" dealers in their West End high-rise condos are never the ones you see taking risks in the streets. And why would they be, when they can just hire a naive 17-year-old kid to do their dirty work?
Read the full Base Logic series on TheDependent.ca:
Base Logic Part One: Introductions
Base Logic Part Two: The System
