Postcards from New York, cont.

Feb 14
Happy Valentine's Day Grasshopper. Thanks for writing, you rascal, you!! Major storm scheduled for Sat. afternoon here. Peace. Bye from New York.

Feb 17
Grasshopper: Hope that you are alive, well, and on top of your very tricky game. Stayed at work Sat. nite so I wouldn't have to fight the record storm for the next morning in order to reach church. I'm writing Brett/Fatty today. Haven't heard from him in months. Hope your Valentine's Day went well?!!!
Love J Postcards

Thanks Averil

February 24, 2006

Thank you for your email. I will show it to Mr. Hawn when he returns from Ottawa.

Averil, Executive Assistant
to Laurie Hawn, M.P.
Edmonton Centre
----- Original Message -----

Thank you Mr. Hawn, MP

Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for the e-mail. Let me get a bit of information on this facility before I give you a reply.
Thanks,
Laurie Hawn
----- Original Message -----
From
Rebecca Bodo
Date
Wed, 22 Feb 2006 00:16:45 -0700
To
"info@lauriehawn.ca"
Subject
Hello from 157th St. NW

Kewl to Bitch!

Your Hon. Laurie Hawn MP,

Please respond to the creation of a correctional facility based in Kingston, ON that will hold four Arab nationals that have currently served for five years already. Is Canada starting a "Guantanamo North" to hold suspected foreign nationals without charge?

I think Canada's role for our foreign policy should express greater compassion for the people pulled into circumstances via war, poverty, disease. Placing "prisoners" into correctional facilities while ignoring their right to be proven guilty or innocent flies right in the face of the Geneva Conventions. As a Canadian, I do not wish this country to go down that route. Please advise when there was a vote for the contruction of the facility.

Thanks for your attention,
Rebecca Bodo

I will decent

Under our current Conservative government, Corrections Canada is building a facility in Kingston,ON which will detain foreign nationals via "security certificates" violations. This facility is being dubbed "Guantanamo North". Are we bending to US pressure to create a torture centre? Hmmmm...

I think it's time to bitch to my local Conservative MP...........stay tuned.....

Total transparency by our PM

Well, well, well......as the Conservative party campaigned with the ideology of transparency, our media seems to have problems trying to figure out what our PM is talking about to various world leaders and what will be discussed with Jean Charest. Isn't this example of a direct turn around from what the former Liberal government would entertain with?

Come on, Steve.....let us in on your secrets........

Thanks Mr. Savage (via Savage Love)

I know your liberal heart means well, Dan, but the response you gave to SAUDI typifies much that is wrong with Western attitudes toward the Middle East.While SAUDI is partially to blame for having the poor judgment to ask you about sexual ethics, your statement, "Unlike the country you left behind, there are no morals police in the part of North America where you live" smacks of haughty, imperialistic condescension. You totally ignored the fact that the values he was taught as a Muslim have a deep and completely valid cultural context that needs to be considered when dispensing advice. You reduced the conundrum of a devout man experiencing serious cultural conflict to the influence of the "morals police," and in quite a smirking tone. I don't care how progressive Canadians are. It is incredibly offensive to imply the superiority of morals in Canada to values taught in Saudi Arabia. To paraphrase Gandhi, have some goddamned cultural sensitivity, man.
Sick Of Stereotypes
Did I imply the superiority of morals in Canada to values taught in Saudi Arabia? Jesus H. Christ, SOS, I feel just terrible about that. So let me set the record straight: I never meant to imply the superiority of morals in Canada over values taught in Saudi Arabia. I meant to state, loudly and clearly and for the record, the absolute superiority of morals in Canada over values taught in Saudi Arabia.Let us count the ways in which Canada is superior: equality of the sexes, political and religious pluralism, a little thing called democracy, and, of course, the radical notion that consenting adults are free to have sex with other consenting adults without having to worry about being lashed or beheaded in public. Canada's also got vodka tonics, BC bud, and pornography going for it, along with Tim Hortons, pork-sausage gravy on fries, and a just and equitable social-welfare system. Is Canada morally superior to Saudi Arabia? You bet. It's also morally superior to the United States of America.But back to the big SA: Unless you believe that cutting off the heads of homosexuals has a "deep and completely valid cultural context," or that men treating women as their property is a "value," you have to acknowledge that Saudi Arabia practices and promotes a thoroughly fucked-up brand of Islam. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia's state-sanctioned "morals police" are not, as you imply, an imperialistic fantasy of mine. They are, sadly, a fact of everyday life for Saudi Arabian women, gays, atheists, moderate/non-Wahabi Muslims, and anyone else who fails to live up to the pinched, sex-negative, deeply psychotic brand of monotheism practiced there.To paraphrase the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I believe that human rights are universal, man. As Saudi Arabia exists in this universe, I think that the humans there—Muslim or not, liberal or conservative, male or female, gay or straight—are entitled to their full human rights. Until that day comes, SOS, I'm going to go right on thinking that Canada kicks Saudi Arabia's ass when it comes to morals and values. And bud.

Well sung Propellerheads....hehehe!

The word is about, there's something evolving,
whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here,
that the revolution's near,
but to me it seems quite clear,
that it's all just a little bit of history repeating.

The newspapers shout a new style is growing,
but it don't know if it's coming or going,
there is fashion, there is fad
some is good, some is bad
and the joke is rather sad,that its all just a little bit of history repeating..

and I've seen it before.. and I'll see it again..
yes I've seen it before.. just little bits of history repeating

Some people don't dance, if they don't know who's singing,
why ask your head, it's your hips that are swinging
life's for us to enjoy
woman, man, girl and boy,
feel the pain, feel the joy
aside set the little bits of history repeating..

just little bits of history repeating.. and I've seen it before.. and I'll see it again.. yes I've seen it before.. just little bits of history repeating

Love this country, okay?

Louis Riel was an MP that never assumed his seat in the Commons. Elected to Parliament, he continued to live in the U.S. and raise a family with 3 children. He was known as the Father of Manitoba, and moved to Saskatchewan in 1884 to represent Metis grievances to the Canadian Gov't. Without success. The North-West Rebellion began, and ended in his arrest, trial, and eventual execution for treason. He is known for his controversial role in Canadian politics in Ontario, but when you get out West, the attitude takes on a more dramatic change. Much of this early rebellion history still exists today in our political landscape with the Social Credit, Reform Party and finally Conservatives. The West has risen out of the money pockets of Alberta but I don't know if it's a clean. Maybe we can trust this Western governing body with our federal coffer's, or maybe there will be another Meech Lake Deal.
I find that in Canada in general, Native peoples face discrimination everyday. I can see how that is an easier reaction for non-Native people to express; however, I do not deem this as necessary. How can we personally judge the circumstances of whatever the self governing Chiefs chooses? If there are third world conditions in Canada that find people getting sick from the water on their reserves, drug/alcoholism or living in absolute poverty, I would have a few questions for the people responsible for government transfer payments from the Royal Bank whom holds most of these accounts that are supposed to be administered to Native peoples.
I certainly hope the comment expressed by Stephan Harper on The National regarding Native issues, "Look, I don't know what the problem is..." means that he will try to learn? Can this mean easy cuts of funding to the Native Affairs department for this new government? Don't mind me, but I think it's just a little bit of history repeating just a bit....

Dear Grasshopper: Postcards from New York

December 2005
Grasshopper: Sorry I didn't follow up with the call to you when I was in Denver. Hope that you are well. Talked to Fatty while I was in the mountains. I'm on the mend health wise. Weather is still holding out. You guys catch hell (ICE COLD) every month, no? Love Joseph

Jan 6, 2006
Grasshopper: I didn't call you back from Denver. Was in a totalling relaxed, devil may care mood. Talked to the Fat Girl (Brett). Gave me his new address etc. Watching USCL texas Rose Bowl game. I hate anything Texas.

Jan 31, 2006
Becca: Where is you girl? I'm well, in the rotten apple. Tell me about your new PM!!! Getting ready for Super Sunday. I know I know Pro Sports is Big Business & a huge male fantasy but I do have fun with it!

Jan 30, 2006
Heard about the transit strike here in the evil apple (NYC)? Well, the rank and file turned a rather good contract down. Now the draconian taylor law which says that NYC Municipal employees cannot strike is being applied. No union dues check offs, for every strike day we owe the city two, etc. But there are fine points, estoric and arcan legal ties that must be addressed. Stay tuned.

Feb 2006
You are indeed a very episodic and excentric woman. I dig you very much anyway, you see. Our Union turned down, what I though was a good conhtract which gave us health insurance after retirement for the first time. Will keep you posted. A new breeze in your country w/a conservative PM. WOW. Stay well Grasshopper......

Thank you Sting

Finding the world in the grain of sand
And holding infinities in the palm of your hand
And Heaven's realms in the seedlings of this tiny flower
And eternities in the space of a single hour

Send your love into the future
Send your love into the distant dawn

Inside your mind is a relay station
A mission probe into the unknowing
We send a seed to a distant future
Then we can watch the galaxies growing

This ain't no time for doubting your power
This ain't no time for hiding your care
You're climbing down from an ivory tower
You've got a stake in the world we ought to share

You see the stars are moving so slowly
But still the earth is moving so fast
Can't you see the moon is so lonely
She's still trapped in the pain of the past

This is the time of the world colliding
This is the time of kingdoms falling
This is the time of the worlds dividing
Time to heed your call

Send your love into the future
Send your precious love into some distant time
And fix that wounded planet witht the love of your healing
Send your love

There's no religion but sex and music
There's no religion but sound and dancing
There's no religion line and colour
There's no religion but sacred trance
There's no religion but the endless ocean
There's no religion but the moon and stars
There's no religion but time and motion
There's no religion, just tribal scars

Throw a pebble in and watch the ocean
See the ripples vanish in the distance
It's just the same with all the emotions
It's just the same in every instance

There's no religion but the joys of rhythm
There's no religion but the rites of Spring
There's no religion in the path of hate
No prayer but the one I sing

Send your love into the future
Send you precious love into some distant time
And fix that wounded planet with the love of your healing
Send your love

There's no religion but sex and music
There's no religion that's right or winning
There's no religion in the path of hatred
Ain't no prayer but the one I'm singing

Send your love

I'm sorry this is all I can do guys

This is what our neighbors to the South have been dealing with lately. Sure glad to be Canadian most days.......

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.
Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.
Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.
Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
People look at all this and think of Hitler — and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.
Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this.
There is not going to be some magical "pendulum swing." People who steal elections and believe they're on a "mission from God" will not go without a fight.
There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.
But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn — or be forced — to accept. There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it.
And there is a way. We are talking about something on a scale that can really make a huge change in this country and in the world. We need more than fighting Bush's outrages one at a time, constantly losing ground to the whole onslaught. We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.
Acting in this way, we join with and give support and heart to people all over the globe who so urgently need and want this regime to be stopped.
This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will to try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.
The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.
The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!