Shocking News From Home

So, I miss home like whoa, pretty much all the time. I miss the neighbourhood I grew up in - I miss the streets I used to walk. Like Dunbar. But this is not how I like to be reminded of it. 

I'm really shocked that the cockroach simile is getting used in Dunbar to refer to human beings. All I can think of is Rwanda...I know this is hardly RTLM level, but any time that kind of dehumanising language is used in public discourse it's intensely frightening. 

The assumption that there are no homeless in Dunbar also seems to go unchallenged, even in the article - which is bizarre, since it's just clearly not true.

And worst of all, these people play some sort of representative role for people who, like me, grew up in this neighbourhood. And it makes me sick. 

So I wrote a little note: 

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am a long-time resident of the Dunbar area - although I am currently away at university, I grew up and spent twenty years of my life in and around Dunbar street. I love the neighbourhood.

Sadly, though, I was shocked and appalled to read this story: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/04/23/bc-dunbar-panhandlers-email.html 

I could not believe that the residents association for the area that I was privilege enough to grow up in would display such atrocious attitudes! The entire thrust of the statement was bad enough, but comparing the homeless to cockroaches really made my stomach churn. That's precisely the kind of dehumanising language used to justify and facilitate crimes against humanity. 

I'm sure that the resident's association didn't mean to use the same terms as the genocidaires in Rwanda, but you did support the criminalisation of poverty and homelessness. I am ashamed to see such lack of compassion, and such a NIMBY attitude in my neighbourhood. 

Rather than tying up police time and contributing to the problem, perhaps the resident's association could do something constructive for the problem? A public apology for the attitude, and especially the chosen language, would certainly be a good start. But beyond that, the resident's association should look into taking a collection for one of the many charities working to address homelessness. 

Last, I'd just like to say that contrary to public perception, there ARE homeless people who live in the community. While a number of organisations already do good work helping where they can, it would benefit us all if the residents association recognised that the homeless are our neighbours too - and not somebody else's problem to be moved along by the police.

I look forward to your response,

Teddy Harrison

They have a feedback form here if anyone else wants to add their voice. 

Torture Revelations

I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me as a possibility, but it never crossed my mind. I suppose I was so caught up in the even-if arguments: even if you're trying to get information to stop further attacks, even if you're sure they know something, even if you're sure they're bad guys, you still shouldn't torture. 

So wrapped up in that, that I didn't think this might have been your straight-up inquisition-style torture people to make them tell you what you want, even when it's clearly not true. But apparently some of the latest revelations are that the abusive interrogations techniques (i.e. torture) were used to try to prove the false Saddam Hussein - 9/11 attacks link. No wonder they had to waterboard Kalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in a month. The month? March 2003. 

Puts a whole new, disgusting, evil light on things. 

Good Friday Reading

To make sure I'm not spouting nonesense in my thesis, I'm doing a little reading. Right now it is Desmond Tutu's No Future Without Forgiveness, and its a real treat.

This is just here as a note to myself, but written here the better to ensure I am held to it: if I am not in school next year, I am going to take the opportunity to read books that are well-written and interest me, and simply take from them what I will. 

Shining Through

Sometimes, it seems, the human spirit is indomitable. 

This weekend was not a good one for news. While North Korea gave us what John Stewart has helpfully named "The Last Thing We F@#king Need" in the form of a fresh missile test, Italy was hit with a powerful and horrific earthquake. 

So when that's on the mind, it's nice to hear a glimmer of hope shining through. From the heart of the destruction, "A 98-year-old woman was pulled out alive in L'Aquila after being trapped for 30 hours, local media report. She spent the time crocheting." [BBC]

Where would we be without indomitable grandmothers? 

Happy thoughts for a Sunday morning

• I can hear a clock tower (St. Barnabas, I believe) from where I live now. Faintly, so as not to wake me up, but just so as to chime in a comforting way. It definitely feels like returning from exile. 
• In a clear sign that this is where I should be living, my first effort with pancakes on the new stove turned out beautifully, first try. That never happens!

This importance of a desk

All this moving (4 homes in a month!) has made me think a lot about hearth and home, and what is important in a place to live. The phrase "hearth and home" gives some clue as to what used to be important - the fireplace used to be central to dwelling. As much as I am a fan of sitting around the fire, and perhaps nothing is more fully homely, it's just not that central in modern life. Perhaps the kitchen takes this role for me; I've found the ability to cook - and cook properly, not to microwave things - is something that makes me feel pretty grounded. 

As someone pretty used to sleeping on floors and couches and bus or plane seats, this one might seem a little odd - but a decent bed is also pretty important. I think it may be that, while its actually pretty easy to get minimal rest anywhere, over the long term you need somewhere to fully retreat from the world. That probably means a bed at least as long as you are, that doesn't mess with your back, and at least 8 hours a night quiet enough to get proper shut-eye.

But the last one - and the one most surprising to me - is a desk. I figure this is probably a personality/occupational specific one. I'm sure for a lot of people a desk isn't so central. But lets face it - I may not necessarily end up "an academic", but I'm academic in the sense that whatever I do, its going to revolve around a desk of some sort. And although I thought that meant any flat service, the quality of the desk probably has a lot to do with how grounded I am. My desk at home, for instance - aside from just being beautiful - has a family heritage that is particularly grounding. It's also stocked with all the bits of stationery I've hoarded over the years, meaning that I'm fairly well equipped for most situations. In fact, when I had to set up tabs rooms for tournaments, I usually brought a box full of everything, so that I could set up a mobile deskspace that was at the very least functional - and it helped a lot. The other desk there was the first grown-up thing I bought with my own money, and signalled my transition to university. 

I suppose in many ways I can work on any flat surface - but if its not a good desk, or more if its not become my desk, then it really does have an impact. Jobs I've done, for instance, where the desk is super anonymous and you don't customise it much, feel inevitably temporary. The desk in dorm last year in Oxford was a little like that - it was a big table, really, and while it was fairly functional it contributed to the sincerely temporary feeling of the place. This year has been bizarre; the desk in my first place was just not functional at all, and meant it was nearly impossible to work there. In between places have varied. But this new place - well, the desk "described as Sherlock Holmes-esque" is a beauty. It's old, dark wood...it hasn't been treated well, and so is falling apart, but that somehow adds to it all. And its got plenty of drawyers and pockets for things. So it feels mine already, and functional, and a place to get work done. And I've only been here two days and already it feels very homely sitting here. Oh, the big window with sunshine helps too ;) 

Solidarity

Solidarity seems to mean a lot of things to a lot of people. While it took on pretty specific meaning in the union movement (one I sometimes seem to worry it is losing), there is at base some notion of a unity of feeling. In that way, if in no other, it seems to have a lot in common with compassion. 

Anyway, its a feeling and an idea I like. So I just wanted to record one way that I feel solidarity. Somehow, when I'm working alone on schoolwork (particularly at night), knowing that all over the place my friends are doing the same thing at the same time gives me a feeling - perhaps of unity of purpose, perhaps of suffering together - but its a feeling I like and hold onto. And somehow, being connected by the internet, with even the potential of instant communication - even if I don't actually talk to anybody - makes the solidarity somehow more real.