Review: Sally Campbell, A Mediator’s Eye View, Essays on War, Peace, & Shared Humanity

July 30, 2026

Review: Sally Campbell, A Mediator’s Eye View, Essays on War, Peace, & Shared Humanity By Keith Porteous

You’d think it would be easy to review a book by someone with a worldview that is aligned closely with one’s own, by a writer who has been a regular contributor to this publication. Not so! Instead, I’ll abandon any pretence of objectivity. In her new book, Sally Campbell not only tells it like it is, she gives us the tools we can use in the reconciliation of conflicts, big and small.

Campbell is a teacher and a mediator, and a former lawyer. She is also an extremely literate communicator who carries the valuable talent of equanimity, some of which she acquired during her work with indigenous communities across Canada. Her ability to address the horror and pain of conflicts big and small, without escalating the entrenched divisions in public discourse, is her special gift.

A Mediator’s Eye View is a collection of essays, some of which first appeared in The Islands Grapevine, touching on global conflicts and war from the perspective of someone who dares to imagine that we might be able to end them, by facing the factual and historical realities with intellectual honesty, and employing the tools of peacemaking and reconciliation with dedicated persistence.

From the decades long divides of Israeli apartheid and murderous occupation in Palestine, to the more recent NATO provocations of a catastrophic proxy war in Ukraine, Campbell refuses to allow the Western media narratives to corrupt the truth that desperately needs more exposure to an audience that has been force fed a steady diet of corrupt government propaganda dutifully reported by legacy media.

A Mediator’s Eye View gives us the straight and unvarnished goods on war, empire, and militarism. It also makes the crucially important connection between the massively expanding war machine and the ongoing climate catastrophe, something that is a rare commodity in any current media discourse. And all this with the literal icing on the cake of sharing some of her favourite recipes for the healing practice of baking. Bravo!

We can only hope that Sally will return to these pages as a regular contributor to The Islands Grapevine following her leave of absence to complete this book. We’ve missed you Sally!

A Mediator’s Eye View is available from Abraxas Books on Denman, or directly through Sally at Farmers Market Wednesdays on Hornby. Alternatively, Friesen Press Bookstore, online at https://books.friesen press.com has both paperback and e-copy available.

The Ombudsperson Defence for Finding the BCF Commissioner is in Compliance

July 30, 2026

The Ombudsperson Defence for Finding the BCF Commissioner is in Compliance

Here is the BC Ombudsperson’s not surprising decision to close File 24-006480 regarding the Ferry Commissioner’s breach of office and the Coastal Ferry Act. You can read the entire letter on the Drag Rag. My rejection of the investigator’s findings will appear in the next Grapevine edition. I urge all to email the Office of the Ombudsperson with your responses–mail@bcombudsperson.ca–especially the claim that the Commissioner has been successful in directing BCF to engage more meaningfully with the FACs, the only evidence of compliance offered in the investigator’s lengthy defence, which is shattered by BCF disbanding the FACs immediately after the Commissioner posted her directive to significantly improve engagement.

BC Ombudsperson Officer Wendy Byrne closed File 24-006480, finding that the Office of the Commissioner acted within its jurisdiction, in accordance with applicable legislation and statutory guidelines, with no administrative unfairness identified. In her July 16, 2026 letter, Byrne emphasizes that the Office of the BC Ferries Commissioner operates strictly under the legal parameters established by the Coastal Ferry Actand the Coastal Ferry Services Contract.

The following breakdown outlines the Commissioner’s jurisdictional limits and how statutory obligations were evaluated and met:

What the Commissioner Cannot Do

No Operational Control: The Commission does not have authority over BC Ferries’ day-to-day operations and operating expenses, customer service policies, safety procedures, or specific ferry fares (except to set an overall system-wide price cap).
No Fleet or Route Decisions: Managing wait times, cable ferry reliability, and decisions to expand or replace vessels rest solely with BCF.

What the Commissioner Can Do

High-Level Mandate: Responsible for setting price caps, considering major capital expenditures, regulating unfair competitive advantage, approving BC Ferries’ customer complaints process, and monitoring adherence to the Coastal Services contract.
Balancing Authority: Regulates minimum round trips under Section 38 while balancing user interests, taxpayer costs, and operator financial sustainability in the manner the Commissioner considers appropriate using its statutory authority and expertise.

How Statutory Obligations Were Met

Forwarding Complaints: Referring operational concerns directly to BC Ferries management was appropriate and reasonable given jurisdictional limits.
Evaluating Reporting: It remains within the Commission’s discretion to determine if public evidence is sufficient for the Commission to question BCF’s reporting on cancellations.
Public Engagement Oversight: Exercised statutory monitoring by requiring BC Ferries to submit annual reports and clearly define and communicate what role the FACs will have in the enhanced vision of BC Ferries’ Public Engagement.

In defending the Commissioner’s compliance under Section 38 of the Act, Byrne writes that the regulator’s authority is legally restricted to high-level system oversight. These duties include establishing overall price caps, evaluating major capital expenditures, regulating unfair competitive advantages, and monitoring compliance with minimum annual round-trip schedules set out in Schedule A. Daily operational matters—such as specific sailing disruptions, cable ferry reliability, terminal traffic congestion, safety protocols, and customer service policies—rest entirely under the governance of BC Ferries as the operating corporation. The Commission possesses no statutory authority to order operational alterations or dictate vessel replacements.

In evaluating how community concerns were handled, Byrne clarifies that the Office of the Commissioner’s responses accurately reflected the legal limits of its office. Because the Commission lacks statutory authority over daily operations, issuing standard responses clarifying these jurisdictional boundaries and referring resident complaints directly to BC Ferries management was an action in accordance with their legislation.

Regarding allegations of under-reported sailings, Officer Byrne notes that Section 38 grants the Commissioner sole discretion to judge whether public evidence warrants formal questioning of BC Ferries. Furthermore, in balancing user interests, taxpayer costs, and operator financial sustainability, provincial law explicitly accords the Commissioner wide latitude to weigh these competing priorities in the manner the Commissioner considers appropriate.

Regarding community relations and Ferry Advisory Committees (FACs), Byrne writes that the Commission fulfilled its statutory mandate to monitor how BC Ferries communicates with the public. Following a 2022 performance review, the Commission issued formal orders requiring BC Ferries to submit annual public engagement reports and formally respond to regulatory recommendations, including clarifying the evolving role of the FACs. Because BC Ferries submitted its required annual filings addressing these recommendations, the Commission satisfied its statutory monitoring duties under the Act. Concluding that the Office of the Commissioner operated within its statutory authority and validly exercised its legal discretion, Officer Byrne found no evidence of administrative unfairness, procedural failure, or improper exercise of discretion, and formally closed the file under Section 13 of the Ombudsperson Act.

Sadly, Russophobia is Alive and Well!

July 30, 2026

Sadly, Russophobia is Alive and Well!

By Yvon Raoul, Denman Island

“He who does not regret the destruction of the Soviet Union has no heart; he who wants it recreated in its former shape has no brain.” Vladimir Putin.

I doubt very much that this statement by Putin has ever been heard in our Western media which only quotes the established narrative, while overlooking remarks that reveal greater complexity.

I am writing to follow up on an article in the Grapevine (July 2nd 2026) by Keith Porteous. In it he draws on Carl Jung, who analyzed our tendency to project our own faults onto others. Projection allows us to minimize our own shortcomings while placing someone else’s under a spotlight. I agree that this is the case in the West’s perception of Russia.

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The crisis had been building for years, but the invasion was shocking nonetheless. Russia described it as a “special military operation.” At the time I found the euphemistic expression unsettling—a piece of Orwellian Newspeak designed to disguise the enormity of what was taking place. It already possessed an immense territory and was earning enormous revenues from oil and gas exports.

My understanding of Ukraine in the pre-invasion period was superficial. Like many others I imagined a country of vast sunflower fields—a newly liberated nation that had finally escaped the shackles of a despotic, blood-sucking Communist regime, one seemingly more terrible than anything imagined by Ivan the Terrible. I’m barely exaggerating.

Since then I have listened to commentators like Professor John Mearsheimer, journalist Chris Hedges, and economist and UN advisor Jeffrey Sachs, including pro-Ukrainian voices such as Timothy Snyder, history professor at the University of Toronto, and journalist Philip Short, the author of “Putin”, a biography. I gradually came to view this conflict through a much wider historical and geopolitical lens than the one generally offered by our mainstream media.

The image of Russia as the “Evil Empire”—echoing Ronald Reagan’s famous rhetoric during the final years of the Cold War—still lingers in most of our newsrooms, shaping both the language and the assumptions that permeate our collective minds. Our press is more ready to point at Soviet Gulags than at the massacres created by our assumed-to-be–free world. Pointing the finger at others keeps us distracted from our own horror shows.

Russia has never been a land of uninterrupted peace and brotherly love, but then I cannot think of any nation since Adam and Eve that has managed such a feat for very long. Russia has endured more than its share of invasion, civil war, famine, repression, and misery. From Mongol horsemen to Nazi tank divisions, foreign armies have repeatedly crossed Russia’s frontiers in search of territory, power, and resources. Now that I have read more about the history, I understand better why Russia did not want Ukraine to be part of NATO.

The United States has been fortunate to have two great oceans protecting it from the repeated invasions that have shaped so much of European and Russian history. Yet Americans still found themselves slaughtering one another during the Civil War, which claimed close to one million lives. I’m skipping here the rest of the twentieth century calamities orchestrated by the American “Land of the Free.” Yet, in much of the Western imagination, Russia remains the ultimate bogeyman.

This is not to excuse Russia’s own wars or abuses, but rather to question the selective way history is remembered. We need to recall that Russia has been attacked by the Swedes (1708), Napoleon (1812), Britain, France, Finland, Turkey (1853), Japan (1904), Germany (1914), and the combined forces of Britain, France, the United States, Japan, Canada, and Italy (1918).

In the Second World War, Nazi Germany’s barbarous invasion of the Soviet Union left 25 million Russian casualties. European fascist volunteers fought alongside Nazi forces, including the Ukrainian Galician S.S. nationalists, many of which participated in killing tens of thousands of Poles, Jews, Roma, and Russians.

The proverb “once bitten, twice shy”, has no doubt infused the psyche of the Russian population, including Putin, whose brother starved during the Leningrad siege that killed more people that Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined: 750 000 human beings.Yet we still see Russia as the recurring villain, and our history books rarely mention that Nazi Germany would never have been defeated without the Soviet offensives that destroyed much of the German army in the East.

Our D-Day commemorations relegate the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany to the margin, leaving the impression that the war was won almost entirely by the United States and its Western allies. Similarly, looking back to the nineteenth century, had Napoleon’s Grande Armée not been shattered in Russia, would Wellington have prevailed at Waterloo?

Collective memory helps explain why many Russians remain deeply apprehensive about military threats approaching from the West. From Gorbachev to Yeltsin and now Putin, NATO’s expansion has always been a worrisome menace to Russian leaders. During the negotiations over German reunification, US Secretary of State James Baker proclaimed loud and clear that “NATO will not expand one inch to the east.'”

From Putin’s perspective, “Our biggest mistake was to trust you too much. Your mistake was to take that trust as weakness and abuse it.” After all, after he came to power, Putin suggested that Russia become part of the European Union and NATO.

Russia has remained a primary villain of Western political mythology since the end of the Second World War. It is far easier to reduce an entire nation to a handful of labels than to understand its history. “The Evil Empire,” “Mordor,” “the Reds,” “the Commies,” “the Ruskies”—each becomes a convenient stereotype, a verbal box into which an entire people can be placed.

If we hope to build a more peaceful world, we must make the effort to understand how our so-called enemies see us. Peace cannot rest on caricatures or blind spots that reduce those on the other side to little more than embodiments of evil.

Sadly, NATO and the vast U.S. military-industrial lobby set the agenda, the media packages it in “newspeak”, and politicians dutifully repeat this mantra to a public that often has little time to question the narrative.

None of this negates the horror Ukrainians suffer from being a buffer state, the death of soldiers on both sides, or the economic hardships felt in other countries because of a war that could have been avoided in 2014 if the Minsk Accord had been implemented.

The Beaker That Wouldn’t Settle

July 30, 2026

Gabriel Jeroschewitz, June 12th, 2026, dedicated to Professor Drake Utonium, the brilliant, gentle-hearted scientist and adopted father in The Powerpuff Girls. As the quintessential deuteragonist, he serves as the perfect moral anchor,

The Beaker That Wouldn’t Settle

It happened to be a Friday when the beaker finally exploded. It didn’t blast into a million pieces or emit a loud pop or whoosh as it broke. Instead, the beaker burped, a faint violet vapour drifting out of it that smelled peculiarly of existential anxiety.

Professor Utonium stared at it. The beaker stared back at him, as though somehow capable of understanding him and his professorial life. From the beaker’s opening he perceived a faint luminescence, as though his creation was breathing, and figures within the glow that seemed to study him with deep concern – though that glow seemed to come from the beaker itself.

“What,” said Professor Utonium, combing his perfectly straight part with his index finger, “have I done?”

What he had done was create three of the most dangerous authors active in the Western literary tradition: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus. Each of them would take up residence in his laboratory and his head for the foreseeable future.

The first to approach him was the tall one – the embodiment of Dostoevsky.

He showed up at six in the morning, restless and insomniac in his approach to the life of a professor.

“You see,” said Dostoevsky, who wandered around the beaker of water that Utonium had filled for a morning cup of tea, “the question is not whether the water is hot. The question is whether the water deserves to be hot. What is the relationship between water and its own temperature? Does the water suffer, Professor? Does it know of the suffering of others?”

“I just wanted to boil some water for tea,” said Professor Utonium

“Tea!” said Dostoevsky, his eyes stretched wide with such realization and joy that Utonium almost thought he was possessed by religious zealotry. “You reduce the cosmos to tea! When you boil water and drink it, you allow the hot water to interact with your tongue, your cup, your table, the floor, the building, and the earth. Professor, meet God!”

The kettle screamed in the Professor’s kitchen.

The second to arrive was the one without announcement – Kafka himself.

Sitting in the corner of the laboratory was a thin man in a suit that did not appear to fit him properly. He looked up when Professor Utonium entered the laboratory.

“I have been told,” said Kafka, “that you are the one responsible for my existence.”

“I – I mean, technically -”

“No,” said Kafka, “you are not responsible for my existence. I require Form 27-B, but I have not been provided with a copy. Instead, I have been provided with a beaker. The beaker, I suspect, is insufficient. I have filed a complaint with the Administration, but it has been routed to a nonexistent department. They have also told me that I do not exist.”

“They have?”

“They have.”

Utonium never did discover what Kafka desired of him. He suspected that Kafka did not know himself. Every morning Kafka would appear with a new form. Every morning the form would be rejected by the Administration. Yet every morning, Utonium would find forms in his own handwriting, submitted to the Administration in a language he did not understand, but with a signature that approximated his own.

The last to arrive was the third – the embodiment of Camus.

Camus showed up with two mugs of coffee and a smile that was either peaceful or unhinged.

“You’ve made a mistake,” said Camus, placing one of the mugs into Professor Utonium’s hand. “All three of you have made a mistake. But that’s all right.”

Utonium investigated the coffee. It was perfect. The fact that it was perfect was the most unsettling element of their existence.

“How is any of this ‘the point’?” asked Professor Utonium.

Camus kicked his feet up on the laboratory table and gestured at the other two.

“Look at them. Look at us. We have been given one beaker and one counter in the world, and for the rest of our lives have been given these questions that have no answers. Dostoevsky seeks an answer through suffering. Kafka seeks an answer in the Administration that created his existence. I seek coffee despite the existence of suffering.” He took a sip. “The rock will roll down the hill, Professor. It always does. The only question is whether you roll it back up the hill with a smile.”

“That’s -”

“Don’t say that” said Camus. “You’ll spoil the moment.”

The three of them established a routine within the laboratory. Dostoevsky would spend his mornings with Professor Utonium engaging in moral dilemmas that left Utonium questioning the very existence of his conscience. Camus would spend his afternoons in the kitchen, preparing elaborate meals for the trio in a demonstration of rebellion against an absurd existence. Kafka would spend his evenings standing in the doorways of the laboratory, waiting for a call that never came, sighing intensely with each passing hour.

There would be arguments. There were big ones.

“The human soul is a battlefield!” Dostoevsky cried. Camus’s coffee jumped into the air in concern. Kafka’s form was splattered with coffee and instantly voided.

“The human bureaucracy is the battlefield,” said Kafka, “and the battlefield is located within Form 9-C, which Professor Utonium has incorrectly filled out.”

“There is no battlefield!” Camus cried, laughing. “Look around you. It’s Friday. There’s a hill and a rock and a man. The man rolls the rock down the hill. The rock falls. The man rolls again. That’s not suffering. “But Now it’s Tuesday.”

“Tuesday is suffering!” Dostoevsky shouted.

“No,” Camus said, almost gently. “Tuesday is absurd. Suffering is the idea that Tuesday is supposed to mean something.”

Kafka looked up from the voided form. “I filled out a form once,” he said, “that stated I was not suffering. The Administration rejected my form and stated that I was, in fact, suffering for having denied suffering. It required that I suffer in a different wing of the Administration facility.”

The room went silent. Even Dostoevsky didn’t have anything to add to that.

It was a Thursday when Professor Utonium finally sat down across from the three of them and admitted what had been eating at him since the beaker first glowed.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said. “You’re all too much. You’re loud, and sad, and confusing, and you won’t leave, and I think—” He paused, fixing his immaculate part. “I think you broke my ability to have a normal thought.”

“Good,” said Dostoevsky.

“That’s the process,” said Kafka.

“That’s the point,” said Camus, and raised his coffee cup.

Utonium looked at the beaker on his desk—still faintly glowing, still slightly violet, still faintly ominous. He thought about the forms, the suffering, the rock, and the hill. He thought about the way Kafka stood in doorways, waiting for permission that was never granted. He thought about the way Dostoevsky’s eyes burned with questions that had no safe answers. He thought about the way Camus smiled, not because everything was fine, but because smiling was its own answer—a small, defiant, absolutely unreasonable act of defiance within the face of a universe that had no obligations to any of them.

He picked up his own cup. It was cold. He drank it anyway.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “someone is going to have to explain to the university why I’ve been filing my lab reports in triplicate and weeping into a kettle.”

“Welcome to the team,” Camus said.

And the beaker, as if in agreement, gave one final, quiet glow—then settled, at last, into repose.

Letter to the Editor – Harvey Abramson

July 30, 2026

A letter to the editor:

According to “The New Nelson Japanese Character Dictionary”

(Tuttle,1997), the Japanese word “maga”, written with the character 禍

or with 禍, means “calamity, misfortune, woe, evil, curse”. How

accurate this definition is about that uppercase “maga” homonym!

Attached is the dictionary entry.

Harvey Abramson

Denman Island, BC

There Will Be Times, Oh My Child, When It All Seems Hopeless

July 30, 2026

There Will Be Times, Oh My Child, When It All Seems Hopeless

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

JUL 25, 2026

Reading by Tim Foley:

There will be times,
oh my child,
when it all seems hopeless.

When the trees all have QR codes
and the bank boys and balrogs
are holding all the cards.

When your refrigerator tells you
“THE IRANIAN PEOPLE YEARN FOR FREEDOM”
and your electric shaver can smell
if you’ve been reading Parenti.

When you’re on a first-name basis
with the police surveillance drones
and your colonoscopy screen
in the exam room
is running ads for Northrop Grumman.

And it is true,
oh my child,
it is true that the machine is mighty
and that its armor is very thick.

It is true that the bank boys
have long fingers
and they are putting marbles
in our minds.

The sky is red,
and the moon has a FOR SALE sign,
and parts of Palestinians
are turning up in our tap water.

But oh my child, do not be daunted,
and oh my child, do not despair.
There are forces within us
the Flock cameras can’t see.
There are depths within us
not even the balrogs can reach.

Beneath all the doomscroll addiction psychosis,
beneath all the oceans of trauma and toil,
a creature is stirring
and opening its eyes,
its eyes full of primordial déjà vu,
its eyes full of Big Bang recursions
full of eyes
watching eyes
watching eyes
watching eyes.

It looks at you,
and you meet its gaze.

Everything goes still.

You remember what you are.

Oh my sweet, darling child,
you see it now.

You see that This
could never be contained.

__________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I publish is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Feature image via Adobe Stock.

Texada and the Coastal Mountains

July 30, 2026

facebook.com/markprior.images

clam

July 30, 2026

#1745

July 30, 2026

Denman ART Studio Tour August 15 & 16 • 10 am–5 pm

July 23, 2026

Denman ART Studio Tour

August 15 & 16 • 10 am–5 pm

A Weekend of Creativity, Community, and Discovery

The Denman ART Studio Tour offers a rare chance to meet artists in their working environments, learn about their creative processes, and experience the island’s vibrant artistic spirit firsthand. Studios range from cozy cabins and woodland workshops to ocean‑view spaces and long‑established professional studios.

This year’s tour features 27 artists across 20 studios, showcasing an impressive range of mediums — clay, wood, textiles, photography, painting, metalwork, mixed media, and more. There truly is something for everyone.

Event Details

Dates: August 15 & 16
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Location: Studios across Denman Island
Tour Map: Available on our blog, at the Denman Island Arts Centre during the weekend of the tour, and at the Hornby Farmers’ Market info booth.

Learn More

Visit our blog for artist profiles, studio previews, map and updates:

denmanstudiotour.blogspot.com

Community Support Makes the Tour Possible

The Denman ART Studio Tour extends heartfelt thanks to its 2026 supporters:

Denman WORKS!, Arts Denman, 97.3 The Eagle, First Credit Union, Sure Copy Courtenay, Jordan McDonald – RE/MAX Ocean Pacific, BC Ferries, Hairpins Boutique Salon, Terry Lynn Hemmerling Yoga, Beech & Cedar Homes, Denman Island Chocolate, Seaside Electric, Jenessa and Donna Tuele at the Tuele Real Estate Group, Lora’s truck services, Keep Floral, Denman Island Tea, Denman Island Hardware Store, Denman Craft Store, Friesen Family Construction, Denman Water, Eden Therapy Clinic Studio, Corlan Vineyard & Farm.