Phoenix Riting! – November 23rd, 2023

November 23, 2023

Many years ago, at the end of the fabled 80s, a man who has long since left the island told me, “When I moved here from Toronto I thought I was moving from life in the fast lane to life in the slow lane. Little did I know it’s really life in the oncoming lane!” So many things—I am missing a lot of them and still I’m having a hard time keeping track of it all.

I missed the Studio tour! I was so disappointed. I love the studio tours; I normally try to write a column about it. Our island artists and their studios are so varied, original, talented and eclectic, there’s always much to be said. This time it landed on a Sunday, my overcommitted day of the week. I have four regular scheduled commitments, including two radio shows, on Sundays. Yet, so many things are scheduled on Sundays. I understand that Sundays are free days for most people, and of course, you can’t do all the things. There’s only one of me (repeat into the mirror until I believe it). My life has often been a pendulum swing between stretching myself thin trying to do all the things and crashing on the couch doing none of them.

I’ve gotten better at managing my energies (except on Sundays) and at letting go of the things that are too much. One of these days I’ll master this life gig.

I did go to the second Economic Development Strategy Community Engagement workshop facilitated by Wellesley Consulting last week. This session was different in feel and tone from the first, which had been very engaged, inspiring and connected. Frictions and discomfort were revealed. The question period at the beginning generated a lot of discussion, much of it emotional, about who the workshops were for, what the purpose was, why? I held my tongue, but such concerns seemed out of place at that moment. We were attending a workshop. This seemed like showing up to play baseball then questioning the rules, delaying the game.

The questions were patiently answered as best they could, though perhaps not to the satisfaction of the questioners. At last, all that needed saying was said, and we got to do what we were there to do. And then, I found myself questioning the process and purpose. The ideas purportedly generated in previous workshops and sessions were listed each under their category headings. Those of us at the meeting were to choose the ones most important to us by placing coloured stickers next to them. I noticed that some of the important points we had agreed on as a large group in September had been dropped. I added back what I could remember in the blanks we were invited to fill in. True, someone has to pare down the myriad ideas generated in these sessions. But what filter is used to prioritize? What’s falling through those cracks?

There were still many wonderful and important ideas on the list, and I do hope it will serve us going forward in some way. I have no idea what will be done with this information or whose priorities will be applied to outcomes, if any, of these ‘economic development’ workshops. HICEEC says that this project, although sponsored by them, is not intended for HICEEC, but for ‘the community’. But… who exactly is that? We are assured these workshops are not merely to generate ideas but action plans. But the acting entity, or entities, are not defined.

We’ll see where it all goes. I remain optimistic, with pessimistic overtones. I’m not sorry I went.

On the much-more-fun side, David Gogo at the Hall Saturday night was an absolute blast. Someone said to me, when I asked if they were going to the show, “To see David Ego? Are you kidding? No way!” I laughed and laughed. It’s true that the man has a massive ego. I’m not sure how that is a criticism of his performance, though. You have to have a big, strong ego to do what he does, and he has the talent, skill and power to back it up. The setting was perfect: himself, a drummer and bassist. Plenty of room for his ego on that stage, which in my opinion took second place to the brilliant music. It was excellent. I managed to stay to the very end of this one; I danced and danced and lost my little mind doing so. Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. David Ego!

The other fun thing I did this week was Barbie the Movie at the Hall. I hadn’t seen the film yet, which was silly yet weirdly deep, my favourite. Cotton candy with a shot of herbal tincture. The best part, aside from the film itself, was the fun others had dressing up. I don’t own pink, so I stayed in my usual colours (the rest of them, basically), but some people went all out and it was amazing.

Christmas is coming. That has the ominous overtones of the Game of Thrones’ ‘Winter is Coming.’ I have an original Christmas song ready to finish in the studio tomorrow and I hope to get it released in time for the jingle season. I’ll keep you all posted!

That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com

False Accusations Of Anti-Semitism Exploit A Healthy Impulse To Advance A Profoundly Sick One

November 23, 2023

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

NOV 15, 2023

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The most despicable thing about the way Israel supporters smear Israel’s critics as anti-semites is that they are exploiting a very healthy impulse to advance a profoundly sick impulse. They knowingly exploit the fact that the further to the left someone is on the the political spectrum the more likely they are to (A) support Palestinian rights and (B) be very receptive to any suggestion that they might be acting in a racially insensitive way.

My followers who are on the right side of the political spectrum always have melodramatic conniptions whenever I say this, but there is a lot of value in learning about the role racial inequality plays in the injustices of our society and getting real with ourselves about where our own racial circumstances fit in with those unjust power dynamics. It’s a very healthy impulse to look within yourself and figure out if there’s anything in you as an individual that feeds into the racial injustices of our society, whether you‘re aware of it at first or not. This is especially true of white people, since racial injustices tend to benefit us in this society.

The further someone is toward the left end of the spectrum, the more likely they are to respond to an accusation of racism by stopping in their tracks and inquiring deeply into whether the accusation might have some truth to it. If the accusation is that you harbor the same kind of racism that gave rise to the Holocaust — one of the worst mass atrocities in all of human history — then you are all the more likely to stop and take the accusation seriously.

This is a healthy impulse. If everyone took seriously their responsibility to expunge everything in them that feeds into the injustices of our world, we would have peace and harmony on earth very quickly. But this impulse gets exploited in the most odiously cynical way imaginable to defend the interests of a murderous and tyrannical government whose very existence is premised on racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and abuse.

Have you ever noticed that it’s never the actual anti-semites who get attacked as anti-semites? Nowadays it’s very seldom the assholes saying Jews rule the world and are the source of society’s ills who are inundated with such accusations; supporters of Israel tend to more or less leave them alone. The ones who get slandered as anti-semites are people like Jeremy Corbyn — leftists who’ve dedicated their entire lives to anti-racism, whose only actual offense is believing that Palestinians are human beings and should be treated as such.

In fact actual anti-semites are some of Israel’s strongest allies. The lion’s share of forceful support for Israel in the United States comes not from Jews but from Christian Zionists who support Israel because they believe it will bring Jesus back so he can damn all non-Christians to eternal hellfire. Televangelist John Hagee, who believes Hitler was sent by God to help create Israel, had a prominent speaking spot at Tuesday’s “March for Israel” in Washington DC.

While people who hate Jews so much they want them to writhe in eternal hellfire are warmly embraced as allies of convenience by Israel and its supporters, healthy leftists who oppose racism in all its forms are attacked by Israel apologists as Nazis and Jew-haters. This is because their actions are not designed to protect Jews or reduce anti-semitism — their actions are to facilitate the strategic objectives of the Israeli government and its allies.

Really what’s happening in Gaza right now isn’t about Jews or Judaism at all; it’s about using violent force to take land and resources away from an indigenous population, as history has seen happen time and time again in situations that had nothing to do with Jews. It’s a profoundly unhealthy impulse that’s been causing immense human suffering for centuries, and people who’ve noticed the same patterns in Israel that they’ve seen in all the other settler-colonial projects over the last 500 years are being shouted down and bullied into staying silent using some of the most unethical manipulations ever devised.

The good news is that it doesn’t seem to be working as much anymore. People are gradually becoming aware that accusations of anti-semitism are used by Israel apologists to stagnate and stifle support for Palestinian rights, and are beginning to take those accusations a lot less seriously. There’s only so many times you can watch dishonest smear campaigns against good-faith leftists before you start to figure out that you’re being manipulated.

As with most problems, the solution to this one is to expand consciousness. The more people become aware of the way accusations of anti-semitism are cynically used to shut down pro-Palestine sentiments around the world, the less power those methods will have. That doesn’t mean we stop treating real anti-semitism like a real problem or that we become less sensitive to racial injustice; it simply means we see what’s being done in this specific instance and start calling it what it is.

_____________

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. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. 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. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Evolutionary Reconciliation: Part 3

November 23, 2023

“Conflict, after all, is rooted in difference and people are and always will be different. With the exception of natural disasters…most of the pain, waste, and neglect towards human life that we create….are consequences of our overreaction to difference.This is expressed through our resistance to facing and resolving problems, which is overwhelmingly a refusal to change how we see ourselves, in order to be accountable.” Sarah Schulman

In her book “Conflict Is Not Abuse” Sarah Schulman, a tenured professor at New York City University, claims: “I believe in the unconscious.” She believes that understanding how unconscious insecurity/anxiety can fuel the tendency of overstating of harm which then leads to the abuse of power. Anxiety is a very uncomfortable emotion. When insecure people, bullies and police officers, who have social/structural power, are unconscious of their own anxiety, they will tend to project that anxiety onto others who they perceive as a threat. We are all vulnerable to the existential threats of illness, accidents, suffering and weakness. This truth is denied by our current system, anxiety goes underground and becomes the norm. “Power over” or abuse, occurs when someone with social/economic status uses their power to dehumanize the other. Conflict is what occurs between people who share equal power dynamics; i.e. “power with.” People and groups that insist on perfection and use the good/bad dichotomy, are refusing to see their own distorted thinking, which of course, arises from the unconscious mind. The Supremacist/narcissist person/group thinks it is entitled to never question themselves, and to scapegoat, shun, issue threats or inflict punishment. This creates insecurity and instability in the entire community.

When we abandon our duty to advocate for open dialogue in family and community conflicts, we unwittingly give that power over to the unconscious and also to the state, e.g. the police and the courts who will move in to administer punishment. Alternatively, stepping in to intervene in a conflict requires coming from a well-resourced community. Victims and villains both think: “you need help,” but community-minded, conscious folks acknowledge “we need help.” Take a deep breath and let this bold idea, thanks to Wendell Berry, sink in: “The smallest unit of health is a community.” Yes, the individual is simply a reflection of family and of the community.

The gesture of inviting people stuck in conflict to sit down face to face, look into each others’ eyes, and to listen from the heart evolves the process of reconciliation. As Chief Robert Joseph says: “Reconciliation should be a core value and it should suffuse the way we live and breathe. We need to start thinking about our own lives and what needs reconciling. It could be a broken relationship, or it could be a family squabble or it could be substance abuse or fear.” Who will you call upon this week, who can help you look at what next we can do together to organize community here on this blessed island, on this sacred planet?

Green Wizardries: Bread, Butter and Soup

November 23, 2023

I recently discovered a delicious sort of bread, made from lentils. I thought it sounded odd too but my sister and I share an allergy to wheat so we are always on the prowl for gluten-free recipes. She introduced me to this bread and I love it. It makes great toast!

Now, the problem with many gluten-free breads is that they are made of different starches that are far too processed. Once eaten, they raise the blood sugar high and crash it hard. Lentil bread is barely processed and is full of fibre and protein. It has a remarkable effect on blood sugar, keeping it rock solid for many hours.

If I eat a small slice of this bread for lunch, I am always caught off guard by my husband getting hungry and wanting supper. By suppertime, I am still full and have no appetite at all. I usually join him for a small taste at supper just to be sociable. My sister finds lentil bread affects her in the same way and she has lost four pounds in two months without trying to limit her eating or counting calories or anything of that sort. I find my belly is slowly going down and my clothes feel more comfortable. I am also feeling stronger and less fatigued.

The recipe is simplicity itself and the ingredients are few and easy to source. To make this bread, grease a metal loaf pan. I usually make two or more loaves at the same time to use the oven more economically. The first time, just make one loaf to see if you like it.

Soak two cups of red lentils overnight or for at least three hours. Drain the lentils and put them in a blender. Add three eggs and one cup of yogourt (I use one cup of coconut milk and two tablespoons of lemon juice), one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of baking soda. Whirl that all up until it is smooth. I add one cup of ground flax for more of a whole-wheat feel. Mix it all together and pour it into the baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 50 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

I have dairy allergies and I remembered a Hippy restaurant from ages ago that served veggie butter. I couldn’t find any recipes for this so I had to make one up. I do not trust commercial margarine. Put half a cup of olive oil in a pan and add one heaping teaspoon of garlic powder and one of cumin. Cooked that up until it is aromatic and then add a 5.5 ounce tin of tomato paste and cook it until it is all incorporated. This makes a really nice, savoury veggie butter but, of course, you can play around with the spices. I keep the butter in the fridge in a glass jar and it is easy to spread straight from the fridge.

Now, the soup is a squash soup and it is the season for winter squash. I like to steam the squash in a large pot with a little water until the squash is soft enough to work with easily. I let it cool and then divide it into two bowls, one for the skin and the seeds which my sheep just love and one for the flesh of the squash.

Slice and saute two onions, four cloves of garlic, and one or more tablespoons of chopped fresh ginger in some olive oil. Add a teaspoon of chili powder or how much you think your family will enjoy. You can add chopped carrots to taste and the squash. Add three quarts of meat or vegetable stock and a quart of home canned tomatoes. Cook that until the carrots are tender ad then add one cup of peanut butter. Stir until smooth. I like to add a few spoons of honey to balance the flavours. Salt and pepper to taste and serve sprinkled with some fresh cilantro or parsley if you have it.

This makes a whole lot of soup and after the first serving, I pour the remaining soup into glass quart jars and cool it. Once it is cool, I put some in the fridge and give some away to friends I think need cheering up. It also freezes well. This soup is good enough to serve at a supper party and I think even children will like it. It is certainly popular in my family.

This soup is descended from the West African Peanut Soup recipe in the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook. The big change is that recipe calls for yams which don’t grow around here although some intrepid gardeners did grow sweet potatoes here last summer. If you can get a copy of this cookbook, I urge you to do so. Every recipe I have ever tried from Sundays has been an outrageous success.

Black Beluga

November 23, 2023

Say Hey! Check out Gair’s latest Book Of Cartoons.

Available at Abraxas Books!

Buckley’s

November 23, 2023

It has history

Bitter like the taste

Born in Canada

In the form of a paste

After a sickness killed twenty million

Following the first world war

One man had an idea

For the rich and the poor

His name was William Buckley

A pharmacist established in Toronto

Who needed a cure for cough

He got down to business pronto

It is an odd mixture

Consulting of pine-needle oil

Ammonium carbonate and menthol

With irish moss extract from the soil

Take one spoonful

Ten milliliters to be exact

The taste lasts a while

After going down the hatch

For a moment no taste occurs

The it kicks in

Most horrible on the tongue

The flavor remains grim

I am currently sick

As I write this poem

Took Buckley’s a few minutes ago

I hope to soon roam

I’ve heard it works well

To get rid of a cold

It has worked for a century

A story that I have just told

Letter to the Editor – Helen Grond

November 23, 2023

This is an illustration about revolution theme

Shortages in the Land of Plenty

When your government goes off the rails, what can you do?

The last year of the Rogers tower application process on Hornby Island has revealed a disturbing pattern of acting outside of legal protocols by The Islands Trust Corporation (yes, it’s a corporation). Freedom of Information documents (FOIA) have clearly demonstrated how Trust planners avoided due process at every turn and coached and guided Brian Gregg, Rogers’ agent, on how to get his tower application approved quickly by ignoring the laws designed to protect the rights of Hornby Islanders. Several Trust planners have either left or been transferred off the file without a proper explanation. Something is going seriously awry at the Trust and our Trustees seem to have been silenced and sidelined. Is the Trust involved in a “cover up” since recent allegations have been made and therefore they’ve cancelled scheduled meetings and gone silent?

Concerned Hornby citizens have held three public information meetings over the course of the last year. Neither Rogers nor the Trust has held a single one. Over 300 islanders have signed a petition stating they don’t think cell towers are appropriate for Hornby Island. Many thanks to all of those participants in a process that should have been democratic but so far, has failed that fundamental test spectacularly.

To add insult to injury, the tower consultation process appears to have technically expired on March 20^th, 2023 – 120 days after official notice of intent was published on November 21, 2022. The federal agency in charge of the application regulations – Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED)- has clear guidelines: “ISED expects that land-use consultation will be completed within 120 days from the proponent’s initial formal contact with the local land-use authority”. Why hasn’t the Trust cancelled the application as supported by ISED’s own procedural guidelines? Did Rogers apply for an extension required by legal protocols and if so why has the Trust not informed the community?

Mistrusting the Trust has been a preoccupation for many Islanders over the years. If the recent revelations had happened ten or even five years ago, most Islanders would have been up in arms. Why the apathy? People tell me it’s because fighting “out of touch” governments feels futile. They say governments “don’t listen and they haven’t for years”. Their politically motivated decisions are not based on data or evidence and seem to reflect “personal opinions and agendas”.

The public has been rendered paralysed as a result of years of uncertainty, fear and outright confusion. Where will this end? It can’t end well unless we demand accountability. Demoralized citizens tend to feel disconnected and neutralized. Who can blame them? Will it take people being pushed to their limit to react?

What is our limit? We have already been forced to accept an 80% increase in housing costs in the last five years due to government fiscal mismanagement. Provincial laws have banned winter rentals, removing important and long standing available low-cost rental housing. Our ferries are clearly not functioning normally. We are watching our local economy head towards disaster through the overt cancellation by the Islands Trust of important sources of livelihoods – without regard to who gets hurt and completely ignoring due process throughout! Our governments have invested vast amounts of money in luxury projects while community necessities have been totally ignored. Our young people have been robbed of hope for a stable future. A society that does not provide for future generations is a failure. We cannot solve the world’s problems but we can address the first level of government that has broken the public contract we have with them.

The Community Charter, one of the laws that regulate the Islands Trust Corporation, states that municipal governments “serve at the will of the residents”. If the Islands Trust is not serving our community needs by refusing to follow due process and the law, we have a responsibility and an obligation to formally remove them. The long road back to functional government has to start somewhere.

Cable Flex

November 23, 2023

Bake Sale Fundraiser

November 16, 2023

Blackberry Lane Preschool is on the hunt for scrumptious baked treats to sell at our annual dessert table at the Denman Island Christmas Craft Fair. Join us in raising funds for our programming, equipment, and play space upgrades!

Do you have a recipe that is tantalizing and irresistible? We need your creation on our table of unique and delicious treats. Items can contain any ingredients (clearly listed); vegan and gluten-free options especially welcomed!

Swing by the Back Hall with your goodies on December 2 & 3 after 9:30 am. If you’re using a dish that you’d like back, no problem! Just jot down your name and contact info, and attach it to your dish.

We’re grateful for your kind support of Denman’s little preschool!

Shucking Oysters: Mad Scientists

November 16, 2023

Shucking Oysters: Mad Scientists

By Alex Allen

Trigger/Allergen warning: the following article mentions spiders, nasal hairs, faeces, drugs, body parts, and shellfish.

Dead spider grippers. Nose hairs. Colliding pedestrians. What do these all have in common? They are some of the Ig Nobel prize winners, a cheeky take on the Nobel Prize. And what is more astonishing about these studies, is that they actually received funding.

Like most people, when I see a dead spider, I see a dead curled up spider. The 2023 Mechanical Engineering prize winners, a Rice University, Texas, team see something quite different: Internal hydraulics. What if we could use the bodies of dead spiders as tiny air-powered grippers for picking up tiny electronic parts, they wondered? So with that, they transformed a dead wolf spider into a gripping tool in just 10 minutes. Simply insert a needle into the prosoma (the body part containing the head and thorax) of a dead spider and affix with superglue to form a hermetic seal. Then attach a syringe full of air and puff the air into the spider legs to make them open up. After a couple of days of around 1,000 open and grip cycles, the wear and tear on the joints eventually caused the spider-gripper’s body to break down. This study stirred a bit of controversy from some academics. “Necrocapitalism” is what they fear. Creepy.

“The Quantification and Measurement of Nasal Hairs in a Cadaveric Population” was honoured in the 2023 Medicine category. This University of California study, with access to 20 cadavers (10 male and 10 female), counted the hairs in each cadaver’s nostril, and used a measuring tape to determine the distance of hair growth at the upper, lateral, and lower nostril. The results: The average nose hair count per nostril is between 120 and 122 hairs, and they typically grow from 0.81 to 1.035 centimetres. Next potluck, dazzle your dinner mates with this bit of trivia: Did you know that “the lateral wall of the nasal cavity is formed partly by the maxilla, partly by the ethmoid bone, and partly by the perpendicular part of the palatine bone. Further back, where the nasal cavity becomes the nasopharynx, the lateral wall is formed by the medial pterygoid plate”? Guaranteed to get the conversation rolling during those awkward silent moments.

An Ig Nobel winner in 2021 conducted experiments to learn why pedestrians sometimes collide with other pedestrians. The study showed a “link between individual anticipation and emergent pattern formation through our experiments of lane formation, where unidirectional lanes are spontaneously formed in bidirectional pedestrian flows.” Their results imply “that avoidance maneuvers are normally a cooperative process and that mutual anticipation between pedestrians facilitates efficient pattern formation.” If I’m not mistaken, it’s similar to merging …

In both academic literature and popular culture, there has been an account of an Inuit man long ago manufacturing a knife from his own frozen faeces and killing a dog. To evaluate the validity of this claim, in 2019 a Kent University, Ohio team tested the basis of that account via “experimental” archaeology. Volunteer M.I.E. went on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which is consistent with an arctic diet, for eight days and volunteer M.R.B.’s diet was more traditionally Western. Their results suggest that knives manufactured from frozen human faeces are not functional. They tested the knives in −50 °C temperatures; used a metal file to sharpen the “blades”; and even tried a cold, hairless hide rather than a warm, hair covered hide. “In other words, we gave our knives the best possible chance to succeed and they still could not function.” They concluded that anthropologists “must actively seek out unsupported claims, assumptions, rumors, and urban legends, and by testing them ensure any narratives that follow are as sturdy as possible.” Sturdy, indeed.

Just the titles alone in science journals are mad. “Validation of a Functional Pyelocalyceal Renal Model for the Evaluation of Renal Calculi Passage While Riding a Roller Coaster.” Translation: using roller coaster rides to hasten the passage of kidney stones. “The Mouth, the Anus, and the Blastopore — open questions about questionable openings.” I’ll let you ponder this one. But, don’t you think it would be a brilliant name for a restaurant?

On a sober note, these mad scientists really like to f*ck with the animal world. Here’s a few examples: Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behaviour. Effects of cocaine and heroin on the development rate of blowflies. Morphine addiction in ants. Cocaine addicted rats and reduced brain activity.

Under the guise of studying the effects of stress on marine life, a couple of scientists injected shrimp with bacterial infections and put them on a tiny underwater treadmill to see what would happen. In a result that would not surprise — or even interest — anyone, they concluded that the uninfected shrimp performed better than the infected shrimp. The study got $682,570 of taxpayer funding from the National Science Foundation. It could have been worse; they could have been injected with a heroin cocaine cocktail.

Here’s one: The Influence of Loss Aversion and Reference Points on the Decision-Making Behaviour of Merging … just saying.