You Are Not Powerless, Because You Don’t Stand Alone

January 23, 2025

JAN 17, 2025

You are not powerless to change things. You are MOSTLY powerless, but you are not powerless.

This might sound like a distinction without a difference, and if you were the only person who wanted things to change, it would be. If you were standing on your own against the evil empire and the psychopathic dystopia it has created, there would be no meaningful difference between your having zero power to change things and just having a tiny bit above zero power. Nothing would change regardless.

But you are not standing on your own. More and more people are waking up to the reality that the current order of things is unsustainable and urgently needs to be replaced with something drastically different. More and more people are becoming forcefully opposed to the murder, tyranny and abuse that the status quo is creating today, and to the ecological disaster and nuclear armageddon it is creating for tomorrow.

If it was just one person standing against this, being almost powerless would be functionally the same as being completely powerless. But because more and more people are coming to stand on your side of things, there is a greater and greater effective difference between being powerless and being mostly powerless.

We’ve all got a grain of sand’s worth of influence over our world. The historically unprecedented democratization of information and our ability to network and communicate like never before has given us all a grain of sand’s worth of power to open eyes and win hearts and minds over to a more revolutionary worldview.

Drop a grain of sand on your enemy’s head and it’s functionally the same as doing nothing. Drop a thousand tons of sand on your enemy, and it’s an entirely different story.

It might seem hopeless. The empire managers have our political systems locked down. They wield so much influence with their mass media propaganda and other forms of indoctrination. They seem to have an inexhaustible ability to undermine or corrupt any force of good that manages to punch its way through their network of control.

But it isn’t hopeless. It would only be hopeless if we were standing alone.

It can take a bit of insight to recognize this as a message of hope in an environment of western individualism. Hollywood has trained us to believe that you beat the bad guy and save the world solely through your own heroic actions as an individual. That victory looks like an egoically gratifying moment where you spin-kick the supervillain into molten lava after saying something pithy and masculine.

That isn’t the sort of thing that’s called for here. We’ll all have to work hard as individuals to win, but it will only be so that we can throw our own tiny grain of sand onto the head of our powerful foe. Our power lies in our vastly superior numbers, not in our own might as individuals.

That’s all you need to remember when you are feeling powerless: that feeling of powerlessness only makes sense from the standpoint of the individual hero’s journey. But the human adventure is not about an individual hero’s journey, it’s about billions of people waking up to reality together and becoming a conscious species.

Together, a bunch of mostly powerless people can create a very, very powerful force. If a healthy world is to be born, it that is the force by which it will come into being.

________________

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 find video versions of my articles. If you’d prefer to listen to audio of these articles, you can subscribe to them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or YouTube. Go hereto 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.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Goodfon (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Letter to the Editor – Dr. Stephen Malthouse

January 23, 2025

Letter to the editor

Jan 21, 2025

Dear editor,

Has the editorial guard of the Grapevine dropped so low lately as to be entirely below the belt? In the Jan 9 issue, readers were exposed to a 2-page feature article about sexual preferences on PornHub. In the Jan 16 issue, we got the opportunity to read a ranting letter that advised Trump to “Go f*** yourself with your atom bomb”. This was followed by a poem of a man examining his genitals at a urinal and apparently not finding much.

Whereas some Denmanites say they are only using the Grapevine to light their winter fires, I usually enjoy reading it. So, why don’t the editors hoist up their trousers and use a bit of discrimination?

If you want to do an article on hyper-sexualization and gender confusion, how about an exposé on the SOGI agenda books in our school libraries? That should be shocking enough for most readers.

Stephen Malthouse, MD

Editor’s note: The Islands Grapevine received an abundance of negative feedback for not censoring Stephen Malthouse’s “controversial” views during the pandemic. Now Malthouse would like us to take a more censorious position regarding sexual content he is clearly triggered by. The views expressed in his letter do not reflect the views of The Islands Grapevine’s publisher. We do however, as always, encourage the use of our beloved weekly newspaper as a firestarter. Brrr..

Post National Politicians

January 23, 2025

Post National Politicians

Giant egos

Self-indulgent

Snappy dressers

Smooth talkers

Gaslighters

Elitists

Robotically scripted

Globalist bromancers

Radical ideologues

Opportunists

Weak morals

Supercilious

Arrogant

Cunning

Entitled

Smug

Hypocritical

It’s a bully boy’s club

Only fully subservient women

need apply

Independent women terrify them

Because it’s 2025

Gawkers

January 23, 2025

Exciting News for Denman Families with Young Children!

January 16, 2025

Exciting News for Denman Families with Young Children!

Blackberry Lane Children’s Center is bringing Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to Denman Island. The Imagination Library is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting FREE books to children from birth to age five, helping them build a foundation for lifelong learning. The Imagination Library is made possible through the generous support of Dolly Parton herself, alongside contributions from local Program Partners. Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write, Dolly started the Imagination Library in 1995 to serve the children of her hometown in Sevier County, Tennessee. Today, her program spans five countries and gifts over 3 million free, high-quality, age-appropriate books each month to children around the world. There is never a charge to the families who participate in the program. Every book is personally addressed and mailed every month to each individual child and carefully selected by a panel of experts in early childhood literacy and reading. Over 1.8 million children worldwide are part of the Imagination Library, and now Denman kiddos can be too!

Blackberry Lane has provided high-quality and loving childcare on Denman since 1981. It is operated by the Denman Island Pre-school Society, a diverse community of parents, staff, board members and community supporters that work together to provide a safe, inclusive, caring, and playful learning community for the children of Denman Island. Blackberry Lane Children’s Center is open from 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday. They provide daycare, before and after-school care, and child-centric community programs in a beautiful purpose-built facility located beside the Denman Community School.

“We’re overjoyed to sponsor and facilitate this incredible early literacy program here on Denman. We’re bringing more books, more snuggles and more reading adventures to Denman kiddos and their caregivers” shares Society Board President Kristen Wright.

Sincere and heartfelt thanks to the Community Charity Auction Committee for being the first financial sponsor for 2025’s books. Their generous support is being put to good use in a very special way with the launch of this program!

Enroll your Denman Island child today – visit https://imaginationlibrary.com/ca/affiliate/BCDENMANISLAND/

To tour the Blackberry Lane Children’s Center, enroll your child in one of their programs, volunteer on the Denman Island Pre-school Society loving and inspired Board of Directors, and/or to become a financial sponsor of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Denman Island, please email denmanislandchildcare@gmail.com or call 250-335-1029

Services Showcase and Volunteer Drive

January 16, 2025

“The great innovations in life are mostly not the result of very clever people inventing new and extraordinary things. More often than not they are the result of regular, savvy people coming together to connect ordinary things in extraordinary ways,” Cormac Russell & John McKnight, The Connected Community.

Denman Island has a powerful history of volunteerism that has helped to build the community we know and love. On Saturday, February 1st from 10:30am to 2:00pm at the Community Hall, we’re inviting residents new and old to come out and celebrate the non profit societies and community groups that make our island unique. From senior services to housing assistance, emergency preparedness, youth programmes, food resources and more, it’s your chance to discover valuable resources and make meaningful connections. Most importantly, these organizations need your help to keep our community vibrant. We hope you’ll sign up to volunteer, add your voice and make an impact.

There will be short talks from each organization with local food available to purchase from Farm to Family and local chef Tahiti Rey.

If you’re part of a community group that would like to share information and we haven’t already heard from you, please reach out to leanna@hornbydenmanhealth.com.

Green Wizardries: Nuclear Noodle Soup

January 16, 2025

I was planning to write about herb gardens and why my readers might want to plan one or expand the one they already have. That will have to wait as it seems there is a bit of a cold going around. I learned about this soup more than twenty five years ago and it has been our standby cold and flu treatment ever since.

Soup is not our only line of attack. We drink copious quantities of ginger tea which is very anti-inflammatory as well as being tasty and comforting. We take elderberry syrup made from our own frozen elderberries and it is both highly effective at banishing colds and flu while being so very tasty. We also do the old-fashioned head steaming over a basin of hot water with oil of oregano in it (3 to 5 drops only) and a towel over the head. This last is very good to treat or, better still, to prevent chest infections.

To make a great Nuclear Noodle Soup, I start out with chicken stock which naturally contains an enzyme that helps to keep the lungs clear of congestion. I make this stock from the oldest hens possible as they are tough and can take the long simmering to get all the nutrients and flavour out. I only use my own birds as I am very fussy about their nutrition and they get a lot of greens to eat which makes their eggs and flesh very healthful.

I usually make a huge cauldron of stock and then pressure can it. When I started pressure canning, one of my walking buddies asked why it was that I wanted to be a nineteenth century housewife? This would be because I know for a fact that it is not possible to buy a nutritious and tasty stock of any kind. My sister in the city was using some store-bought stock and I tasted it. The flavour reminded me of nothing so much as dirty dishwater. My brother in law, who is quite the foodie, says that my stock is the best he has ever had.

If you don’t have stock already made, it is easy to make stock so grab a chicken carcass and find a recipe you like. Once you have mastered the art of making a good stock, your cooking will improve by a whole letter grade.

I chopped two of my beautiful red onions and began to fry them in some golden rendered-chicken fat. The fat on a chicken should be deepest yellow to orange. If it is white, the bird never got any greens and the flesh is not nutritious. The eggs we produce here have yolks that are orange and friends from rural China say the eggs on their farm had yolks that were nearly red. They kept the hens free range and that is the best way. Here, we feel we have to lock our hens up as there are so many predators, such as mink and eagles, that we feel it is not kind to expose them to so much danger.

After the onions, I would normally add garlic, home-grown of course, but not today. I chopped up a heap of fresh garlic and ginger, which I keep frozen in chunks, and I added them at the end of the cooking process as they have more medicinal value when eaten raw. I did add a bunch of chopped leeks, carrots, peas, sweet red peppers and a quart of canned tomatoes, all from our garden. The soup looked very pretty and that is important to tempt the appetite of a sick person. I also threw in about a tablespoon of chili flakes.

That might sound like a lot of chili but we ended up with six quarts of soup in the end. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and then chopped up a generous bunch of cilantro and added that right before serving.

Now, it is called Nuclear Noodle Soup so where do the noodles come in? I like to cook with rice noodles, especially the broad kind. I cook them separately, cool them under cold running water and place some noodles in the bottom of the soup bowl. Any extra noodles should be placed in a covered dish in the fridge. The soup should be served with chili sauce on the side.

The soup is tasty, pretty and comforting. It is easy to put the leftover soup in quart jars while it is very hot and put the lids on. As they cool, a seal develops which enhances the keeping quality of the soup. This is not canning, just a little hack for keeping the soup fresher longer. It still needs to go into the fridge. I hope you will try making this soup as I am sure it will do you good.

Shucking Oysters: Ashes to Asses

January 16, 2025

Post-apocalyptic. The term brings up the usual dystopic images. Roving bands of raiders. Mad Max waste lands. Deep nuclear winter. Crazed mall zombies. All popular motifs, particularly in the film industry. And now, without irony, Hollywood is starring in its own post-apocalyptic blockbuster: the LA Wildfire Inferno. Like a typical Hollywood disaster movie, from Anthony Hopkins to Billy Crystal, big stars appear as cameos, with a cast of extras we will never know.

Lytton and Banff gave us a preview to what the combination of powerful winds and dry conditions can do. In LA County, three large fires continue to burn: over 23,000 acres in the Palisades; more than 14,000 acres in Altadena, Pasadena and Glendale; and almost 800 acres in the Hurst area. Thousands of structures have been destroyed, many iconic, like the Bunny Museum in Altadena that held over 46,000 rabbit-related objects; the Topanga Ranch Motel built by William Randolph Hearst in 1929; the Will Rogers State Historic Park in the Santa Monica Mountains, and countless homes and businesses of the rich and not so famous. According to JPMorgan, the insured losses alone, could be at least $20 billion, and economic losses could reach a staggering $50 billion, the costliest blaze in US history.

Thousands of firefighters are battling the wildfires. Despite being threatened with a nasty tariff and childish taunts, firefighters from Mexico and Canada have been deployed. We won’t hear any thanks, though, Donald Trump is more interested in our ever-flowing “faucet.” Last fall, speaking about California’s drought issues, while pointing his finger at California Governor Gavin Newsom, Trump said: “So you have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps and Canada and all pouring down and they have an, essentially, a very large faucet. You turn the faucet on – and it takes one day to turn – it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there.” Translation: We have a HUGE faucet and Trump wants to drain it.

And then, oddly, we have the Ukraine offering to send 150 rescuers to help fight the fires. That’s like Haiti sending 105 troops for humanitarian assistance. Is this the direction of US political diplomacy? Kissing ass?

Back in LA, like the gang of misfits in the Mad Max movie franchise, survivors must navigate a world in ruins, deal with scarce resources, lawlessness, and the constant threat of danger. A reviewer presciently wrote in 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road “is not just about the tyrannical rule of scarce resources, it’s about our own naive misconceptions of taking nature for granted, and our subsequent demoralization in realizing what once gave us comfort no longer exists.” This is the hamster wheel of our existence and each year we only have more to lose.

The ugly. While members of the National Guard are helping to enforce a 6:00 pm to 6:00 am curfew, looters dressed as firefighters continue to pillage the residential areas. Firefighters complained about dropping water pressure (or no water) in many hydrants. From day one, the governor has received severe backlash over his handling of the wildfires. On day three, Trump posted: “The fires are still raging in LA. The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”

The bad. Some “survivors” can hire $2,000-an-hour private firefighters to save their million-dollar homes and businesses. Keith Wasserman, a real estate investment partner, provoked fury after posting: “Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palisades? Need to act fast here. All neighbors [sic] houses burning. Will pay any amount. Thank you.” Social media users were quick to react, criticizing Wasserman, and calling his post “incredibly tone deaf.”

Billionaire developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso also received rage online after it was reported that he had hired private fire crews to protect his mansion and luxury mall in the Palisades Village. With irony, Rick served two terms as president of the Department of Water and Power.

A wealthy resident was quoted: “This week’s events have shown you can’t trust the city to protect your property.” Some argued that if the city cannot be trusted, then celebs have every right to hire private contractors. The source added with no irony: “I have the money, so why not?”

The sad. Private firefighters are nothing new. Kim Kardashian admitted that her home in Hidden Hills was saved by her private crew in the 2013 wildfires. In LA, water-conserving measures have been in place since 2022, restricting residents to watering their gardens just twice a week, eight minutes at a time. Kardashian was fined for going over her water allowance in 2022, using 232,000 gallons of water more than her allocation. A neighbour of Ms K said: “Everyone was told to cut back on water precisely for this situation, to preserve it to fight fires. She carried on watering because she could afford the fines.”

The mad. Meghan and Harry of Montecito, with faces hidden by masks, distributed food to the displaced, many of whom had no idea who they were. Meanwhile on social media, actor/filmmaker Justine Bateman posted: “Meghan Markle and Harry are no better than ambulance chasers. What a repulsive “photo op” they achieved. They are ‘touring the damage?’ Are they politicians now? They don’t live here; they are tourists. Disaster Tourists.” The post was viewed 1.8 million times.

The moral? Humans are a sorry lot.

Forensic Architecture: Sleuthing for Justice (part 2)

January 16, 2025

Last week, I wrote about the patterns Forensic Architecture searches for in its interrogations of violent conflicts and environmental destruction. These patterns help to establish intent, a prerequisite for judicial determination of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

I referred to the Israeli government’s intent to commit a Genocide against the Palestinian people, how that shows up in examination of various government policies and actions since 1948. In order to have all the land, there is also a need on Israel’s part to destroy a certain sense of Palestinians as refugees, which has existed since the 1948 Nakba. With awareness and recognition of refugees, under international law comes their well-established right of return, something the Israelis have sought to deny from the very beginning. A significant thorn in Israel’s side is the existence of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief & Works Agency, specifically established after the 1948 Nakba to assist Palestinian refugees. UNRWA’s existence was intended to be only temporary, until refugees could return to their homes and lands. We have seen Israel in 2024 accuse UNWRA employees of being Hamas members, without providing any evidence, and Western nations moving in lockstep to defund UNRWA – the single organization upon which Gazans, 75% of whom are descendants of 1948 refugees, most depend for education, supplemental food, medical aid, and emergency shelter. UNRWA is the one organization fully capable of delivering such support. It has all the infrastructure in place. Many of these nations have reestablished their support of UNRWA under sustained pressure from protesting citizens. Forensic Architecture’s efforts help us to understand that the current Israeli intention to destroy UNRWA is all part of yet another pattern of erasure of Palestinians from the landscape. If there are no refugees, all those claims against the land of “Eretz Israel” evaporate.

Another example comes to mind: the pattern of destruction of health infrastructure was earlier evident in Israel’s deliberate targeting of ambulances in the West Bank and in Gaza, together with the killing of medics, during Gaza’s 18 month-long Great March of Return (2018-2019), which the world ignored. Dr. Alice Rothchild, retired physican/faculty member of Harvard Medical School, has followed the Israeli onslaught on Palestinian health care systems for decades. She has taught and worked in the West Bank and Gaza. Her latest book, Condition Critical, details her findings, and shows the long pattern of oppression and suffering of Palestinians through the health care system, at the hands of the Israeli occupation. All the work of such reputable scholars, with no agenda other than uncovering the truth in service of justice, shows that this entire catastrophe we are witnessing in Gaza did not begin on October 7^th, 2023. It began when Zionism took hold as an ideology and a strategy for creating a homeland for Jewish people at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people.

What is unique about Forensic Architecture’s approach is that it involves a whole way of thinking, a kind of integrated knowledge where the model constructed is a multi-dimensional system. Using vast amounts of information – such as aerial photos, land-based photos, eyewitness testimonies, and survivor’s accounts, they superimpose multiple data points on maps and show how every bit of information relates to the whole, in time and in space. They

are at the forefront of information modelling. Once they have the digital model, they can change the parameters of that model and “see” it through time. They eliminate the possibility of ambiguity wherever possible, using methodology that is irrefutable. If you go to the link: www.gaza.forensic-architecture.org, you can discover their compelling work for yourself.

As an Israeli himself, Eyal Weizman has a very particular connection to the history and the land of Israel-Palestine. As he recounts, “Israelis are the perpetrators of Apartheid but also can’t breathe within it”. He would like to see a world where everyone can breathe.

h/t Michael McNamara for architectural context

How To Be Happy In A Genocidal Dystopia On A Dying World

January 16, 2025

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

JAN 13, 2025

I honestly don’t know if we’ll make it.

I can’t say with any degree of certainty that truth and sanity will prevail, that the world will stop burning, that we’ll stop being cruel to each other and start moving toward health and harmony.

Maybe our species is approaching the end of its run here. I cannot tell you for sure that it isn’t.

What I can tell you for sure is that there is a magpie outside my window, and that my eyes are dripping with love for it.

I can tell you I went for a walk about an hour ago, and the ground felt delicious on my feet while the wind caressed my hair.

Maybe we don’t get to be here for much longer. I can’t honestly tell you otherwise. But I can tell you it’s very possible to relish each precious instant we are here.

The universe will sing to you, if you listen. There are kisses hidden in the rustling leaves. There are galaxies hidden in the sounds of trains.

We can live from there. Even amid the raging fires. Even amid the genocide and pain. Even amid all the advertising, the vapid Hollywood dogshit, the fast fashion, the phoniness, the deceit. We can cherish the world like a mother cherishes a newborn baby, even if we wind up doing so while watching it die.

We are living in dystopia, but we don’t need to be living in hell. As fraudulent and destructive as this civilization is, and as all-pervasive as its madness seems to be, it is still built on the surface of an ancient planet which pulsates with primordial wisdom. Just below the superficial layer of the cacophony of human madness, there are uncharted depths in which strange leviathans swim.

I’m not here to tell you we’re going to win this thing. I’m not here to sell a false and unearned certainty in a happy ending. I’m here to tell you that this world is one hell of a glorious ride regardless of what happens, and that it would be a damn shame if you didn’t appreciate it while it lasts.

You don’t need to waste your life as one of those jaded, world-weary politically conscious people who think they know too much to be happy, and that everything is too dark and dismal to enjoy their time here. You don’t need to choose between being happy and being well-informed. We are engulfed in an endless explosion of miracles and beauty in every living instant on this earth no matter what happens and no matter how much we we know. It is only a failure of our own perception if we don’t recognize this.

We’ve got a lot of work to do here, and we’re going to continue seeing some very ugly things happening in our world for the foreseeable future. It does nobody any good for us to let the darkness burn us out and exhaust us instead of learning to enjoy our time on this planet while we fight.

I know I’ve shared this same message before in various ways, but that’s only because I see a great need for it. I’ve heard too many people saying they are feeling torn down and broken by the terrible things happening in this world, and that they don’t know how to go on.

You go on by going in. By diving right in to reality, in all its burning, blood-soaked, agonizing glory. By feeling it all, all the way through, without trying to lean back and compartmentalize any part of yourself away from it. The ocean is unbothered by the waves not because it is separate from them but because it is inseparably one with them.

Feel the pain. Cry the tears. Witness the suffering. Experience the beauty. Notice the endless eruption of love which lies at the heart of all things. Celebrate the magpie. Cherish the wind in your hair and the ground beneath your feet.

No matter what happens, nobody can take these things from you. No matter what else the bastards might take, they can never take away your innate exuberance at living a human life on this terrestrial wonderball.

That’s the secret to finding happiness in the midst of a genocidal dystopia on a dying world. Not by hiding from the reality of it, but by diving right into it without holding anything back.

If you do this, you will find that there is so very, very much more joy, love, beauty and exhilaration in this adventure than there is heartbreak and pain. There is vast delight to be found in the smallest of things.

Our minds tend to focus on what’s wrong and what’s bad, while overlooking how absolutely fucking amazing it is to be living as a human organism on this earth. This habit can be unlearned. The gift of each moment can be appreciated as it comes. Everything that arises can be met for the first time with wide-eyed marvel.

And we can keep fighting in the meantime. And we can do so with deep gratitude in our chests for every magical instant.

______________

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 find video versions of my articles. If you’d prefer to listen to audio of these articles, you can subscribe to them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or YouTube. Go hereto 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.