ABOUT US yup, we're on Facebook! Samaritan House	NEWS from here & there	(relatively local) EVENTS
Home of the Vancouver Catholic Worker 1143 E Pender St Vancouver BC V6A 1W6 604-255-1555 vancouvercatholicworker@yahoo.ca CHRISTIAN RADICAL blog & zine Reducing violence by CHRISTIAN PEACEMAKER TEAMS Catholic Peace Fellowship: a mighty league of conscientious objectors This Week in History from peacebuttons.info	The People's Summit New Orleans April 20 – 23, 2008 New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans Gears up to Host North American Civil Society! The Head of State of Canada, Mexico and the United States (Harper, Calderón, and Bush respectively) will be meeting April 21-22 in New Orleans Louisiana for a summit of the "Three Amigos." There, with their chosen corporate advisors, they will continue setting an agenda for the three countries through the Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP), without the consent from their citizens or legislative bodies. Civil Society organizations in New Orleans have been gearing up to host civil society from across the continent for The People's Summit: Our Response to NAFTA Expansion, an inclusive gathering to educate the public on the SPP process while grounding that learning in the New Orleans experience. http://www.summitneworleans.org/ March 2008 Don’t Let Canwest SLAPP* Briemberg and YOU ! Imagine you go to a public meeting on the Middle East; you see a humorous parody of the local daily, pick up a few copies and hand them out. Six months later you are served with a writ of summons that charges you with producing the parody, that threatens to cost you tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, that takes up hundreds of hours of your time and aims to prevent you from expressing your opinions in future. Impossible? A Kafkaesque fantasy? This is what is happening to Mordecai Briemberg in Vancouver today and we need your help to stop it. In early June, 2007, a parody of The Vancouver Sun newspaper was produced and copies distributed. The parody, a slim four-page edition, coincided with the 40th year of the continuous Israeli occupation of territories it conquered in the 1967 war. The parody focused on the biased media coverage of Israel/Palestine in The Vancouver Sun. read more here... Why should I care? If you believe in freedom of expression on any topic and have ever expressed a view contrary to the status quo you should care a whole bunch. This is what has been called a *SLAPP suit- Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The concept and acronym were coined in the eighties to describe a tactic used by the rich and powerful, governments or corporations, to bully critics and shut down public discussion by threatening dissidents with legal costs and broad prohibitions against speaking out. If they can bully Mordecai, they can bully you! Whatever the subject, whatever you say, Canwest’s actions set a dangerous precedent for any and all who express an opinion someone with money disagrees with. Canadian troops in Afghanistan? Environmental issues? Aboriginal rights? Tasers in the hands of the police? You name it; they can sue you. They may not win but it will cost you plenty in time, money and the stress of wondering if that article or speech will land you in a whole mess of trouble. Its intent is to bully those who don’t own media conglomerates and have legions of lawyers on retainer, i.e. YOU! What can I do? Don’t let Canwest intimidate you into silence. Get this document, electronically and in hardcopy, out to as many people as you can, in all walks of life, so that those who share a commitment to defend, maintain, and use the democratic right of free speech know of this case. Sign our statement demanding Canwest drop its legal suit against Mordecai Briemberg and stop its harassment. Encourage others to do likewise. You can sign-up on line at infor@seriouslyfreespeech.ca . Write letters to Canwest and mail them c/o their lawyer: David Church, Church & Company, 900-1040 West Georgia Street, Vancouver British Columbia, V6C 3H4, Canada. Please copy Seriously Free Speech Committee with your letters. Join the Seriously Free Speech Committee if you live in greater Vancouver. Contact us at: Seriously Free Speech Committee, PO Box 57112, RPO East Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C., V5K 5G6 Email: info@seriouslyfreespeech.ca Website: www.seriouslyfreespeech.ca Contribute financially to help defray the unavoidable legal costs. Make donations payable to: “Seriously Free Speech Committee” and mail them to the address noted above. Cash Culture [col. writ. 2/26/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal At the heart of the modern American entertainment industry, is the shameless, savage pursuit of profit. I don't mean the commercial end, as is usual, but the so-called creative end, as shown by the flood of alleged "reality shows." For many of the (as yet) unfamous, one is promised a knot of money; the more one gets, the more one debases himself. 'Eat a handful of writhing worms, and get a thousand bucks.' While the many shows have various themes, this is its essence; money for humiliation. And with the recent writers' strike, we have seen the growth in such programming -- which often needs little or no scripting. I'm convinced that such shows do far more than reveal a shadow-side of the American psyche; they reflect the will of the well-to-do; the wealthy few of the society, who demonstrate their power and dominance by such public displays. Two thousand years ago, a handful of coins were cast to the teeming crowds as they gathered at the Coliseum. Then, as now, entertainment reflected the cruelties inherent to their cultures, and how such shows reinforce the positions of the powerful. We can look beyond the contours of the idiot box to the outer world in which we live and breathe. Such shows give us insight into how workers daily are forced to accept humiliations in order to pay for food and shelter. Such shows merely reinforce this social dynamic. Moreover, what is our politics but a grim replay of the same? Politicians willingly humiliate themselves daily, wear silly hats, and make stupid promised, to get elected. These exercises cost absolutely obscene amounts of money. just as the nation slides into recession. For example, each Democratic presidential candidate has raised (and spent!) over $100 million dollars. $100,000,000! -- for a job that pays $400,000 a year! And, truth be told, politicians, even the seemingly most powerful, are but puppets of those more powerful than they. Such is American cash culture at the beginning of this new century, where everything is for sale -- for the right price! But just because something is for sale doesn't mean it's truly worth anything. --(c) '08 maj Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project on Earth Because of their sheer scale, all Canadians are affected by the Tar Sands, no matter where they live. If you live downstream, your water is being polluted and your fish and wildlife may be dangerous to eat. If you live in Saskatchewan you are a victim of acid rain. If you live in BC, “supertankers” may soon be plying your shoreline carrying Tar Sands oil to Asia. If you live in Ontario, you are exposed to harmful emissions from the refining of Tar Sands Oil. And the impacts do not stop at Canada’s border – US refineries are re-tooling to handle the dirty oil from Alberta. With the Tar Sands, Canada has become the world’s dirty energy superpower. Environmental Defence’s report highlights the environmental and human health effects of the Tar Sands. And, outlines what the federal government should do to clean it up. website & report here Vancouver - Gastown space could be used for housing! http://storyeum.googlepages.com/ City prefers fitness centre for Storyeum site Storyeum likely to become a gym	Langara College invites you to THE LANGARA DIALOGUES RESOLVED: THE CANADIAN MILITARY SHOULD LEAVE AFGHANISTAN AT ONCE Wednesday April 16 2008 Alice Mackay Room (Lower Level) Vancouver Public Library (Lower Level) (Homer & Robson) Doors open at 7:15 pm. Seating limited to the first 300 Arguing the AFFIRMATIVE: Derrick O’Keefe, stopwar.ca, rabble.ca Arguing the NEGATIVE: Lauryn Oates, Canadian Women4Women in Afghanistan The debate will be followed by questions from Langara College panelists and a question and answer with the audience. Antiwar Labor: Open Letter to the Antiwar Movement 920-54th Street Oakland, CA 94608 510-333-4301, FAX 510-215-2800 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT As a result of an important action taken at the recent International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) Caucus, Longshore workers will stop work during the first shift in opposition to the war in Iraq, on May 1, 2008. They will also use this occasion to acknowledge International Workers Day to express labor solidarity concerning issues and challenges that confront workers. This war has cost more than 4,000 American lives and 29,000 have been seriously injured. It has been estimated that 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives, untold have been injured and 4 million have been displaced in this illegal and amoral war and occupation. The war is costing $435 million per day. So far, $526 billion has been expended on the war. The daily amount spent on the war could enroll 58,000 youngsters in Head Start or provide health insurance to 329,200 low-income children. We're writing to ask you to contact ILWU President Robert McEllrath with a letter of support for the Longshore Caucus' resolution to use International Workers Day to "stop work to stop the war". Please ask other organizations to do the same. Write or phone: Robert McEllrath, ILWU President 1188 Franklin Street San Francisco, CA 94109 (415) 775-0533 (415) 775-1302 FAX Your support in spreading the word of this historic action is very important. In Solidarity, Clarence Thomas National Co-Chair Million Worker March Movement LAWYERS RIGHTS WATCH CANADA International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Lectures Spring 2008 Come learn about the critical role of international human rights and humanitarian law to global peace and human dignity. This four-lecture series will provide information about the development, purpose and substance of international human rights and humanitarian law and its application to current humanitarian and human rights crises. Each lecture will offer a unique opportunity to engage with a distinguished expert on the law and its application to specific issues of global concern. Lecture dates: Jan. 26, Feb. 23, Mar. 15, Apr. 19 - descriptions here All lectures are free Doors open at 6:00 pm, lectures are from 7 - 9:00 pm, pst To subscribe to realtime teleconferencing, webcast, podcast contact lrwc@portal.ca Robson Square Theatre, 800 Robson Street, Vancouver Registration is recommended to ensure seating 604-822-1444 What's Happening at Samaritan House Samaritan House Faith-Sharing Group Weekly at 7pm on Thursday until Thu Jun 19 The Samaritan House Faith-Sharing group will be meeting every Thursday except in the months July and August. We will be using Celebrating the Word, a lectionary based resource on the reading for the coming Sunday worship. Celebrating the Word is based on the effective dynamics of the small group process (i.e. listening, accepting, trusting and responding), and is designed to help people of faith to prayerfully discern meaningful connections between their “life Stories” and “the Gospel story.” The Christian Radical Zine... is produced monthly out of Samaritan House. Help is always needed in editing and printing, as well as writing. Here's the link to back issues - The Christian Radical Stay tuned... JUNE 13 2008 will mark 10 years of the Vancouver Catholic Worker at Samaritan House on E Pender St. We're contemplating a neighbourhood party that weekend!
Last updated on 10 April 2008		Vancouver Catholic Workers on the Web blogs: SisterSea a journal of the one man revolution the goddess in my garden Sr. Vikki's research work: MarieCo Research Services

Drawing of Samaritan House by Magdalena Fekete

ABOUT US

yup, we're on Facebook!

Samaritan House

NEWS from here & there

(relatively local)
EVENTS

Home of the
Vancouver
Catholic Worker

1143 E Pender St
Vancouver BC
V6A 1W6

604-255-1555
vancouvercatholicworker@yahoo.ca

CHRISTIAN
RADICAL
blog & zine

Reducing violence by

CHRISTIAN
PEACEMAKER
TEAMS

Catholic Peace Fellowship:

a mighty league of conscientious objectors

This Week
in History
from
peacebuttons.info

The People's Summit New Orleans

April 20 – 23, 2008 New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans Gears up to Host North American Civil Society!

The Head of State of Canada, Mexico and the United States (Harper, Calderón, and Bush respectively) will be meeting April 21-22 in New Orleans Louisiana for a summit of the "Three Amigos." There, with their chosen corporate advisors, they will continue setting an agenda for the three countries through the Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP), without the consent from their citizens or legislative bodies. Civil Society organizations in New Orleans have been gearing up to host civil society from across the continent for The People's Summit: Our Response to NAFTA Expansion, an inclusive gathering to educate the public on the SPP process while grounding that learning in the New Orleans experience.

http://www.summitneworleans.org/

March 2008

Don’t Let Canwest SLAPP* Briemberg and YOU !

Imagine you go to a public meeting on the Middle East; you see a humorous parody of the local daily, pick up a few copies and hand them out. Six months later you are served with a writ of summons that charges you with producing the parody, that threatens to cost you tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, that takes up hundreds of hours of your time and aims to prevent you from expressing your opinions in future. Impossible? A Kafkaesque fantasy? This is what is happening to Mordecai Briemberg in Vancouver today and we need your help to stop it.

In early June, 2007, a parody of The Vancouver Sun newspaper was produced and copies distributed. The parody, a slim four-page edition, coincided with the 40th year of the continuous Israeli occupation of territories it conquered in the 1967 war. The parody focused on the biased media coverage of Israel/Palestine in The Vancouver Sun. read more here...

Why should I care?

If you believe in freedom of expression on any topic and have ever expressed a view contrary to the status quo you should care a whole bunch. This is what has been called a *SLAPP suit- Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The concept and acronym were coined in the eighties to describe a tactic used by the rich and powerful, governments or corporations, to bully critics and shut down public discussion by threatening dissidents with legal costs and broad prohibitions against speaking out.

If they can bully Mordecai, they can bully you! Whatever the subject, whatever you say, Canwest’s actions set a dangerous precedent for any and all who express an opinion someone with money disagrees with. Canadian troops in Afghanistan? Environmental issues? Aboriginal rights? Tasers in the hands of the police? You name it; they can sue you. They may not win but it will cost you plenty in time, money and the stress of wondering if that article or speech will land you in a whole mess of trouble. Its intent is to bully those who don’t own media conglomerates and have legions of lawyers on retainer, i.e. YOU!

What can I do?

Don’t let Canwest intimidate you into silence. Get this document, electronically and in hardcopy, out to as many people as you can, in all walks of life, so that those who share a commitment to defend, maintain, and use the democratic right of free speech know of this case.
Sign our statement demanding Canwest drop its legal suit against Mordecai Briemberg and stop its harassment. Encourage others to do likewise. You can sign-up on line at infor@seriouslyfreespeech.ca .
Write letters to Canwest and mail them c/o their lawyer: David Church, Church & Company, 900-1040 West Georgia Street, Vancouver British Columbia, V6C 3H4, Canada. Please copy Seriously Free Speech Committee with your letters.
Join the Seriously Free Speech Committee if you live in greater Vancouver.

Contact us at:
Seriously Free Speech Committee,
PO Box 57112,
RPO East Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C.,
V5K 5G6
Email: info@seriouslyfreespeech.ca
Website: www.seriouslyfreespeech.ca

Contribute financially to help defray the unavoidable legal costs. Make donations payable to: “Seriously Free Speech Committee” and mail them to the address noted above.

Cash Culture

[col. writ. 2/26/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

    At the heart of the modern American entertainment industry, is the shameless, savage pursuit of profit.

    I don't mean the commercial end, as is usual, but the so-called creative end, as shown by the flood of alleged "reality shows."

    For many of the (as yet) unfamous, one is promised a knot of money; the more one gets, the more one debases himself. 'Eat a handful of writhing worms, and get a thousand bucks.' While the many shows have various themes, this is its essence; money for humiliation.

    And with the recent writers' strike, we have seen the growth in such programming -- which often needs little or no scripting.

    I'm convinced that such shows do far more than reveal a shadow-side of the American psyche; they reflect the will of the well-to-do; the wealthy few of the society, who demonstrate their power and dominance by such public displays.

    Two thousand years ago, a handful of coins were cast to the teeming crowds as they gathered at the Coliseum. Then, as now, entertainment reflected the cruelties inherent to their cultures, and how such shows reinforce the positions of the powerful.

    We can look beyond the contours of the idiot box to the outer world in which we live and breathe. Such shows give us insight into how workers daily are forced to accept humiliations in order to pay for food and shelter. Such shows merely reinforce this social dynamic.

    Moreover, what is our politics but a grim replay of the same?

    Politicians willingly humiliate themselves daily, wear silly hats, and make stupid promised, to get elected.

    These exercises cost absolutely obscene amounts of money. just as the nation slides into recession. For example, each Democratic presidential candidate has raised (and spent!) over $100 million dollars. $100,000,000! -- for a job that pays $400,000 a year!

    And, truth be told, politicians, even the seemingly most powerful, are but puppets of those more powerful than they.

    Such is American cash culture at the beginning of this new century, where everything is for sale -- for the right price!

    But just because something is for sale doesn't mean it's truly worth anything.

--(c) '08 maj

Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project on Earth

Because of their sheer scale, all Canadians are affected by the Tar Sands, no matter where they live.

If you live downstream, your water is being polluted and your fish and wildlife may be dangerous to eat. If you live in Saskatchewan you are a victim of acid rain. If you live in BC, “supertankers” may soon be plying your shoreline carrying Tar Sands oil to Asia. If you live in Ontario, you are exposed to harmful emissions from the refining of Tar Sands Oil. And the impacts do not stop at Canada’s border – US refineries are re-tooling to handle the dirty oil from Alberta.

With the Tar Sands, Canada has become the world’s dirty energy superpower.

Environmental Defence’s report highlights the environmental and human health effects of the Tar Sands. And, outlines what the federal government should do to clean it up.
website & report here

Vancouver - Gastown space could be used for housing!

http://storyeum.googlepages.com/

City prefers fitness centre for Storyeum site

Storyeum likely to become a gym

Langara College invites you to

THE LANGARA DIALOGUES

RESOLVED: THE CANADIAN MILITARY SHOULD LEAVE AFGHANISTAN AT ONCE

Wednesday April 16 2008

Alice Mackay Room (Lower Level)

Vancouver Public Library (Lower Level)

(Homer & Robson)

Doors open at 7:15 pm. Seating limited to the first 300

Arguing the AFFIRMATIVE: Derrick O’Keefe, stopwar.ca, rabble.ca
Arguing the NEGATIVE: Lauryn Oates, Canadian Women4Women in Afghanistan

The debate will be followed by questions from Langara College panelists and a question and answer with the audience.

Antiwar Labor: Open Letter to the Antiwar Movement

920-54th Street
Oakland, CA 94608
510-333-4301, FAX 510-215-2800

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

As a result of an important action taken at the recent International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) Caucus, Longshore workers will stop work during the first shift in opposition to the war in Iraq, on May 1, 2008.

They will also use this occasion to acknowledge International Workers Day to express labor solidarity concerning issues and challenges that confront workers.

This war has cost more than 4,000 American lives and 29,000 have been seriously injured. It has been estimated that 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives, untold have been injured and 4 million have been displaced in this illegal and amoral war and occupation.

The war is costing $435 million per day. So far, $526 billion has been expended on the war. The daily amount spent on the war could enroll 58,000 youngsters in Head Start or provide health insurance to 329,200 low-income children.

We're writing to ask you to contact ILWU President Robert McEllrath with a letter of support for the Longshore Caucus' resolution to use International Workers Day to "stop work to stop the war". Please ask
other organizations to do the same.

Write or phone:
Robert McEllrath, ILWU President
1188 Franklin Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 775-0533
(415) 775-1302 FAX

Your support in spreading the word of this historic action is very important.

In Solidarity,

Clarence Thomas
National Co-Chair
Million Worker March Movement

LAWYERS RIGHTS WATCH CANADA

International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Lectures Spring 2008

Come learn about the critical role of international human rights and humanitarian law to global peace and human dignity.

This four-lecture series will provide information about the development, purpose and substance of international human rights and humanitarian law and its application to current humanitarian and human rights crises. Each lecture will offer a unique opportunity to engage with a distinguished expert on the law and its application to specific issues of global concern.

Lecture dates: Jan. 26, Feb. 23, Mar. 15, Apr. 19 - descriptions here

All lectures are free

Doors open at 6:00 pm, lectures are from 7 - 9:00 pm, pst

To subscribe to realtime teleconferencing, webcast, podcast contact lrwc@portal.ca

Robson Square Theatre, 800 Robson Street, Vancouver

Registration is recommended to ensure seating

604-822-1444

What's Happening at Samaritan House

Samaritan House Faith-Sharing Group
Weekly at 7pm on Thursday until Thu Jun 19

The Samaritan House Faith-Sharing group will be meeting every Thursday except in the months July and August. We will be using Celebrating the Word, a lectionary based resource on the reading for the coming Sunday worship. Celebrating the Word is based on the effective dynamics of the small group process (i.e. listening, accepting, trusting and responding), and is designed to help people of faith to prayerfully discern meaningful connections between their “life Stories” and “the Gospel story.”

The Christian Radical Zine...

is produced monthly out of Samaritan House. Help is always needed in editing and printing, as well as writing.

Here's the link to back issues - The Christian Radical

Stay tuned...

JUNE 13 2008 will mark 10 years of the Vancouver Catholic Worker at Samaritan House on E Pender St.

We're contemplating a neighbourhood party that weekend!

Last updated on 10 April 2008

Vancouver Catholic Workers on the Web

blogs:
SisterSea

a journal of the one man revolution

the goddess in my garden

Sr. Vikki's research work:
MarieCo Research Services