Transparency at Fortress VANOC

About 20 anti-poverty protesters calling for more transparency at a closed-door meeting of the taxpayer-funded Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee had their point made by the VPD who built a double fence around the ominous corporate headquarters and surrounded the building with riot cops, the dog squad, snipers, and even a helicopter. Well, at least the fence was transparent.

Vancouver’s Most Wanted

Al-Qaeda terrorist, sorry, anti-poverty protester David Cunningham, arrested for “uttering threats” against VANOC. Apparently this is a threat: “We’ll definitely be showing up at Jack Poole’s office. We’re going to try and hit as many offices as we can. This campaign will be escalating. Hopefully there will be no need to have a campaign that’s ongoing and targeting their homes like they’ve targeted poor peoples’ homes.”

A Cunning Ham nabs Cunningham

David Cunningham was lured by a VPD officer posing as a journalist working for the daily commuter paper, 24 hours. Editor-in-chief Dean Broughton said he’s considering filing a report to the B.C. Police Complaints Commission against the VPD for impersonating a reporter. “Vancouver police have undermined the media’s role in society.” Isn’t that The Province’s job?

APC kidnap Patricia Hearst

In response to Cunningham’s arrest and mass evictions at DTES hotels, the APC used a press conference as a smoke-screen while trashing the office of Ken Dobell, who is now the subject of a lobbying complaint filed by the NDP. The group, however, failed to penetrate the “inner sanctum of Gordon Campbell’s office”. Inner Sanctum? Who is this guy, Julius Caesar?

The Olympics were great for Atlanta. The Olympics were bad for Atlanta.

It seems the same dual-personality disorder sweeping Vancouver concerning homelessness was also rampant in Atlanta previous to the ‘96 Olympic Games.

As Atlanta’s mayor, Shirley Franklin, swooned to the Vancouver Board of Trade: “We worked with the service providers and provided shelter for every single person who was homeless and who would come forward. Now that’s an important word: ‘come forward.’ Not everyone wants to be a part of a social program.” While on the other side of the coin, Franklin added, “They had six ordinances that made all kinds of things illegal, including lying down, just like we’ve got planned for Vancouver with Civil City. Lots of people were shipped out, and lots of people were put in jail. They actually built the city jail. Activists there called it the first Olympic project completed on time.”

Senile City

Meanwhile, the City of Vancouver has chosen B.C.’s former attorney-general, Geoff Plant, as its first-ever “civil city commissioner.” Plant will bring “an understanding for social concerns, as well as enforcement issues” to the job, said Mayor Sam Sullivan. Of course, by social concerns he means presiding over drastic cuts to legal aid prompting the Law Society to censure him, the elimination of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission, some of the most draconian welfare reforms in Canadian history, and led a campaign to hold a referendum on aboriginal rights.

Jerry Falwell is Dead. There is a God.

One of the most quotable bigots died this week. Here is Falwell’s response to 9/11: “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’ The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked.”

Speaking of morally righteous bigots…

School trustee Heather Stilwell said if An Inconvenient Truth is shown to kids in Surrey classrooms, then teachers should provide alternative theories on climate change. This coming from the same woman who refused to allow ‘alternative theories’ of marriage by banning books on same-sex couples.