getting ready to make a move

So tonight I am getting my affairs sorted out as I prepare to leave for Baltimore. I am going to leave earlier than I had expected so that I can spend some time in New York City on my way down. I just got my train schedule and I'll have to go into schenectdy in the next couple days and buy my tickets. I'll also have to call the workers in NYC and see if they've got some space for a night or two. It's exciting, I've never been to NYC before and I was kind of wondering if I'd get the chance on this trip or not.

I think I've got the August issue finished but I don't want to make it official yet because I can't print it here without it taking a very long time. I'm going to send it to Karl in the next day or so and ask him to test it out, if it works I hope it will be him who breaks the news on the blog.

I'm pretty nervous about calling the Worker houses in New York, I'm rarely any good at cold calls and these are the coldest, they don't know I'm coming and I didn't really think of it myself until yesterday when I was on the phone with my mom and she insisted that I take a day in the big apple.

Yesterday I got to go to Barrett's church in Utica and Sarah's church here in Westernville. they did the Eucharist at both which was really cool because I got to share it with both my friends and the second time I got to hear Sarah preach her first sermon as an ordained Minister. Staying here has been a real pleasure and a rest from the usual kinds of hectic my life is.

I got pretty antsy earlier when I couldn't get online to start working on the zine and I think I got on Karl's nerves about it. I felt a lot better once I could begin working on it, though in retrospect I wish I'd been a little more easy going about it all.

I find when the zine is concerned I can get really anxious about getting it done on time. I don't like getting set back on that kind of thing even though the only deadlines I really have to meet are my own and your expectations. It's kind of strange because I was terible about doing this sort of thing in school and college, I'd put things off for ever and then I'd put them off even more. I guess there's something to say for having work that you believe in and no one in authority to answer to about it, I just hope I didn't get overzealous about it with Karl. I want this to be a project we share in equally but I have such a dominating personality sometimes and I'd already been doing this for some months before I asked him to help that I've really got a bunch of things sorted out for myself so unfortunatly I find that I take more than my share. This really bothers me about myself, of course the hope is that since I am aware of these things in me I can try and catch myself before I get carried away, it also helps when you've got friends who aren't afraid to call you on your bullshit before it piles too high.

In other news:
The Catholic bookstore in Utica rocks the one in Vancouver solidly off the block. The one in Van is really big but it's mostly stocked with books by the same publisher (TAN) who are, in my opinion, on the freaky side of conservative Catholicism, nothing by anyone like Boff or Dorothy Day or Oscar Romero or Gutierrez or anyone, just books on how the anti-war movement is the antichrist and various books about Catholic Doctrine, Dogma, etc.

In their defense though the Vancouver store has a really extensive selection of devotional material and copies of probably every Papal encyclical you could want for very cheap. I think that if I were a Priest or Deacon I'd probably go there for stuff like that and for their vestments and altar gear.

Today I got to spend time with some of Barrett and Sarah's friends, they are another ecclesial family in the area, very fun to hang out with and really cool people. anyway it's getting late and I've got a lot of calls to make tomorrow.

peace
Chris

Dialing it up in Westernville... the saga continues

shit. So today I discovered that the modem on Sarah's computer is internal so there'll be none of that fun internet for my lappy until I go to Jonah House.

I'll be trying to figure out their external hard drive. Sarah's parents are here visiting as well and her Dad suggested that I could use it to transfer documents and files from their computer to mine and back again so tomorrow I'll be putting this theory to the test. God willing it will work and I'll be able to put together The Christian Radical while I'm here and run some copies off to take with me to Baltimore. But if that fails as well I might have other options. and as a last resort knowing that I'll have no way of doing anything about it until later in August will give me some kind of frustrated relief (at least I'll know I'm temporarily powerless over the situation). Though to be honest I don't want that particular relief.

I am learning one good thing and that is that editing on the road sucks and ought to be avoided at all costs. It's a good thing that I'll be home in September I don't want to have to do this for three issues in a row.

In other good news I have goten permission to use a whole slew of photos from Iraq in the August issue so things are progressing well with this even if it is slower than I like.

Barrett and I are really on point when it comes to playing music together. I never really expected we'd sound so good. I don't know how much we'll get to record together while I'm here but his weekend starts soon and I'm hoping that we'll be able to lay down at least a couple of tracks.

I miss my friends in Vancouver but I am really content with where I am right now, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else than here.

A few days ago Barrett was telling me how he could see his children growing up in this house and as he said it I had a strong sense that mine would be doing some of that here as well. It definetly gives me one more really good reason to come out east more often.

an Apocalyptic Prayer

this is exerpted from my friend Rob's blog you can read the whole post by going to www.symaoye.blogspot.com

God, in Jesus name, bring your judgment swiftly.

Let this world end, and the peoples of this world, for we are sinful, and unworthy to steward your creation. We have erred in the most grievous way, and have gone over to the side of Satan, and have chosen violence over love, and have abandoned your commandments, and are none of us without sin. May you, the only true and righteous judge, bring the justice we have forgotten. May you bring the peace we have forsaken. My prayers go out to all the people who suffer the result of arrogance and pride in government. To the poor, to the sick, the oppressed, the broken and the blind, with whom I number my self.

And for the oppressors, for those who have forgotten the call to mercy, to those who have forgotten the power of the individual to act for justice and mercy, to the ones who have become cynical and bitter, the jaded ones, to those who have abused power and those who have abused wealth, those who by perpetual inaction perpetrate the climate of misery on planet earth, amongst whom I number myself.

May the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us. May we recognize the evil we have accepted into our hearts, and may we turn from our ways, may we seek justice and remember the poor and widows. May we remember the love of Him who died that we might live, the one who, when faced with persecution, prayed for his oppressors and sought to redeem them.

May we, in the love of Christ, refuse to take up the blasphemous banner of the state, and instead take up the role of servant and intercessor.

God help us all.

amen

Dialin it up in Westernville New York

So I'm here. I've been here for a while now and I'm getting settled. Internet exists here but in dialup form. It will be determined tomorrow if I'll need to get into Utica to find a workable connection for the lappy. I'm going to keep this one short because I'm tired and it's late.

Just thought I'd check in and rock out.

night everyone.

Come out to support Migrant Workers in BC

Please join Justicia for Migrant Workers BC (J4MW) for a screening of "EL CONTRATO" a powerful documentary film that traces the lives of Mexican migrant farm workers in Ontario and their quest for dignity and respect amidst poor working conditions. Followed by a panel discussion about the ongoing struggles of migrant farm workers in BC.

WHEN: Wednesday July 26, 2006

TIME: 7 - 9 pm

WHERE: Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway, Vancouver BC

ENTRANCE BY DONATION: this event is a fundraiser for Justicia's legal defense fund and the organization.

CONTACT: Becky, 604-879-9763; justiciaformigrantworkersbc@yahoo.ca


ABOUT THE FILM:

"EL CONTRATO" (2003) follows Teodoro Bello Martinez, a poverty-stricken father of four living in Central Mexico, and several of his countrymen as they make an annual migration to southern Ontario. For eight months of the year the town's population absorbs 4000 migrant labourers who pick tomatoes for conditions and wages no local will accept. Under a government program that allows growers to monitor themselves, the opportunity to exploit workers is as ripe as the fruit they pick. Grievances are deflected by a long line of others "back home" who are willing to take their place.

Despite fear of repercussions, the workers voice their desire for dignity and respect, as much as for better working conditions. El Contrato ends as winter closes in and the Mexicans pledge, not for the first time and possibly not the last, that it's their final season in the north. (courtesy of the NFB).


SPEAKERS

Hari Sharma
Ph.D, Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University, President of the South Asian Network for Secularism Democracy (SANSAD). Hari was an active organizer with South Asian farm workers in the 1970's and their struggle for improved living and working conditions and the establishment of the United Farm workers of Canada. He will speak about this struggle and how it relates to the current struggle of Mexican migrant farm workers as well as the broader socio-economic context that they emerge from.

Marcos Baac
A Mexican man who migrated to Canada in 2006 under a contract through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Subjected to terrible living and working conditions, he and his co-workers decided to go public with a letter demanding livable conditions, dignity and justice. A month later Marcos was fired by his employer with no just cause, and faced repatriation to Mexico within 24 hours. He will tell the story of the Mexico he came from, the workers struggle for their rights here, how he took his demands public and the challenges he now faces.


Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW) is a grassroots organization based in Vancouver and Toronto that, together with the workers, fights to defend and to expand the rights of migrant farm workers who come to Canada every year under the federal government's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). The J4MW collective is motivated by experiences shared and lessons learned from migrant farm workers in BC. As allies, activists and friends we believe migrant workers deserve work with dignity and respect!

For more information: www.justicia4migrantworkers.org/bc

Chris Rooney PWNS the internets

so I not have my laptop computer hooked up to the web which means that I can actually get some work done.

*sigh of relief*

news for sale

I think that there's something wrong with selling news items.

I recently saw a series of photos taken by Sebastian Scheiner, an Associated Press photographer, where a number of Israeli girls are signing shells which were about to be lobbed at the Lebonese. the images are all over the web now, as they ought to be but I am constantly upset by the marked double standard that goes on between online publishing and print publishing. If I wanted to I could go to where I saw them and copy/paste them into a photobucket account and there's be no harm no foul. However if I were to copy/paste them into The Christian Radical I run the rish of being sued for coppyright infringement.

I am aware that I will probably get sued eventually no matter how dilligent I am about observing copyright law and I'm cool with that, you can't get into journalism without pissing people off. I'm just saying that if I'm going to get sued for something I want it to be for something good.

Selling news stories and photography keeps a tight control on who has access to current and credible information. If the LA Times or the Georgia Straight wanted to print these pictures I'm ranting about, all they have to do is make a call, flex a company credit card and they print it in their next issue. The folks who suffer are the people who want to run credible and reliable news and oipinion journals for nothing or next to nothing.

Why is this cool with people? I really think more people should be bothered by the thought that they can not freely share news and photojournalism unless they are doing it online.

I also think that it's high time that we as people in an aegedly free society started to take back our right to share printed information freely and without restriction. After all, if the only people who can afford to tell the news are companies like Canwest Global or Newscorp or BBC then we're only going to know what they feel we ought to know and never any more than that.

the long slow amble of the undead

e-mailed to me by Heather Jean Mcdermid on
August 19, 2006

Vancouver Art Gallery :: Zombiewalk Vancouver, Jr ::

or perhaps Zombierock Vancouver, as roving zombie
soundsystems are highly encouraged . . . If you are
liberal minded and creative, you won't need to be told
to interpret this liberally and creatively.


The walk will start as per unusual at the Vancouver
Art Gallery (Robson and Howe). Undead from all
zombiewalks of life will congregate in front of the
VAG, wherever an anti-war protest is not congregating.
Do not confuse the two; they will have different
signage and gutteral utterances.


To combat weary zombie syndrome the route will be
shorter. The beach party will be longer. However,
in the spirit of 'make your own fun' the 'party' part
of beach party will be up to all you zombies.

To make reading between the lines easy, this means
that the walk will not end in the cemetery this year.
Variety is the spice of death, and the walk up MainSt.
was 'killer' on all the poor zombies. Before
complaining, consider this:

Vancouver is curiously lacking in evenly distributed
graveyards, preferring a decentralized approach that
situates these oases of quietude outside of the main
shopping and business districts.

This is perhaps explained by one of the following:
1. nobody who lives there dies
2. nobody who lives there stays dead
3. nobody wants to be buried next to ugly condos only
to have their grave defiled by chihuahuas with botox
injections.

or perhaps not. At any rate, central and accessible
has won the battle over thematically appropirate.

Besides, zombies belong in the marketplace:
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/politics/61270

and on the beach:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376355/
http://www.trinity.edu/sgilliam/MATCHBOX/RAZAVI04S/zombies.html

sorting things out through text

A couple of days ago I wrote an entry criticizing the traditional Christian wedding. The main thrust of my argument was that since the ceremonial action seems to represent an uncomfortable level of patriarchy and symbolic objectification of women that perhaps it's time for a re-examination of how this rite is expressed. I havn't changed my opinion that faith grows through honest and continuous examination, but the writing of that post has raised some interesting questions for me that I want to try and sort out here.

The question which has come up most since I wrote that is "what about the mass?" and I dismissed it as I wrote because I don't believe that the symbols of this sacrament are in need of change. I have been thinking about it and I continue to feel that the sacrament of the mass in it's post Vatican II form is not only theologically proper but liturgically and symbolically correct for our times.

However I still get worried when I think about what sorts of issues a rigorus appraisal of faith could bring up in my own life, what fresh or old conflicts might this bring out? How will my attempts at spiritual understanding be greeted by those priests whom I come into contact with?

Conventional wisdom says that if you don't ask hard questions you won't get hard answers. And that sort of thinking, when applied, can make a person feel secure and comfortable in his or her own beliefs about the world. But is this comfort really a blessing? Or does it stunt personal growth by making a person feel scared to break out of ones shell?

I think that I fear being in opposition to church orthodoxy and that this is the root of what keeps me from really questioning my faith as a Catholic. This fear of differing from the orthodoxy is crippling in its way, perhaps mostly because I don't really have a good solid understanding of the tennets of my faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a very thick book which, on my own I have been unable to read easily, and with no one to confidently bounce my questions off I am left with this worry that I could lapse into heresy by questioning these things un-guided, and that even if my criticism were valid, having no way to relate to what is often a rigid, conservative and intimidating hirarchy I might end up in a worse place than where I began.

It's not that I fear losing faith in Christ or in the Father or in the Holy Spirit, and it's not that I am scared of my relationship with God changing from asking these questions. It is my belief that God wants us to be able to ask questions, after all what kind of loving father tells his children to shut up and question nothing?

I guess I'm just worried that my relationship to the Church I love could be irevocably and negativly altered by my attempts to find a deeper understanding of how it's teachings relate to me. But then again I think I'm probably just tying myself into knots over hypothetical situations instead of letting my faith in Christ guide me to real answers. I do this sort of thing a lot as you are no doubt learning.

I feel a bit better after writing this out, I know that in God's time everything works out as it should, it can just be frustrating though because God's timing is so rarely the same as mine.

The last e-mail I recieved about any of this

July 15th 2006

Ten days since David's eaten. Some interesting articles of note from David's Journal of the Occupation of St. Ann's Academy, located on the web at www.anglefire.com/apes/hatrackman.

I don't know what kind of review I'd give it; David's egoism is often apparent, but he is only a human being and we all make mistakes. I think the question is whether David deserves to go to jail for not being perfect and believing that the criminalization of the poor is such an important
social issue that he will fight it to the death.

The interesting documents are:
1. a letter to the Lieutenant Governor of BC
2. A letter witnessing to the arrest and demonstration at St. Ann's on the
afternoon of January 26th, 2004.
3. a letter David wrote to the Judge.
4. a letter presented to the court as evidence against David, submitted by
the Provincial Capital Commission.

These are all very worth reading. Jason's account is fabulous (#2). The letters of David's set up his arguments fairly clearly. There is also a detailed list of arrests from Jan. 2004-May 2005. I think, as I've said before, that this is a movement that dates back to 2001 when David and I were arrested for protesting on the Legislature Lawn. It even dates back further than that. The best of these bits of David's journal, however, has to be the letter from the PCC to the court. It's on page 52 of the 2004/5 journal.

TAVIS


I will try and keep updating about all of this as I recieve more information thanks for reading,
Chris

David Arthur Johnston e-mail #2

A week since David's eaten, St. Ann's update (7-11, 2006)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 17:04:26 -0700

As David fasts in prison I wonder what Judge Neal, who sentenced David to 7 months for refusing to leave the province, is thinking. Didn't Judge Neal swear allegiance to the Constitution of Canada? Didn't he swear an allegiance to God? And what about all the cops that harassed David and the countless other activists battling against poverty; didn't they swear an allegiance to the constitution? Did they bother to read the thing? What do these cops think about in church?

Whichever way you come down on the question of God, you have to admit that in Canada we are allowed to serve in the ministry of God, and we are allowed to protest against the government.

I was arrested with David in Feb. 2002, on the lawns of BC's legislature. That's when I came into this social movement, but it dates back as far as the spiral island/spiral monkey protests of 2001. This is a protest that is as old as the Campbell adminitration of BC, but Judge Neal will not
aknowledge this. And over the four years of this protest, poverty has reached new heights of criminalization. Legislation such as the "Safe Streets Act" have come in denying us things like our rights to peaceful assembly and pushing No Fixed Address closer and closer to being a crime.
The welfare state is all but shut down. And, over the last four years, Victoria's hard-core drug industry has flourished!, filling the coffers of the rich with this multi-billion dollar industry that preys on the poor.

And over the past four years David Johnston has never stopped fighting. There are court orders forbidding him from going anywhere near many government offices, including the BC Legislature Building. He has now a criminal record and all the stigma that that entails. In his Journal of
the Occupation of St. Anne's Academy David has documented every discussion with police and security. He's been driven to the edge of town and left there again and again, but he keeps coming back. It is truly amazing the extent to which society seems prepared to go in order to silence David.

But he is not silenced! The fight goes on! The BC liberals may choose not to invite us to the table, but they cannot ignore us! Somebody has been putting up little pictures of David up all over town and the slogan 'free david' is appearing all over. The internet is awash with discussion, with the issue appearing in blogs and on web sites from every province and all over the world! Please help by forwarding this message to everyone you know.

Judge Neal is a hard one to understand. He's said that if forced to choose between anarchy and injustice, he would choose injustice. But whatever!

David had NO representation. So what do you think Judge Neal was thinking. He knows David never eats in Jail. He knows David has taken a solemn vow of poverty and hasn't let a dollar cross his palms for over a year now. He knows David lives off what he finds in the garbage. But maybe Property is much more important to Neal than human life. All David ever wanted was a
place for the homeless to legally go and form community.

t@v

David Arthur Johnston and the criminalisation of the Canadian Poor

A few days ago I recieved a couple of e-mails from a commrade named Tavis whom I hadn't heard from since the winter. Anyway he's friends with a guy named David Johnston who has been incarcerated for trying to live simply and without a home.

I was previously aware of David Johnston from my own random internet readings but it was meeting Tavis and then recieving these e-mails which has brought this guy's case to mind while I probably would have forgotten it was going on at all. I want to publish something about this guy in a coming issue of The Christian Radical but in the meantime I am going to try and post updates on his situation as often as I get them.

-Chris Rooney

* * * * *

July 14th 2006

Nearly everyone in Victoria's seems to have read the Monday Magazine article about David being sentenced to seven months for his peaceful protesting against the criminalization of the poor. Nine days since David's eaten. Not bad for a guy that usually eats what he can find in the garbage.
The public attention is there. But as the song goes, "everyone knows that the dice are loaded, everybody knows that the good guys lost." And Bob with "How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and watch? We know it's just a part of it we got to fullfill Ja book." Okay, I'm not so sure about the last bit. One thing about the Monday Magazine article: I was arrested with David Johnston on March of 2001 at the Camp Campbell protest on the BC Legislature lawn, not a couple of years ago. . . it was five years. David's been campaigning for five years. He never gave up that fight. He just wanted a place where the protesters could go to be. The police just moved us off the Legislature grounds, Songese Nation Land, and threw away everyone's stuff. The same old story; move along, move along. The movement goes back just a bit further than the Campbell administration as far as the Right to Sleep protesters go. Some kids were camped out at the spiral island garden at the Christ Church Cathedral, and they got kicked off.

They went to City Hall, then moved into a jewelery warehouse that someone opened up. The police put preasure on the landlord to cancel the lease and the homeless moved back to City Hall. I think there was a demonstration for some nights behind the Court house too. This is all before my time and the newspapers didn't report all of it. Since 2001 there have been more tent cities, most of them around the area David has been forbidden from entering by court orders and conditions of David's release after he was silenced from peacefully voicing his valid social concerns.

The City is up in arms about needle drop boxes this week. Victoria is being eaten alive by drugs like no other City of her size. The idea so far has been to throw more cops at the problem. But this is not a crime, it is a social illness victimizing the poor. What these people need is community.
That's all David's ever wanted. If only someone would have invited David to the table, instead of just sending the troops in to move us off or lock us up. David is like Plato's philosopher king. He is the only man in Canada that I know of who has taken such an extreme vow of poverty. But the only people we hear from at these councils on the issue of Victoria's drug epidemic are people who have a tremendously limited understanding of drugs and poverty. Why couldn't we, as a society, have let David and the rest of the poor have a shot at taking care of themselves? I'll tell you why. $!

Hard drugs pump billions of dollars into Victoria's community.
Pharmaceuticals pump in billions more.

But everybody knows this stuff. Everybody gets the feeling that the cops and the feds and the drug industry are really all the same people. It's pretty much proven that the CIA dealt coke. So it's no wonder the poor wouldn't be allowed autonomy, and the chance to heal, when it might mean slipping out of the yoke. But this is not over.

Property values are skyrocketing. There will be many more homeless soon. Better educated homeless. Your children. Your parents. The more condos we see selling for millions of dollars, the more service sector workers will move in with us at St. Anne's, into the camps, the protests, the doorways.

The seniours will move in/out. The first nations people will be cast off their own land, once again, and join in our social demonstration. I don't know if this is an improvement or not, but I'm pretty sure it's going to happen and is happenig and has been happening while Lowe's been the Mayor,
Campbell's been the Premiere, and David Johnston's been the Philosopher King. These people are to blame for the failure to support our poor, our sick, our disenfranchised.

I guess in the end, though, we'll just have to realize that we never really had a constitution or any legal rights at all. David's not the first I've known in Victoria to have gone down in this movement. There have been thousands. Poor people shipped off, jailed, harassed, abused, and robbed, by our own police force. They took my little knife and lighter, and I've since met dozens who've had the same thing happen to them. The knives just disappear. A christian guy I know named Travis gave me that knife. It was not concealed. They just wanted to harass me for having gone into the police staion to inquire as to David's wherabouts. They kept me waiting hours then the next thing I know I'm in handcuffs. Every day I hear of homeless people getting their arms twisted by the police or receiving verbal assaults from cops. Too many of the cops see the poor as the enemy. They see the 13 year old girl meth addict and they see someone who should be punished.

Victoria is in a state of emergency. The drug epidemic is nearing critical mass; the point when you can buy crack at any hour on the street.

Free David.
Victoria needs his help with this.

-Tavis Dodds

if you live in Vancouver you and you read this blog you might be interested in this

Emergency March and Rally

Protest Israeli war crimes in Lebanon and Palestine

Where: Vancouver Art Gallery

When: Saturday July 22 at 3:00 PM

Organized by: Al-awda – Palestine Right of Return Coalition, Adala and the
Lebanese Information Centre- BC

Posters, flyers, and statement will follow soon.

JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE PRESENTS

Arik Gutler-Ofir

Israeli Peace Activist • Refusenik • Theatre Facilitator

Rotary World Peace Fellow - University of Queensland, Australia

Born in Jerusalem, Arik has worked as a theatre teacher and facilitator, and an initiator of art projects for Jews and Arabs in Israel. He refused to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces after being called to take part in occupying the West Bank cities in 2002. Arik has received a Rotary International Peace Fellowship, a two year scholarship for an MA degree in peace studies and conflict resolution. Having undertaken studies for an advanced MA at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, Arik's interest in theatre has brought him to Vancouver to study the work of Headlines Theatre and in particular the recent forum theatre project "Palestine, Israel and Me: A Power Play".


THERE ARE THINGS DECENT PEOPLE DON’T DO: REFUSING THE IDF

Tuesday, July 25th, 7:30 p.m. Falafelers’ Café at the Tigers Cafe, 2133 Granville Street (near 5th), Vancouver

Arik refused to serve in the Israeli army in 2002. What does it means to say no to your education, social environment and family? Arik will briefly share the process of taking a personal-political decision. Discussion will ensue. All points of view welcome. Dessert and coffee/tea can be purchased.


For further information on Israel’s refusal movement:
http://www.yeshgvul.org/index_e.asp

http://www.seruv.org.il/english/default.asp

Thoughts on the traditional Christian wedding service

I went to the wedding of some friends in Calgary on Sunday and I have some thoughts on what seems to be the standard "Christian" wedding ceremony. I say Christian in parenthesis because I don't want to imply that this particular rite is indigenous to all of the Church or that it is even monopolized by any particular denominations group.

It was however the textbook style of wedding service that I had always envisioned when I thought "Church Wedding".

There were four brides maids and four in the groom's party, the white flowing dress, the tuxedos, the organ music, the traditional vows exchanged, bride given away by her parents and the kiss at the end.

I've only ever been to one wedding besides this that I was old enough to remember and it was not the standard wedding rite, it was very informal, took place in the reception room at my Grandparents condo-plex and though beautiful and meaningful to everyone there it was not the stereotype.

When my Aunt Trish and Uncle Brian got married at my Grand Parents place the ceremony was much more stripped down, things were less formal and less showy, while at this wedding it was ALL ABOUT THE BRIDE.

I can't help but feel dismayed at the way patriarchy is played up so strongly at the stereotypical wedding. The obvious symbolism of the white wedding aside the whole bride-gets-served-up-like-a-slice-of-wedding-cake feel of the traditional wedding was not lost on me. I couldn't help but gain some insight over exactly how political and how arcane the standard Christian wedding really is.

There aren't very many expectations placed on the groom all he really has to do is show up, say the right things, exchange rings and kiss.

The bride on the other hand is over emphasized and ultimately objectified in the act of being "given away" by the parents.
Perhaps thankfully the classic double standard of female virginity and male sexual proclivity has been supplanted by a greater cynicism but the emphasis on feminine "grace" and male "dignity" is still very present.

Would that there was an equitable way to balance the symbolic obligations of both man and woman in the wedding rite.

I know you might be wondering to yourself why I have it out for a ceremony, after all it isn't what gets done at the altar that matters so much as how the couple choose to live their life together. And you'd be right, a marriage isn't made in a church it is made by the couple as they age and live together. A marriage is made more by the tests of love, fidelity patience and wisdom which the pair go through together than by any kiss no matter how deep or by any contractual statement through State or Church no matter how legally binding.

But ritual counts for something even if it only shows how as a culture we prioritize our relationships. If this statement has in it any truth than it would be my honest assessment that we have to re think our priorities.

We all go about trumpeting our modern age once and a while, it takes the innocent exposure to the unexpected to really get the mind working around ones own arrogance, this has been my personal experience.

I can't help but feel that it is time to re-think the standard form that the modern marriage takes. Perhaps instead of having the blushing bride offered up to her husband-to-be on a platter like the political offering she isn't there could be a co-equal presentation where both newly wedds are given to one another or perhaps "presentation" could be done away with all together.

Wouldn't it be even more meaningful if instead of husband and wife being given away they were welcomed into the larger community at that same marriage altar? Why stand up there alone? Why have only men on the grooms side and women on the brides side? Why not have the man be the one all in white?

Don't mistake my writing here as a rejection of the importance of ritual. Ritual is important in the life of the faith even if it is cursory or largely improvised. Ritual connects us to commonly shared traditions and give us a sense of cultural participation and it's because of the importance of ritual in society that those who value it should call it to account and if found wanting, we should be encouraged to update them to allow them to continue to express the love that they were intended to reflect. Without the courage to re-evaluate our rituals they risk becoming calcified and legalistic and once we lose our engagement to that side of our lives we turn something intended to be beautiful and liberating into its antithesis.

I'm learning how to play this song

WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

Words and music by Pete Seeger (1967)
TRO (c) 1967 Melody Trails, Inc. New York, NY

er-posted from Joy Ellison's blog www.inpalestine.blogspot.com

In yesterday's radio boardcast, the International Middle East Media
Center reported the following:

The Palestinian ministry of health revealed on Tuesday that the
Israeli army has used a new type of explosive in its offensive on the
Gaza Strip. These explosives contain toxics and radioactive materials
which burn and tear the victim's body from the inside and leave long
term deformities.

The ministry called upon the international community and the
humanitarian organizations to send an international medical team to
examine the victims and confirm the truth about these banned weapons
that Israel appears to be using.

The ministry showed that most of the injuries which the hospitals
receive result from huge explosions, which cause burning and severing
of limbs, including the inner parts of the body. This causes long term
deformities.

In addition, doctors in Gaza have been forced to amputate limbs of at
least 12 injured Palestinians as a result of injuries sustained in the
current Israeli offensive on the Strip. D. Jom'a Al Saka the
spokesperson of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza:

"When the Shrapnel hit the body, it causes a very strong burns[sic] that
destroys the tissues around the bones. When these shrapnel enters the
body, it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys
and the Spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost
impossible. As a surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the
Intifada, but nothing was like this weapon."

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19950&Itemid=161

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19948&Itemid=1

tired of traveling with my family. I know that it's only for a short time and that on monday I'll be on my way to Ottawa and other parts east but it is very draining to sit around and be surrounded by the petty and uttterly meaningless bickering that my mom and brother engage in so much. Also I dread the family gathering stuff which will no doubt take place all week since we are here for my cousin Marissa's wedding. I do look forward to seeing Marissa and her soon to be husband Peter and I look forward to seeing my cousin Crystal and to maybe spending some time with an old friend from high school who moved out here a few years ago but over all I really dislike Oilberta. The spectacle which is the Calgary Stampede my "culturally conservative" and frustratingly "Fraser Institute-libertarian" relatives all make me feel very out of place here and I dread sitting at dinner with relatives who make glib jokes about me going down to South America to join the Shining Path gurerillas or other random and hurtful things.

I go on at length about the importance of forgiveness yet I find it quite hard to forgive this place and it's people. I have a lot of dusty old hatreds linked to this city and to my childhood that are due for some serious re-examination and trashing.

I do look forward to one thing though I look forward to climbing onto the roof of the elementary school where I did grades 1-4.

When I lived here and when I came home to visit from boarding school that roof was my only real sanctuary. I'd sit up there and smoke cigarettes or read sci-fi novels and smoke pot. Once in a while I'd take a friend up there and we's throw pieces of tar and rocks off of the roof and talk about sniping cars with bb guns (I wasn't a very nice kid). But that roof has a lot of me up there and the view from the top of the Gym takes the piss out of anything else in this dirty old town.

(I am probably being too hard on the family members I just described as right wing maniacs in the veign of Stephen Harper or Ralph Klien. I know that they are only doing what they do and believing what they believe because for what ever reasons it feels right to them and even if I have no love for their beliefs I have respect for their right to have them and for their convictions towards them. I would love to be able to talk seriously with some of my uncles and possibly broaden both of our outlooks but I always feel like I have to be on my guard because they are either trying to "act like the man" or attempting to get a rise out of me. anyway I'm ranting and I have better things to do with my time... like make the online edition of the Radical.)

The bad news from El Slavador

Student Protest Against Bus Fare Hike Ends in Bloodshed in San Salvador

July 5, 2006

Police opened fire on student demonstrators outside the gates of El Salvador’s National University on Wednesday. Protesters had blocked rush hour traffic at a busy intersection to protest recent government-sanctioned hikes in bus fares and electricity rates.. Traffic was stalled for blocks and tension grew as police massed in preparation to take control of the area. Both groups waited for a march of high school students that arrived from a nearby park.

When police tried to arrest two students in the on-coming march, others reacted by attacking a bank ATM, prompting police to fire tear gas. When the march arrived at the blockaded intersection, students rallied, but a sudden volley of gunshots scattered everyone. A number of students and police fell to the ground. The majority of students sought refuge inside University gates.

Local television focused on police who had been shot and showed gruesome images of those who had suffered bullet wounds, apparently from a semi-automatic, high-caliber weapon. It was unclear who had fired that weapon. Two police were reported killed and nine more had been interred at local hospitals. As of this writing, an unknown number of students have been shot, with three reported dead. A number of critically wounded students were trapped on University grounds, unable to access medical care.

Police helicopters fired on protesters inside the University complex, injuring Herbert Rivas, Director of Multidisciplinary Faculty. Other students reportedly suffered similar fates.

El Salvador’s Human Right Ombudswoman Beatrice Carrillo condemned the violence and lamented the casualties.

“I’m still waiting for a complete report and from no point of view can one identify with the use of violence. The deaths of the agents are reprehensible, just as the increase in bus fare is reprehensible,” she said.

For many, the sounds, images, and dead have triggered harsh memories of El Salvador´s 1980-1992 armed conflict, which left 80,000 civilians dead, mostly at the hands of government forces. During those years, trademark helicopter gun ships loomed overhead throughout El Salvador’s remote rural interior. The soldiers stationed inside were responsible for killing countless numbers of innocents.

Currently, police have locked down the University and blocked foot and vehicular traffic within a half mile of the campus. the University has been locked down by police. Late Wednesday night, police entered University grounds in strict violation of legal codes guarding University autonomy, presumably to investigate the murders of the officers. Morning newspapers reported 20 arrests.

Today’s police action comes in the wake of the brutal assassinations of Francisco Antonio Manzanares y Juana Monjarás de Manzanares in their home in Suchitoto, 20 miles northeast of San Salvador.

The gruesome murders bolstered rumors of renewed death-squad activity in El Salvador. The Manzanares, parents of Radio Venceremos co-founder Marina Manzanares, were tortured for hours then killed in their home on the morning of Sunday July 2. Their bodies were found slashed and bleeding. Lye had been carefully spread on the victim's faces and there were signs of a failed attempt to set the room afire.

The killings have terrorized locals in this normally tranquil village. On Sunday and Monday, neither reporters nor police could find anyone who had heard anything about the murders, much less witnessed them.

Congressman Sigfrido Reyes of the FMLN said, "This is a crime that revisits all of the markings of the crimes committed by death squads back in the times of military dictatorship and the years of the armed conflict."

Human Rights Ombudswoman Carrillo denounced the continued existence of “extermination groups” beginning in 2005, “If we don’t take this problem seriously in this country, we are going to have a social debacle of incalculable magnitude. I believe there are extermination groups and the Attorney General and the police need to investigate. The problem is that the issues are engrained in the same system.”

Daughter Marina, known as "Mariposa" during her days as commentator for the FMLN’s clandestine Radio Veneceremos station, said that the family had been the target of multiple death threats in recent months. She reported that last week a box of bones arrived at her parent’s home with a note that said, "This is how you’ll receive your daughters’ bones."

The family is no stranger to homicidal violence at the hands of state authorities: Marina’s brother, Paco Cutumay (of the famed musical group Cutumay Camones was one of the first political prisoners of the 1980-1992 Civil War. He was later killed by PNC agents in 1993.

For their part, police attribute the murder to a common robbery. Although their story contradicts the family’s, police say that valuables were taken from the Manzanares home. One unidentified agent admitted to local press that brutal assassinations were unusual for Suchitoto, robbery or not.

reprinted from www.crispaz.org

I don't want to believe it but I've got to believe it

Under The Volcano Festival will be on a one year hiatus and will not be presenting our annual event in Cates Park/ whey-ah-wichen this August 2006. As we informed our audience in the 2005 program, we are facing some financial struggles and we are taking one year off of producing the outdoor event to source out more long-term sustainable funding and to recharge our batteries. We appreciate all of the support & commitment we have received from our audience & our allies, and we will be returning in August 2007 at our historic site with renewed energy & ideas.

In our absence, the co-ordinators of the Dragonfly Children's Festival (http://www.whey-ah-wichen.org) will be presenting a a grassroots event in Cates Park/Whey-ah-wichen on August 13th. After launching at the Festival of Art & Social Change in 2005, Dragonfly will expand for 2006, keeping the spirit of UTV alive while we are on our one year hiatus.

We will also be presenting a two night mini-festival called "Rhyme & Resist" next fall (October 27th & 28th) at the Vancouver east Cultural Centre. Confirmed artists so far include Philadelphia MC Bahamadia and the return of renowned author & speaker Ward Churchill. Please check back soon for more details.

In solidarity,
UTV co-ordinators

reposted from http://users.resist.ca/~volcano/

people actually read this

I feel special. Until tonight and thanks to Jose and Michael I now know that a surprising number of people read this. Given that until today I was under the inpression no one read this at all the five or so comments I've recieved from random people is a very surprising number indeed!

I am really pleased that you are reading this whoever you are.

Thank you.

let the tetris-fucking begin

oh man what a heavy couple of days.

Yesterday at 3 am I'm coming up the hill to my apartment and the crank on my bike breaks clean off! This is after a generally harried day of visiting friends some in much better health than others, I was also supposed to go see Frontline Assembly because an old friend has recently joined the band but I was not in a good space to do that and decided to go on a bike ride instead.

Today I got up early and was running all over the place getting stuff done, I had to go out to Tsawwassen for dinner with my mom and brother, I did get to try the tandem bike I inherited from my grandma (sweet!) but over all the day has been bustling with nescessary activity.

I finally got to take a look at the assembled zine only to find to my horror that it is un readable! not only did it come out too faint but the pagination and paragraphing is fucked to the point that I'll have to do a lot of re-formatting and all the new art layout that I did for this issue is off center and so I have to go in and re-do all the pictures I put text in (probably just under half the zine is in this new format). Uggh. I have to go to Burnaby tomorrow to meet someone at 11:00am. I am really glad that I still havn't been able to sell my BMX without it my whole life would become much more troubled.

blah

I'll be happy when the zine is actually finished so that I can relax for a week or two

A Prayer for Joey Only

Oh Lord,
though he would dissapprove of this act of mine, though he would find it absurd or maybe offensive, the truth is that he needs you now more than ever in his life. Give him the courage and strength to bear the pain, the fear and the sickness which he finds himself in. Be present in his life through the kindness and compassion of close friends and loving family, through the frank honesty of excellent doctors and nurses and if it is his time and the balance of his life tips then welcome him home as one who tried in his own ways to do the most for the least and to give the unjust no peace.

in Jesus name
Amen

So I saw her again.

And She's Joey's Girlfriend, or closer though I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't use that language to define their relationship.

For some brief and terible moments I had to hold back the strongest sense of jealousy. It put me to shame that I was burning up inside over a girl who is obviously the best thing going for him right now. Once it passed though I started to see things in a different light and have carried that light with me the rest of the day.

At first I was really depressed thinking "when God? When am I going to have that kind of love in my life?" I tried to take it out of my system by playing music but it didn't really go away and I started to think.

First I was amazed that I didn't see it the day before. I recalled something someone had said in a documentary called Thirst The quote paraphrased was something like "It's surprising how blinded a person can be to an issue if his pay check depends on him not seeing it". I thought about that and how if you substitute self interest for paycheck it could be applied universally.

It's remarkable how easily I can be blinded to something when I believe my self interest depends on me not seeing it.

Then I thought back to how obviously she cared for him, how even though he might have tuberculosis and everyone who visits him is supposed to go in there looking like clean room technicians in a computer plant and she's there nursing him and caring for him without even so much as a mask. When a nurse came in and told her to wear one she replied that she'd been with him since the start, she eventually did put on a mask but I think it was mostly so that the nurse wouldn't get in trouble or so she wouldn't be kicked out or something.

much later I started thinking about love as a concept. I asked myself if I had ever been in love and I thought back over my prolific high school sex life, I thought about all the girls I'd been with and of all of them I could only list three with whom I could say with certainty that I had been in love. I then asked myself why I had been in love whith each of them I examined each relationship and after an hour or so I concluded that the thing that each of these three relationships had in common was what each did for me, how each made me feel, what I got out of them.

I had begun to speculate before doing this that perhaps the idea of romantic love was just a big smoke and mirrors job. I could think of lots of people whom I love, family members, dear friends, historical figures like Thomas Merton or Dorothy Day. Icould also concieve of an un compromising, unyielding and everlasting love, So I could believe in Phillial and Agape love easily but Eros... that elusive romantic love seemed to me to be a big con, it still does.

These three women whom I could look back on and think with certainty that I had been in love with, the love I was in was all selfish love. I guaged this attachment by what each person had done for me and how they had made me feel. I attached myself to them like a leech, I fed off these sensations and lusted after them and in the end, very short ends, I was left alone again and torn up, fucked up, devastated and low. like going through an emotional sort of withdrawal.

So this couldn't be love, in none of those relationships could I say that I loved any of them.

If being in love is a selfish sort of thing, a kind of emotional addiction based on how another person makes you feel about yourself then loving someone would have to be a selfless thing.

To really love someone maybe you have to be willing without thought to disregasrd yourself or your comfort for someone else. Maybe like Caralyn and Joey, you have to risk tuberculosis because you can't do otherwise, you maybe can't even concieve of doing otherwise.

Christ Loved, he Loved us enough to give us everything with out fail and without grudge. I want to say without pause, and but for his Agony in the Garden it would be completely true. Saint Francis loved when he kissed the leper, Damien of Molokaii loved when he went to minister to the lepers there, Caralyn loves as she sits next to Joey tonight and watches him sleep breathing the same air without barrier.

I have never loved like that, I have never had to, I want to, and I never want to stop.

the spaces inbetween

I met this woman today who I don't think I'll ever see again and I can't remember her name but it was like seeing someone so welcoming, I must have had a look in my eyes because it made her a bit flustered I've been trying to remember her name since we parted company I even went to my friend Joey's myspace in the hopes of traking it down but that's when I realised it would be like trying to pick out a familliar face at a masquerade ball.

I went to visit Joey because he's getting his lungs drained because has really bad pneumonia. I was worried about bringing my nearly recovered sick ass into the chest ward of VGH but there were sars masks at the door. I entered his room and she was sitting on the windowsill reading a book about Wounded Knee. Joey was in the middle of something with a band mate, he was really weak from his illness. I was introduced to everyone and spent some time with him in the hospital room. I had to go see another friend at 8 so after a spell I said my goodbyes. Turning around I screwed up all my courage and asked her for her number. she said she wasn't in that space and then as I was getting my things to go she bliurted out that this was the first time she'd ever told a guy that and then got flustered again because she couldn't think of why she would have said it aloud like that.

I told her that it was cool and that maybe I'd see her around. I told Joey that I'd come back on Tuesaday and I'd bring my guitar and some CD's for him, I have to buy some blank CD's now.

I really hope she's there again in tuesday I still want her number but I don't want her to give it to me right away. I'd be happy to just meet her again. I think that if I do see her again I'll ask her to lunch, I think I would be very happy to get to know who this woman is, God willing I'll have that opportunity one day.

I went to see the CR Avery band later, it was a really good show, I saw so many old friends, a jazz musician I knew from highschool, a distant cousin, another old friend. After the show I tool the longest way home. I bicycled through the downtown east side deliberatly going to the saddest places. I want to open a house of hospitality here I need to know what the wound in this city looks like, what it feels like, how it affects me to be there.

It was a strange and intimate experience like seeing the scars on a survivor of physical abuse. I saw parts of Skid Row and rode down streets I didn't know existed I saw patches of deep misery and patches of gentrification, Gentrification is a lot like a city re-colonizing itself. First the land was stolen to build the city, then the least in the city find a place where they can live, or where the city will allow them to live, and then over time the rich of the city decide that they want that part for themselves so they send in the developers andthe developers turn warehouses into trendy loft apartements. Then the business people move in and turn old storefronts into chique clubs playing up the "rough part of town" allure that they are selling and the next thing you know the whole strip looks nice and renewed, the streets are cleaner, better lit, the buildings are no longer neglected and new life comes to the hood. Only the new life is not that of the previous residents. Gentrification is re-colonization because it re-claims the poor and working class areas for the rich by forcing the old comunity to move to new skid rows, gentrification is anti-community, it's renewal like losing an arm only to have a mouth grow in its place.

I rode through downtown and into Stanly Park thinking about this, I went down as close to the water at waterfront as I could go, I rode by the train tracks and through part of the park. Like I said it was intimate, it was examining a long hiden and poorly nursed wound or hearing the story of how a friend or lover got a particularly nasty scar... it was shy and sorrowful and I didn't want it to end as the bike took me back across the burrard bridge. I savoured the lights reflecting off the water and the stars above my head. There are no stars in LA, sometimes you can see the pole star but even that can be hidden by the light from the rubble.


I want to live here forever.

While Others Fall Silently to the Ground

This post is taken from my friend Joy Ellison's blog which can be viewed here http://www.inpalestine.blogspot.com/

(a note -- all facts in this article are as accurate as possible as of three days ago)
In 1867, as more white settlers moved West, American artist George Catlin frantically tried to record the lives of the remaining Native people. In his book Last Ramblings, Catlin wrote that when any white settler was killed, the press immediately cried "Indian murders! Indian murders of white people!" But when Native women and children died, their cries were "muffled and silenced. Glorious institution, the "Press," but how much more glorious if it were not one-sided!"

Over the month that I have lived in the West Bank, the press has vigorously covered the kidnapping and killing of one Israeli settler, and capture of one soldier and two additional Israeli deaths. Meanwhile, 27 unarmed Palestinians, including 7 children, have been killed quietly nearly without mention in the international press.

Yesterday, Israeli tanks invaded the Gaza Strip to secure the release of one captured Israeli solider. The Israeli military bombed Gaza's power plant, plunging the population into darkness and cutting off water. As I write, tanks continue the shelling. No estimates of casualties have been released and I wonder if we will ever really know how many have died in this invasion.

As soon as Corporal Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, Condalezza Rice was on camera to condemn the kidnapping as the violent act it was. But Secretary Rice had nothing to say about the 27 Palestinians recently killed. In fact, on June 9th when an Israeli naval boat fired a missile on families picnicking on the Gaza beach killing 8 people, including five children and their parents, our government immediatelyexcused the attack as necessary for Israel's security.

Now, as Israeli tanks shell Gaza, I wonder what Secretary Rice will say next. How many Palestinian deaths will be justified to free a single soldier, whose life is now in more danger because the clearly punitive nature of this so-called rescue operation?

Every time human life is taken in this conflict, our government should condemn the violence without first asking the nationality of the dead. But it is clear that when some people die we will cry "murder, murder" while we will let others fall silently to the ground. By supporting Israel's actions unconditionally, we do little to prove ourfriendship. Instead, we offer our support to the violation of Palestinian human rights and to a military occupation which breeds the terrorism Israelis fear. Our attitude is "Israel, right or wrong." I shudder to think what might happen if other countries so blindly supported America in similar unethical and counterproductive actions.

Currently, every year we give Israel $3 billion dollarsworth of unconditional support. To bring peace, American aid should come with conditions which apply equally to both Israel and Palestine. If Hamas must renounce violence and recognize Israel, then Israel must also renounce violence, end its occupation, and allow a Palestinian state to be established. If the United States begins to hold all parties to international law, perhaps the basis for a peaceful and just resolution to this conflict can be established.

Until then, those who live in this nightmare will watch as the tanks roll on.

coppyright infringement in the kitchen (I like Fair Use)

Mysterious red cells might be aliens

By Jebediah Reed
Popular Science
Friday, June 2, 2006; Posted: 12:36 p.m. EDT (16:36 GMT)
Scientists have yet to identify these unusual red particles.
(PopSci.comexternal link) -- As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.

In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .)

So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India.

If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

Last winter, Louis sent some of his samples to astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe and his colleagues at Cardiff University in Wales, who are now attempting to replicate his experiments; Wickramasinghe expects to publish his initial findings later this year.

Meanwhile, more down-to-earth theories abound. One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the "blood rains" on algae.

Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats.

Louis and his colleagues dismiss all these theories, pointing to the fact that both algae and fungus possess DNA and that blood cells have thin walls and die quickly when exposed to water and air.

More important, they argue, blood cells don't replicate. "We've already got some stunning pictures -- transmission electron micrographs -- of these cells sliced in the middle," Wickramasinghe says. "We see them budding, with little daughter cells inside the big cells."

Louis's theory holds special appeal for Wickramasinghe. A quarter of a century ago, he co-authored the modern theory of panspermia, which posits that bacteria-riddled space rocks seeded life on Earth.

"If it's true that life was introduced by comets four billion years ago," the astronomer says, "one would expect that microorganisms are still injected into our environment from time to time. This could be one of those events."

The next significant step, explains University of Sheffield microbiologist Milton Wainwright, who is part of another British team now studying Louis's samples, is to confirm whether the cells truly lack DNA. So far, one preliminary DNA test has come back positive.

"Life as we know it must contain DNA, or it's not life," he says. "But even if this organism proves to be an anomaly, the absence of DNA wouldn't necessarily mean it's extraterrestrial."

Louis and Wickramasinghe are planning further experiments to test the cells for specific carbon isotopes. If the results fall outside the norms for life on Earth, it would be powerful new evidence for Louis's idea, of which even Louis himself remains skeptical.

unsettling dreram

I had a dream that I was at Ammon Hennacy House in LA and getting ready to go home, I was packed I think but I was looking for my skateboard. My mom came to meet me at the house and told me that Chinatown had been claimed by the ocean. At first I thought she was telling me that China had gone under water but then I was aware that she was talking about Vancouver. After that I found my skateboard and we must have left.

The next part of the dream I was skating in Kitsilano and decided to go down to the beach and see the damage. I skated to Larch and fourth and started going North on Larch but was forced to stop at the crest of the hill because there was nothing but water below. The ocean had claimed not just Chinatown as my mom had said but Kits Beach was gone, with only the tops of the showboat and the fence around the pool visible in the light from the moon. There was someone else there with me I think she must have been one of the displaced. We started talking about the things we had lost and how the ocean had rizen so fast when the ice shelf in Greenland had melted. I made a joking sort of curse against the Danes and found myself very awake in bed. Not scared but startled. I decided to go back to bed for a little while because my alarm was only about thirty minutes from going off, I slept through my alarm with no other memorable dreams.