Heather Conn Blogs

This week, my guest blogger, again, is Frank McElroy. As I  mentioned in last week’s 9/11-related post, this is his follow-up piece to what he wrote about September 11 a decade ago:

The loss of the Trade Center was deeply personal to me.  My brother and I know the man (Karl Koch) whose family company erected the buildings; for decades, my father, an orthopedic surgeon, treated Karl and he was often in our home.  My brother and I had a wonderful visit with him in October 1968, looking, through the night, over all of New York from the top of one of the towers.  In that view, seemingly of the entire world, it was palpable that there was something about and among us, a sense of shared purpose and identity.  Today, that sense has been drowned by an endless and immeasurable lack of civility, a contrarian and senseless interaction, an absence of concern about our larger family and each other.

It is a mere ten years since the World Trade Center in Manhattan was consigned to its grave.  In that short period, Americans have given up their optimism, their belief that if we work together, good and some measure of prosperity will come.  We have ceded our privacy to dubious authority in favor of asserted needs for endless security, our calm and good will to fear and paranoia.  We have reaped the “neither” and nothing of Ben Franklin’s astute warning: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Now, after a commission’s investigation, countless hours of testimony and seemingly endless documentaries, we are privileged to learn that in this single event, America experienced the greatest string of failures, possibly complicity, in every part of government. This, particularly, applies to our President (George Bush), his Cabinet, the FBI, and the CIA.  Incompetence at the level of the tiniest failure that occurred should have led to firings, indictments, incarceration.  Nobody responsible for the massive failure is on trial, in jail, accountable.

But our nation was glad to wrap itself in the flag as the smoke continued to emanate from the hole in southern Manhattan. This marked a coming together, it seemed, in some ways, to celebrate the heroics and  unending courage of so many who dealt with the mess.  Yet, now, with a bit of distance in time, we ignore the claims for health benefits made by those same heroic and courageous members of our big family.  And we can do that easily because Americans are no longer anything like a family.  Nothing America is about is shared commonly –  any number of charlatans falsely claim the history of the country and claim to have the answers to every problem we face, individually and as a country.  Thrown overboard, the commonweal has sunk to the bottom in favor of the furious drumbeat of fear, pushed by desperate politicians currying favor with business and by the largely spineless and insipid media our Constitution so powerfully protects.

Not long after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans and many small towns — another event that demonstrated both the failure of our government and our character as Americans.  Seven years later, that disaster continues, but is largely forgotten except by those who continue to exist in its endless wake.

Yesterday, just before Labor Day, I watched footage from Newfane and Jamaica in Vermont, two small towns on Route 30, places I love and mentioned in my piece back in 2001. After 9/11, I was driving north from Marblehead, through a flag-waving America in New England, so desperately wanting to feel like a family, to share something common and comforting after a foreign force had ripped the American fabric to shreds.  Looking now at the roads and bridges lost to Tropical Storm Irene, days after it happened, I didn’t see any flags being waved, any response at all except the sadness and desperation that come when we reflect, in the face of real disaster, that we really are alone, that all is lost.

That has become a mean calculus in America, seized by some to  enhance the division of the country by wealth, race, religion, sex, politics, employment, and every other factor.  The degrees of separation between us might be the same as they were in 2001, but the distance between us has grown dramatically in the last decade.

Anticipate, hope, and work for better days.  Peace.

In this past week, marking a decade since the 9/11 disaster, I have watched several powerful documentaries about that horrific day, including “9/11: Heroes of the 88th Floor.” (This focuses on Port Authority workers Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz, who saved the lives of dozens of people trapped in the World Trade Center, only to die themselves in the collapse of the towers.) I find such tales of selflessness, and the pay-it-forward response to those rescued by such heroes, truly uplifting, despite the horrendous circumstances.

But my husband, a New Yorker, refuses to watch such shows. He thinks that they over-hype the event, exploiting tragedy, and manipulating sentiment. He finds reminders of 9/11 too upsetting. For two days, following 9/11, he heard the U.S. military jets continue their deafening flight between Boston and New York, circling the skies night and day, and zooming directly overhead his home in Marblehead, Mass., north of Boston. (Who needed such overkill, when all flights were grounded?) He bears his own connection to what happened that September day, which I share below.

To honor his response to 9/11, and those who died that day, their loved ones who remain, the survivors, and those who worked so generously in the clean-up and aftermath, I include my husband’s article, which originally appeared in the Marblehead Reporter. It was later reprinted in The New York Times. This year, the editor of the Reporter asked him to write a follow-up piece, which I will include next week. Stay tuned.

One degree of separation

Frank L. McElroy

Marblehead

On the 11th day after the 11th day of September 2001, I found myself in escape driving through the heart of New England from Marblehead to southwestern Vermont. It couldn’t have been soon enough or more necessary to try to leave behind, even for a moment, the horror of the destruction in southern Manhattan and in Virginia.

Ellen, Mad and I drove along the winding roads of New Hampshire and Vermont, the names of the small towns passing by – Wilton, Peterborough, Dublin, Dummerston, Newfane, Jamaica, Winhall and Peru.

These are tiny places far away from the island of Manhattan, where I was born and where Ellen produced and directed broadcast advertising. Yet people in these places are more closely connected to New York than one might imagine.

The connection was made obvious in the messages which lined our route. There were innumerable flags displayed, beginning in Nashua and continuing the entire route, the greatest density on the roadside likely being in Dublin, N.H. Sign boards related a supportive or conciliatory thought: “Stand Tall America,” “Pray for those who died on Sept. 11,” and “Proud To Be An American/Proud To Be From New York.”

America is a nation of small towns and New York City just happens to be the biggest of all. People in the little towns have always known this – now New Yorkers have learned the same.

I didn’t think I knew anyone who died in the conflagration. My father was safe, as was my niece who lives on Manhattan. A week after the bombing, I connected to the Cornell University Web site. That early list of alumni dead numbered three, and I knew one. Not well, just an occasional acquaintance in the class below me who was a remarkable lacrosse player.

When I saw that name, all courage drained from me. I couldn’t search for any more friends or classmates that day or for days after, because I knew there would be more. And there will be, for everyone.

When the final list is made, many of us will discover that a lover, friend or classmate has been lost. What we won’t directly observe is that this calamity is so awesome and extreme that the six and seven degrees of separation which supposedly connect us all have been pared to one, maybe two.

When we are able to read the final list of the dead, I fear it is safe to say that nearly every one of us will either know someone who died or someone who knew or was related to a victim. In this there is a parallel to the Second World War. Other parallels include extraordinary acts of bravery and heroism, during the attacks and afterwards and continuing.

Driving along New Hampshire 101 and Vermont 9 and 30, I found no relief from the fear and heartache of the earlier 11 days. Looking at the messages, remembering the images, I cried, Ellen cried, Mad, too. We have grown accustomed to our even existence, won and preserved by so many who have come before us and made immeasurable sacrifice.

That existence is forever changed, but I am calmed by the knowledge that the loss occasioned by the brutal attacks is one shared so directly, by so many.

While going through old files last week, I came across excerpts from a July 1943 issue of Transportation magazine, which dealt with the hiring of women. Full of outrageously sexist assumptions, it was written for male supervisors during the Second World War; since men were away fighting, the public transportation industry let women get a variety of jobs such as “conductorettes.” Once the men returned from the war, most of these women lost their positions. (In the next decade, some females got hired as bus drivers. I interviewed a few of them for the employee newsletter when I worked at BC Transit.)

Here is some of the content from “Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees”:

• “Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they’re less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn’t be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently”;
• “Older women [Does that mean fortyish?] who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy”;
• “General experience indicates that ‘husky’ girls — those who are just a little on the heavy side — are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters”[Gee, I didn't know that physique and temperament were so closely linked];
• “Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination . . . [this] reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job”;
• “Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves” [Yes, we're all so helpless without direction -- as if]
• “Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change”;
• “You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day”;
• “Women are often sensitive; they can’t shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman — it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency”;
• “Even though a girl’s husband or father may swear vociferously, she’ll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this” [obviously, they never listened too closely to some women]
• “Get enough size variety in operator’s uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can’t be stressed too much in keeping women happy.”

Regardless of laws or legislation, attitudes are often slow to change. But I’m pleased that today, we see far more women working in transportation, and most receive equal pay and respect and have equal rights to their male counterparts. Kudos to those who endured the early days and helped drive a new path forward, to make it easier for subsequent generations.

A current celebration of Vancouver, B.C.’s radical early-70s era presents the delightful fun and conviction (in both senses of the word) of an activist spirit. My husband Frank and I saw Bob Sarti’s play Yippies in Love at The Cultch last night, and I came away so enthused, I couldn’t sleep for too many hours later. Frank, a former New Yorker, commented: “This was way better than a lot of off-Broadway stuff  I’ve seen.)

This campy musical romp, “borrowed from a true story” of Vancouver history and Sarti’s own anarchic actions, recreates key public protests of 1970-71, using the ideals of a fictional Yippee household as its thematic lens. The love story begins unwittingly, when Andy (Steve Maddock), a U.S. surfer dude avoiding the Vietnam draft, decides to try and cross the border at Blaine, WA on May 9, 1970 — the same day that hundreds of peaceniks and Yippies from Vancouver invaded Blaine to protest the Vietnam war and claim the Peace Arch as their own. (Sarti still retains a small chunk of the Arch as a souvenir of his involvement that day.)

Caught up in this raucous group action, Andy meets plucky protester Julie (Danielle St. Pierre), a feminist single mom who cherishes her independence. She later invites him to join her household of Yippee enthusiasts (actors Bing Jensen, Emily Rowed and Rebecca Shoichet), who each play a series of characters, ranging from local Yippie motivator “The Wizard” to Vancouver Judge Les Bewley and the city’s former notorious hippy-baiting-and-hating mayor, Tom “Terrific” Campbell. All of the actors are excellent; my only criticism is that Bing Jensen’s singing voice didn’t project loudly enough to we folk in the last row.

One might expect a Question Authority play, which mocks The Man and slams capitalist power, to lay on the heavy rhetoric, but Sarti keeps the tone entertaining and educational, in irreverent Yippee style. His pithy lyrics are hilarious and the choreography routines, especially Dancin’ Doobies, are great. His use of news footage of police violence at events like the Gastown riot (on Aug. 9 1971) enhances the injustices rampant at the time, as do the excerpts from court transcripts that Sarti weaves into dialogue.

A retired Vancouver Sun reporter, Sarti projects above the stage numerous media headlines, including ones from The Sun, which aptly captured the public hysteria over peaceful protest. (As a cub reporter one summer at The Sun too many decades ago, I  benefited from Sarti’s information-sharing and enjoyed his reporting of non-Establishment events.) In the program for Yippies in Love, he thanks the Newspaper Guild, his union at the time, “for protecting my job security while I juggled two careers — while collar worker by day, white collar Yipppie by night.”

The play runs until July 3 and I urge anyone with an iota of activism in their blood to see it. Its message of grassroots action seems especially a propos while people riot and die for democracy in the Middle East, and Vancouver reels from the yahoo riots by drunken Canuck fans. (After today’s performance, Sarti is hosting a panel “Yippies and Yahoos: What’s the Difference?”)

Yippies in Love is dedicated to the memory of Sarti’s father Paolino, who fought fascism in Spain. It’s directed and produced by Jay Hamburger, artistic director of Theatre in the Raw, which bills itself as “giving exposure to voices seldom heard” since 1994. Jay appeared onstage to introduce the play, and read Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “The World is a Beautiful Place” to evoke the protest tone of the early 1970s. The third stanza reads:

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces.

Noted pianist and arranger Bill Sample, the play’s music director and composer, joined guitarist Robbie Steininger to energize the whole show with great live keyboard action, from ballads to Hendrix. All ’round, a wonderful experience.

As a guest blogger this week, Massachusetts lawyer Frank McElroy (my hubby) offers his view of Osama Bin Laden’s recent death (murder).

The summary killing of Osama Bin Laden, though it may have been necessary on the ground, is just a damned shame. Had he been captured and brought to answer in the sophisticated federal district courts of the United States (or the courts of many other countries), I, and the world, would have had the benefit of a public procedure, a trial, likely a sentence.

 Most importantly, we would have had an affirmation that even in the most difficult circumstances, civil society is based on law, not on personalities, heinous, kind or powerful. Having Osama crack big rocks with a hammer into smaller rocks, alone, until his last moment, is a punishment that I believe befits his crime.

Death at the end of a muzzle or a hangman’s knot is far too easy in my mind. Just think of the crimes he committed. It’s one thing for a dead body to twist in the wind at the end of a rope, another to twist in the wind and contemplate an unending misery borne of the horrors visited upon one’s victims.

I can’t imagine anything more interesting and likely instructive than Bin Laden, in chains in the U.S. District Court in Southern Manhattan, properly defended. I’d have traveled and stayed for that, maybe even have volunteered to defend him.  That’s what makes the results legitimate, credible, civilized.

I cannot begin to credit the claims of Republicans who, long ago, affirmatively minimized Bin Laden to a point of no influence or activity. Now they claim that their former leader, George W. Bush, is ultimately responsible for the great feat of eliminating this true scourge.

Barack Obama and the power of the United States of America killed Osama Bin Laden.  Nobody else.  That was not wrong, but it was a lot less than what the world needed.  The audacious nature of the raid ensured shooting and death, and that’s what happened.  Not a lot really, compared to what Bin Laden has wreaked upon the world.  It could have had a different result, although I can’t imagine any planning that would have assured Bin Laden’s capture rather than extinction.

When Saddam Hussein was being tried for his horrifying crimes, I tried mightily to find a way onto his defense team, led by Ramsey Clark.  I wasn’t in time – they hung him from a hook in a dark room with no windows.  That’s not justice.  Having him testify or not, but being present in a court of law with unbiased triers of fact and administrators of law, that’s justice. 

I don’t believe in the death penalty for lots of reasons, one of which is that it doesn’t carry any real weight.  It creates an artificial end, and history shows that the value of human life is thin at best. 

Editor’s note: As someone committed to a path of nonviolence, I feel conflicted over Bin Laden’s death. I am grateful that Obama chose not to use a missile to kill Bin Laden and hence, risk killing innocent civilians. Yet, when westerners joyfully gather publicly to celebrate his death, how is that different than those in the Middle East who cheered the fall of the Twin Towers? 

                                                                                                       – all photography by Jun Ying

My hubby, Frank, and I take a subtle stance outside the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver.

They put the fun into flappers, the glitz into gangsters, the va-va-voom into vaudeville. And ah yes, the gin into bathtubs.

The Bootleggers’ Ball, a 25th-anniversary fundraiser for the Vancouver Police Museum, did a great job Friday night of evoking the speakeasy era (not that I’m old enough to remember that), complete with cheeky, Depression-era burlesque and a raid by a  pretend vice squad in fedoras. 

Chris Mathieson, the museum’s executive director, and his creative crew offered a quirky line-up of offbeat entertainment, including The Vaudevillians, a troupe of singing and dancing seniors. I liked their deadpan emcee, in white top hat and tails, who told us that their oldest member was in his nineties and that two others recently married at 81. Good for them.

It was heartening to see women in their mid-seventies tap dance, do the can-can, and other routines, and I liked the group’s overall campy style. But some of their traditional jokes, many decades old, should have stayed back in their original era. As their announcer explained, these performers were used to doing shows at seniors’ centres, not at a bar full of youngish drinkers. Some of their material was too worn and outdated for this edgy, urban crowd. (I’ve never seen so many tattoos on women in a crowd anywhere, except at Burning Man.  Most female attendees came wearing a great range of flapper gear, truly providing oodles of atmosphere.)

A singing act from The Vaudevillians

My fave entertainment of the night was burlesque dancer Lola Frost. Woweee. Did she ever own that stage! Talk about sensual power and keeping an audience mesmerized. Female attendees, in particular, were giving loud hoots of appreciation for her show. She reminded me of a shit-stompin’ version of Catherine Zeta-Jones in Cabaret, except with far more erotic oomph and classic, gritty grinds.

Costume contest judges included Chris Mathieson (left) and Lola Frost (centre) and several others. The woman on the right won the competition. Frank and I were among the finalists.

As a feminist, I feel compelled to defend my viewing of these burlesque entertainers. All three acts — the other two were Darla DeVine and Lacey L’Amour — were performed in classic period style, with no total nudity or toplessness. They were campy, classy, and seemed a fun form of self-empowerment and creative self-expression. And the women in the crowd sure loved them. Were their shows exploitative? I didn’t think so.

The evening featured an excellent silent auction, with offerings from Grouse Mountain and Trialto Wines to Bard on the Beach and Granville Island Beer.

The finale act was the musical group The Creaking Planks (love the name), a bizarre klezmer concoction that had my friends and I scratching our heads. The lead singer’s version of The Police’s Roxanne,  sounded like it was sung by the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street, in a strange, gravelly growl. I’m a big fan of eccentric alternative bands, but this one, which bills itself as “the jugband of the damned”, was offkey and seemed out of whack.. My friends, eager to dance, left after the first few songs, which brought no one to the dance floor.

The Creaking Planks in action

Our middle-aged gang left not long after The Creaking Planks started to play, but we must have missed the good dancing tunes because people packed the dance floor by the second set. Oh well. Our timing stunk.

Overall, I loved seeing so many women sashaying around with fringe, boas, and stoles, getting into the flavor of the 20s to 40s. The early mix of recorded music, including Glenn Miller’s In the Mood,  set a stimulating mood of nostalgic rhythms.

It was a fun, theme event, emceed by Chris Coburn, the morning show host of The Peak 100.5 FM. I was glad to give money to the Museum through my ticket purchase; the evening raised almost $10,000. I appreciate their effort to save and revive intriguing slices of Vancouver history. I’ve attended one of their forensics evenings and want to join one of their Sins of the City walking tours.

My husband and I had a wonderful time. He rented his costume from BooLaLa in North Vancouver and I highly recommend them. They have a fantastic collection of every imaginable outfit and accessory. I could spend hours in their store. I put together my whole outfit, thanks to Value Village, Dressew, and the costume odds and ends I keep on hand. BooLaLa provided my stylish cigarette holder. (No, I don’t smoke — it was just a prop.)

Thanks for an evening of creative and historic zest. We need more of ‘em.

.             .                  .                .                       .              .                 .              .                 .               .

Good-bye to an old gal

An historic afternote: While all of this Vancouver vaudeville celebration was happening, the city was preparing to demolish its oldest vaudeville/movie house, The Pantages Theatre.

Unfortunately, this once-glorious venue at 144-150 East Hastings near Main suffered too much rot and damage to be revived affordably, after sitting vacant since 1994. With rich stage curtains of billowy red, a salmon-pink arch over its proscenium, and gilt decor, The Pantages, built in 1907-08, symbolized Vancouver’s early desire to create a downtown mecca of enviable construction and cultural hotspots. Alas, another slice of our city’s history is gone.

In 2010, I ended up editing three memoirs written by three different men in their eighties. They were all intriguing stories:

• On Love and War by Avivi I. Yavin, to be published in 2011 by MW Book Publishers in Garden Bay, BC. This semi-autobiographical story focuses on the moral and political dilemmas of a young soldier fighting in the elite Israeli underground forces in the late 1940s.

•  A Labour of Love: Fond memories of family, friends, and medical feats, to be self-published by Sid Effer. This retired pediatrician recounts delightful adventures from his youth in Cuba and Brazil to his global travels in adulthood. Many decades after he helped countless women through challenging and sometimes life-threatening childbirths, he remains friends with former patients and their children around the world.

• The Magical Playhouse: A conscious exploration of one’s dream reality, self-published by artist Bodhi Drope of Gibsons, BC. This nonfiction limited edition, accompanied by original four-colour digital art, covers the author’s spiritual journey and the powerful role that dreams and dream journalling played in his life. The book offers practical tips on how to use dreams to gain insights into your behaviour patterns and self-defeating beliefs.

I feel honoured that these men have entrusted me to shape the written accounts of their lives, fears, and private thoughts. As a university history grad and a former oral historian, I highly value the anecdotes that our elders carry, embodying the heritage of families, regions, cultures, and nations. That’s why I always encourage people to listen to the stories of the old folks in their lives, and tape them if possible, so that these tales will live on after their loved ones are gone.

This year, I continue to edit Sid Effer’s book, which reveals many parallels to the life and medical career of my father, who died in October at age eighty-five. Some of the similarities between both men are uncanny, especially considering that Sid lives in Guelph, Ont., like my dad did until he died. Editing Sid’s book is like sharing in the tale of my own father’s life, one that he never recorded.

I feel grateful for the opportunity to read Sid’s poignant words about heartache, love lost, and the joy he experienced at the birth of his children. His memoir is not just a string of medical achievements; it’s a tender account of fond times with family and friends. If my dad had written a similar memoir, I think that it would have weighed far more heavily on his medical career. A brief diary he kept in the mid-1960s, for instance, focuses primarily on his work, with only occasional references to his children and wife. Thanks, Sid, for presenting a balance between your work at the hospital and your life with your loved ones. 

(To find out more about my editing services, click here.)

I woke  up this morning with an intuitive prompt to write about the ecology flag, which I remember as a ‘tween in the 1970s. (That was when I wore white go-go boots and paisley, bell-bottomed pajamas and thought that I was cool.) The image intrigued me back then, even though I didn’t fully understand its significance.

The symbol first appeared in the Los Angeles Free Press (hurray for alternative media) on November 7, 1969, according to Wikipedia. Creator Ron Cobb, then a political cartoonist for the Free Press, put it in the public domain, bless his heart. One Internet source says that the Paramount Flag Company in San Francisco made the first ecology flag in August 1967, but I can’t verify that. If it’s true, perhaps Cobb adopted it for publication.

The yellow symbol is a combination of the letters “e” (for ecology, earth, evolution, empathy, and so on) and “o” (for organism, oneness, om, oracle, etc). Cobb was inspired by the circle or mandala as a universal symbol of timeless unity and harmony, by the yin-yang symbol, the concept of equinox, and the ellipse, “the transcendent unity that pervades all dualities.” (You can find out more details about the symbol and its meaning on Ron Cobb’s website.)

The ecology flag reportedly flew for the first time on Earth Day 1971 as a 4 x 6  green-and-white banner. Like her namesake Betsy Ross, who stitched the first U.S. flag, Betsy Boze (now Betsy Vogel) sewed the flag as a 16-year-old environmental and social activist in Louisiana. However, C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport denied her permission to fly the flag. Like any effective advocate, Boze refused this “no” and sought and received authorization from the Louisiana legislature and governor John McKeithen to display the flag in time for Earth Day.

Kudos to Boze for seeking out state power to support her cause. What a great tribute to one woman’s vision and determination, especially at an age when many contemporaries were more focused on acne angst and dating gossip.

I’m sad that the flag didn’t gain widespread use, and that Cobb limited his symbol to a facsimile of the U.S. flag. The concept of ecology spans far more than one nation’s borders. If he was truly thinking “oneness,” why not choose a more universal concept?

Even though many had ecological concerns in the 1960s and 1970s, it has taken 40 years or more for mainstream thinkers, politicians, and businesses to reflect environmental awareness. It’s sad to me that it took this long but hey, I”m grateful that at last, caring for the earth has become part of mass public consciousness.

                                                                                                                      — Heather Conn photos

Four kayaking companions and I, camped on Jedediah Island on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast,  joined the June 26 global event Hands Across the Sand  to protest offshore oil drilling. From our low-tide beach at Home Bay, we gathered around noon and stretched our hands across a shoreline to support clean energy choices. Like thousands of others around the world, we took this symbolic gesture to draw a line in the sand against the threat that oil drilling poses to coastal economies and the marine environment.

The Hands Across the Sand movement, founded by U.S. resident Dave Rauschkolb, began in Florida on Feb. 13 this year. Thousands of residents across the state, representing 60 towns and cities and more than 90 beaches, joined hands to protest attempts by the Florida and the U.S. governments to lift the ban on oil drilling near and off the state’s shores. The movement created partnerships with major environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Audubon.

The impetus for the June Hands Across the Sand event, which involved 860 locations, came from the environmental devastation of the ongoing British Petroleum oil spill. The mission of Hands Across the Sand is to draw attention to our global dependence on fossil fuels and adopt policies that encourage renewable energy sources.

 At our  idyllic location on Jedediah, a marine provincial park, tiny crabs scrabbled in the shallows while dozens of live sand dollars wafted in low waters. By the thousands, oysters and periwinkles covered the sea bed, surrounded by thick clusters of mussels and barnacles on nearby rocks. At low tide, three raccoons hunted for food in the mud while red-footed oyster catchers flew past,  screeching like banshees. Ever-present seagulls dropped shellfish onto the beach to break open their food.

With such natural richness hinged to the sea, it was disturbing to imagine how an oil spill in these waters could easily destroy this abundance. While hundreds of thousands of barrels of BP oil continue to pour into the Gulf of Mexico,  Chevron is drilling underwater off Newfoundland at almost twice the depth as BP’s rig that blew out.

 Meanwhile, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell wants to drill oil off the northwest coast of the province, by the Queen Charlotte Islands. Along with the federal government and Enbridge, he’s poised to create an oil pipeline from Alberta’s Tar Sands to Kitimat, B.C. This would result in oil tankers traversing the province every day through fragile ecosystems and challenging waters in central and northern B.C. (For more details, see my archived feature ”No oil tankers on the B.C. coast” posted Dec. 1, 2009 under “Environment.”)

On a more upbeat note, the abandoned wooden building in the background of this photo is the old homestead on Jedediah that once belonged to the Palmers. Mary and Al Palmer bought the island as a summer holiday destination in 1949, then became full-time residents in 1972. They both farmed the land and cherished the island’s 600 acres, which includes cedar, old-growth fir and arbutus, peaceful bays, and stunning views. Mary was determined to prevent any  development. (Palmer describes life on the island, complete with historic family photos, in her book Jedediah Days, a B.C. bestseller published by Harbour Publishing.)

The Palmers worked hard to preserve the island, helped by a province-wide fundraising campaign, started by the late Dan Culver’s Follow Your Dream Foundation. Many groups rallied to raise money to create a park, including Friends of Jedediah, the Marine Parks Forever Society, and the Nature Trust of B.C. Countless individuals and organizations provided financial support, which included $1.1 million from Culver’s estate. The B.C. government donated millions more and the Palmers agreed to sell the island for $4.2 million, far less than its market value. Thanks to their generosity and the dedication of so many donors and volunteer fundraisers, Jedediah Island became a provincial park in 1995.

Now thousands of people can enjoy this unsullied spot every year. A flock of wild sheep still roams the island and several dozen mountain goats, said to be descendants of those left by Spanish explorers, can peer down at you from rocky bluffs. The island has four registered archaeological sites, including a First Nations fish weir.

 I took the photo above from Gibraltar, a rocky viewpoint towards the north-central part of the island. A cairn of stones marks the spot with a heavy plastic tube that contains scribbled notes from hikers over the years. Of course, I added a message from our group. Towards the centre of the island, we wandered through forests pastoral and open, without tangles of thick underbrush. We saw the grave of the Palmers’ beloved horse Will, which bears visitors’ strange offerings and detritus from the sea, from a toy car and flattened soccer ball to a plastic marine float. Elsewhere, the island’s open meadows, pungent with mint-like scent, are still home to neglected fruit trees.

 Jedediah has frequent patches of startling green moss and clusters of yellow wild flowers. It was wonderful to explore this island and see only a handful of people over several days. Thanks to the Palmers’ vision and commitment to conservation, this quiet wilderness sanctuary will never see development . . .and hopefully, oil will never tarnish its shores.

CodePink members in San Francisco in April 2008

Did you know that the original Mother’s Day was inextricably linked with a message of peace?

Julia Ward Howe, a U.S. poet, feminist, and abolishonist, created the first Mother’s Day Proclamation in the United States in 1870. She wrote this rousing piece in reaction to the  U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. She believed that women, particularly as spouses of soldiers and those who bore sons who went to war,  held a responsibility to take a political stand for peace, not war.

                   Julia Ward Howe

Here is what Howe declared in her proclamation:

 Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Subtle this proclamation ain’t, nor religiously or spiritually inclusive. But it’s a passionate voice nevertheless, and a remarkable one for its period. (Ironically, Howe wrote the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which became a popular anthem sung by the Union side (the north) during the U.S. Civil War.)

                                                                                                                       — Heather Conn photos

Sadly, Howe’s words still bear just as much relevance today, since humanity seems to have learned no lessons about the ravages of war.  Modern sons and daughters are dying in Iraq,  Afghanistan, Pakistan, Darfur.  .  .

In honor of this year’s Mother’s Day, I invite all women, mothers or not, and men to support any action or event that promotes peace. Start with yourself and share your message of peace with your loved ones and neighbors, sons, and daughters. We all need this message every day. I support the group CodePink Women for Peace and the practices outlined in the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. Remember: There’s a difference between promoting peace and protesting against war, but don’t let language nuances stop your activism.