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Digital Archiving Completed by the Ethnography Lab, A University of Toronto Anthropology Initiative<br />
and Produced in Collaboration with David Perlman/Wholenote Media Inc between July-December 2015.<br />
The Kensington <strong>Mar</strong>ket Drum, <strong>Mar</strong>ch <strong>1991</strong><br />
"'<br />
•••••••••••••••••••••••••<br />
Letters to DRUM<br />
Letters<br />
continued from Letters, page 6<br />
No editorial policy can<br />
hope to foresee the complex<br />
questions you'll be forced to<br />
face with each issue, with<br />
·each article. We understand<br />
the difficulties that you are<br />
facing and are pleased to<br />
know that you take these<br />
questions very seriously. But<br />
in the future we feel very<br />
strongly that the Drum needs<br />
to both develop a policy of<br />
either not printing material<br />
that promotes racism, classism,<br />
sexism and homophobia,<br />
or if the Drum chooses<br />
:1 to run it, there must be clear<br />
editorial opinions attached<br />
so that the Drum be account<br />
'1 able for what it thinks are<br />
1 the merits of such material to<br />
the <strong>Mar</strong>ket<br />
•I<br />
Blackbird Design Collec_tive<br />
Reform Party's<br />
Triple E<br />
To the editor:<br />
The Reform Party is a Western-based<br />
political party. It is a<br />
party of common-sense and innovation,<br />
taking aim at the tired<br />
practices of the political hacks<br />
in power now.<br />
The Reform Party offers an<br />
alternative to the nausea<br />
created by the Big Three . A<br />
sampling of our policies follows:<br />
-greater accountability of<br />
MPs through recall procedures,<br />
basically the firing of incompetent<br />
MPs by their constituents;<br />
and MPs would have to swear<br />
11 allegiance to the Queen and<br />
their constituents; ~<br />
-a "triple E" Senate,<br />
meaning an elected Senate, an<br />
.e..qual Senate through equal<br />
provincial territorial<br />
representation so that no one<br />
province could dominate<br />
·another; and an effective Senate<br />
that would work to safeguard<br />
regional iqterests, things that<br />
you and I care deeply about;<br />
-voters' initiatives, where if<br />
a percentage of eligible voters<br />
sign a petition to the Chief -<br />
,1 Elecloral Officer, that issue<br />
would be part of the ballot in<br />
the next federal election.<br />
These are just some of the<br />
changes that the Reform Party<br />
proposes. Currently, .the<br />
Reform Party is examining the<br />
possibility of expansion east into<br />
Ontario and out to the<br />
<strong>Mar</strong>itimes. They will vote on<br />
whether to become a truly<br />
nationa.:,tparty in Saskatchewan<br />
inAprill991. We,intheOntario<br />
Reform movement, are working<br />
towards this unique<br />
opportunity by sharing the<br />
Reform word with aU concerned<br />
citizens.<br />
I hope that interested readers<br />
of yournewspaper will write<br />
me for more information on<br />
other Reform positions and<br />
issues. I would be glad to tell<br />
them about it. My address is<br />
273 Highfield Road, Toronto<br />
ONTM4L2V4.<br />
Yours sincerely,<br />
Jeff Young<br />
TALKING DRUM<br />
may be posted or hand delivered to Kensington <strong>Mar</strong>ket<br />
Drum, Letters. 24 Bellevue Av.e, Toronto Ontaro MST 2N4.<br />
Or you can fax your letters (but you have to phone ahead to<br />
599-DRUM). Letters will be published in full where space permits.<br />
Letters edited for length will be noted.<br />
Bush's Oil Holdings<br />
Drum:<br />
In solidarity with your exposure<br />
of the CBC newscaster<br />
Nash in February's Drum, I<br />
have slapped together some<br />
information I recently learned<br />
from here and there:<br />
-5,000 Egyptian women have<br />
been sent to the Gulf to<br />
"service" male American<br />
soldiers,<br />
- the Israeli cabinet drew up<br />
plans in December to conduct<br />
mass deportation, or "transfer,<br />
of as many as 200,000<br />
Plaestinians to Jordan,<br />
- the Pentagon claims 15<br />
percent, or 85,000, of Iraqi<br />
soldiers are dead or wounded;<br />
refugees say 150,000 to 400,000<br />
civilians are dead or wounded,<br />
- Iraq made about half a<br />
dozen peace offers before the<br />
war, the first on Aug. 12, the<br />
last on Jan. 14 when Perez de<br />
Cuellar met with Saddam<br />
Bussein; after that one, de<br />
Cuellar wrongly told the world<br />
Iraq was stubborn on the issue<br />
of withdrawal (The Nation,<br />
<strong>Mar</strong>ch4),<br />
- Kuwaiti internal security<br />
chief General Fahd Ahmed Al<br />
Fahd and minister of interior<br />
Salein Sabah Al-Salem Al<br />
Sabah met with CIA director<br />
William Webster at CIA HQ in<br />
Langley, Virginia, on Nov. 14,<br />
1989 to plan a campaign of economic<br />
warfare against Iraq,<br />
- on July 26, 1990, one week<br />
before the invasion of Kuwait,<br />
the U.S. State Dept. kiJ)ed a<br />
Voice of America .editorial<br />
criticizing Iraq for massing<br />
thousands of troops on the<br />
Kuwaiti border,<br />
- amount Socal Oil (now<br />
Chevron Corp.) paid for tights<br />
to all of Saudi oil in 1933:50,000<br />
pounds (with an extra 5,000<br />
pounds a month in rent),<br />
- George Bush Jr. has rights<br />
to all offshore oil off Bahrain,<br />
- in January, the Turkish<br />
army, driven by fears of a<br />
Kurdish insurrection in Iraq<br />
sparking the. same among<br />
Turkey's 9 million Kurds, razed<br />
141 Kurdish villages, displacing<br />
3,000 Kurds with bombing<br />
attacks; U.S. bombers have<br />
bombed Iraqi Kurdish villages<br />
(In These Times, Feb 13-19),<br />
- number of Yemenis expelled<br />
from Saudi Arabia over<br />
their country's opposition to<br />
the war: 500,000; hundreds have<br />
been tortured, according to<br />
Amnesty,<br />
- number of human-rights<br />
violations since October on<br />
Kahnawake, according to chief<br />
Joe Norton: 200 to 400 (no UN<br />
resolutions; no oil).<br />
Fuck, this war drives me<br />
totally nuts.<br />
Alex Roslin,<br />
Troops Out Coalition,<br />
McGill University,<br />
Montreal<br />
<strong>Mar</strong>ks Takes Schwam to Task<br />
Dear Editor:<br />
I was amused to read Allan<br />
Schwam's gratuitous attack on<br />
me in your Letters section<br />
recently. Schwam attacks me<br />
as having been, "bitterly<br />
opposed to the principles of<br />
citizen participation in the<br />
democratic process." Schwam's<br />
real complaint about Liz Amer<br />
is that she refuses to be pressured<br />
or manipulated by<br />
Schwam's rent-a-crowds.<br />
Schwam's attempts to hijack<br />
the democratic process span<br />
many years, and the pathetic<br />
modus operandi is always tbe<br />
same: get a few of your friends<br />
over for a beer, fax out a press<br />
release saying a new group of<br />
concerned citizens has spontaneously<br />
blossomed, then bully<br />
and threaten politicians who<br />
refuse to say "Yes, Sir !"<br />
Schwam has evidently<br />
improved his little game somewhat,<br />
by having City Council<br />
offer the "task force" a veneer<br />
of respectability. Schwam is<br />
blind to the contradiction that<br />
"task force" is defined as, "a<br />
group of people formed TEM<br />
PORARILY to solve a PAR<br />
TICULAR problem" while<br />
KMA TF, having (by its own<br />
accounts) conquered most of<br />
the known world, is now<br />
desperately searching out some<br />
brave new raison d'etre to<br />
rationalise its continued<br />
existence.<br />
The rest of us work a little<br />
more openly and honestly,<br />
forming genuinely non-partisan<br />
citizens' groups-as I did while<br />
Schwam was still in diapers, and<br />
. municipal politics were still<br />
untainted by party politicians<br />
and ideologues like Schwam.<br />
Cordially yours,<br />
June <strong>Mar</strong>ks.<br />
(former Controller City of<br />
Toronto)<br />
by Kate Burt McNeil<br />
Cucumber Wee~s, Again<br />
I.<br />
The cucumber weeds will bloom<br />
again since their demise last year<br />
there's been a war in the Gulf<br />
and a war in the market. The<br />
war in the <strong>Mar</strong>ket most<br />
immediately disturbs me.<br />
However, the cucumber weeds<br />
will bloom again.<br />
A left wing friend said<br />
"Lithuania was asking for<br />
trouble." Curiously, I cried.<br />
Visions of torn bodies and<br />
desperate people invade my<br />
consciousness. The first pictures,<br />
unedited (a warning they<br />
may be disturbing brought my<br />
glasses to my eyes) shows the<br />
invasion of Lithuania by the<br />
soviets. Could my friend be<br />
right? Does that make killing<br />
an acceptable means to a better<br />
end? He accuses me of not responding<br />
as passionately to<br />
pictures of the slaughters that<br />
have occured recently in the<br />
middle east and other "hot<br />
spots". He suggests the<br />
American propaganda machine<br />
has controlled the media so that<br />
my response is assured.<br />
II.<br />
Landlord/tenant matters are at<br />
a standstill. Stalemate.<br />
Loggerheads. The basement has<br />
been pronounced officially uninhabitable.<br />
Its "not impervious<br />
to water," and lacks<br />
sufficient height. The furnace is<br />
supposed to be fully enclosed.<br />
It's not. The three "homeless"<br />
people who occasionally slept<br />
down there have found other<br />
places to stay. Still I wait to hear<br />
the knock of the basement police<br />
coming to check that no<br />
one is stupid enough to live<br />
down there.<br />
When I first saw the room in<br />
the back two years ago Feb. 20,<br />
I envisioned the raft bed, a<br />
design by Curved Space, a<br />
furniture store I once worked<br />
in. The very top of the line was<br />
a 10X10 8 inch high density<br />
foam covered in sturdy<br />
stainproof material and<br />
surrounded on all sides by a<br />
huge bolster. Shelves to the<br />
ceiling with TV set and VCRan<br />
entertainment centre.<br />
Here's the rub. Judge<br />
Hawkins heard testimony from<br />
us all, and decided Noam was<br />
the tenant and the landlord's<br />
youngest daughter was not. So<br />
if the landlord choseto charge<br />
her daughter nothing for the<br />
use of the front room, it simply<br />
meant that Noam and I would<br />
splitthe rent ofthe whole house.<br />
Now the youngest daughter is<br />
long gone, and they can't rent<br />
the front room, except for<br />
nothing.<br />
III.<br />
1985, and it was spring thaw.<br />
The river had spilled over into<br />
the plumbing and we were<br />
cautioned nottodrink the water<br />
out of the tap. "There's always<br />
a bottle in the fridge." The day<br />
was warm and long. At last,<br />
ready to sleep for a few hours<br />
before the journey back to<br />
Toronto. An irresistible thirst<br />
drove me to the kitchen. The<br />
bottle that was "always there"<br />
was not! What the heck-how<br />
bad could it be? I poured and<br />
quickly downed a long cold<br />
glass of murky green water.<br />
Hours later I lay in St. Michaels<br />
Hospital emergency with<br />
"Poisoned in Sudbury" written ·<br />
next to my name on the board.<br />
<strong>1991</strong>, and my second visit to<br />
Sudbury was prompted when a<br />
friend suggested a few days<br />
away from the <strong>Mar</strong>ket's maelstrom<br />
would do me good. The<br />
blizzard hit at the same time<br />
the cold I'd evaded for weeks<br />
invaded my head. Boarded the<br />
bus at Dundas station. It rolled<br />
out of the bay at 1:05 am<br />
January 15 (The deadline).<br />
From the driver "just bear with<br />
me folks this bus doesn't have a<br />
generator, we'll have to detour<br />
for another bus"!! Didn't seem<br />
out of line considering the way<br />
everything seemed to be<br />
going ....<br />
IV.<br />
My 21 year old son Charlie<br />
joined the American Airforce<br />
before the wall fell and all things<br />
changed. He was in it for<br />
education and great deals at<br />
the PX's of the world. I watched<br />
with more interest than usual<br />
from Mid America somewhere<br />
Charles assured me that his job<br />
would keep him out of the fray .<br />
Nevertheless I watched all the<br />
coverage I could. The remote<br />
clickclicked frantically in my<br />
attempts to compare the<br />
coverage on all main stations.<br />
All I could think of was boy did<br />
they ever work on this one.<br />
They left no media stone<br />
unturned. Michelle<br />
Landsberg'scolumn in The Star<br />
says it for me, go out of your<br />
way to find it.<br />
v.<br />
The rooms upstairs are eerily<br />
empty. Because of disturbing<br />
effects of the attempted lockout<br />
Noam was not going to be allowed<br />
to return to Ryerson. He<br />
wrote a successful begging<br />
letter. Still it wa:s clear that the<br />
distractions in the <strong>Mar</strong>ket, the<br />
inexorable push of the landlord<br />
to get us out, took their toll.<br />
Noam continues his brilliant<br />
film career in BC. Our loss.<br />
I have decided that I will not<br />
live another winter in these<br />
unnacceptablecqnditions. I will<br />
use the cucumber weeds and<br />
the flowers and the bees to help<br />
me decide what my next move<br />
will be. My fear is- will anyone<br />
in the <strong>Mar</strong>ket want to rent to<br />
me?<br />
7