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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

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