How many times do you think you deserve to be kneed in the back while you’re already subdued by police on the sidewalk, face-down? Vancouver Police gratuitous brutality from May 1, 2014. Once? Twice? Does it make any difference if you’re a minor? Or if you were documenting police actions
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Melissa Fong: Encounters with Vision Vancouver members: On democracy and stymied progressive politics
For every piece of hate mail I get ten more messages that are just too positive or too funny to ignore. I met up with this particular person who started […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Vancouver Reboots Tonight!
Occupy Vancouver reboots tonight to join the worldwide #WaveOfAction that began on April 4 and runs [at least] to July 4, 2014. We will meet in Grandview Park on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. 615pm is the start time, though honestly, I’ll be there a bit
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Vancouver Reboots Tomorrow: A Primer
Some thoughts as we countdown to the reboot of Occupy Vancouver at 615pm tomorrow night at Grandview Park. Come join us with your ideas: Mine are all about seeking equality and justice: economically, socially, politically and environmentally. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is an inspiring classic. Some agree with it,
Continue readingMelissa Fong: #VanCulturalSpaces @VisionVancouver event summary: “Protecting Vancouver’s Cultural Spaces: How we can preserve culture in a growing city”
I Live Tweeted the Vision Vancouver-sponsored event “Protecting Vancouver’s Cultural Spaces: How we can preserve culture in a growing city”- You can search the hashtag #VanCulturalSpaces for related tweets on the event. It […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: When Blog Comment Spam Goes Bad
You know you want it! Someone really crossed the line from whoops, to nuclear codes. One of the15,000 weekly blog spam comments that never make it to the human eyes stage on this website, accidentally made it through. Sadly, it is a compendium of all the kinds of faux-sincere blog
Continue readingMelissa Fong: A whole world of concern for Frances Bula’s readership.
The reactions to Frances Bula’s posting on the COPE job posting are excessively upsetting. My response to some of the comments: 1) “Racialization” is the process of imbuing race, ascribing […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: @VisionVancouver @MayorGregor Manifesto #YVR #Homelessness
Vision Vancouver Manifesto? 1 Promise to end homelessness 2 Pass inadequate #DTESLAP 3 Ballem report worst AFTER ppl pleaded to stop gentrification 4 Gregor blames Prov — Melissa Fong (@internationalmf) […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: What are we going to do about Vancouver’s Chinatown?
What are we going to do about Vancouver’s Chinatown? Remembering Chinatown’s soul I spent many days and weekends in Vancouver’s Chinatown helping my dad at his office. He worked in […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Electronic music, raves & Toronto’s moral panic on drugs
…they do the work because they want to re-produce the type of city they want to live- the type of city that is worth living in. … …not all entertainment is built the same- some of these very worth while performers and promotors can’t jump through your hoops, or will
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Once upon a time, there was a Vancouver Mayor who promised he’d end homelessness…
Once upon a time… There was a handsome young prince named Gregor Angus Bethune Robertson. He was a much envied prince. He represented his fiefdom, Vancouver-Fairview, for years before he, […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Housing in Vancouver #VancouverManifesto
I’m going to start a series called “Vancouver Manifesto”. They are going to be my general beliefs about Vancouver city-building. They might be in the form of starting a conversation, answering a question or just a quirky statement from an urbanist. The best housing in #YVR is in S. False
Continue readingMelissa Fong: #Urbanarium2014: How to build a truly “Engaged City”?
“Engaged City” was unanimously passed yesterday, and it seems like the pundits are all out criticizing the process. … Democratization of the planning process is a fundamental problem with bureaucratic institutions; government is fundamentally hierarchical. Do we target Vision Vancouver? NPA? Nah*- There is a problem with the plumbing and
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Arundhati Roy: A voice for women of colour; opportunity stifled?
“Incredibly disappointed with the organizers of Arundhati Roy’s talk…. did not allow Arundhati to bring out any of her work or political analysis in any meaningful way. The guy talked about typical White Vancouver nonsense …”- Jahanzeb Hussain making critical points on what it means to exercise privilege and teaching
Continue readingMelissa Fong: DTES Local Area Plan- Speaker #5, on Amendments
We need to respect the experiential knowledge of DTES residents that understand how the plan violates their security. Not fundamentally opposed to Vision- but you have to realize reality. If you insist on the ideology of “social mix” you also have to set up the circumstances for dignity of all
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Downtown Eastside Local Area Plan- Summary
Like last time, I did some LiveTweeting of the evening- My strategy is to summarize the main point of all the voices; add in my OWN commentary (I can be […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Honing In On Friday’s #WaveOfAction
We need to think about two things for this Friday’s Occupy Movement reboot in the Worldwide #WaveOfAction: When thinking about pursuing social, political and economic equality, what is the list of things we need to change, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally? Who do we need to build coalitions with to
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Vancouver developers- Gillespie, DTES & other thoughts on financial reform, Vision Vancouver
…. They WILL earn a profit because it is Vancouver. Gillespie knows that encroaching on DTES is best odds at this point in Vancouver’s real estate. Largest “rent-gap”/ current to potential price in the city- and he’s always known that so he’s more bold, perhaps than others, to make that
Continue readingMelissa Fong: #25KLunch WINNERS Announced! Who said there’s no free lunch?
Other than the fact that I should win the best prize for dragging out a meme that would have otherwise had the life-span of a fruit fly… I’ve got some […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: PHS Social enterprises are ESSENTIAL to poverty elimination in DTES
… social enterprises by PHS provide job/skills/alternative livelihoods to those in a tangle with poverty/addiction/unrealized-skills. These social economy opportunities can’t be taken away from people who face job discrimination in almost any other employment situation. ….
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