Cueball cross Canada tour

Thanks for the warning. It should give them time to nail some boards over windows, stack some sand bags etc. Yust kiddin' he he

You going through Edmonton?

You may know about Turning the Tide bookstore in Saskatoon. A good place to drop in if you come through.

Doing a fundraising tour for Bucky Haight?  And why the fuck is this in National News?  Is Cueball that well known? 

Ontario to the West consitutes "cross Canada tour"?

Hmph.

and then its winter again

One summer I went up the Alaska Highway to visit some friends who had moved to the Yukon. The rain and mud on the way was miserable [dirt road back then], but the sun was out for a day before I got to my friends.

When I got there was the first time I had sat still. And the mosquitos just blew my mind.

"Oh yeah, we get most of our annual precipitation in the summer."

Nine months of winter, and then this as your reward?!

Hey KenS and Boom Boom, please don't get part time jobs working for the tourism industry. I'm getting itchy, and cold, just reading your posts.

I'm going west too, in August. And maybe to Montreal at some point. But I won't drift Cueball's thread anymore.

Stopped off in Sudbury, on the way to Winnipeg where we are now. Got some divergent views on the strike. Mostly from people not directly involved. Most people seemed generally suportive of the strikers. Most interestingly I ran into a former management guy for Vale. He told me that Vale dumped about half the management staff when they purchased Inco.

Got some other informed commentary from a local activist who has been in touch with the situation, and along with the others I talked to there seemed to be some criticism of how the strike was intitiated and handled. Perhaps the union was not prepared for the knock down drag out struggle they are having with Vale.

I was told that despite Scab labour, the mine is not functioning at 100% capacity and that the rumour is a bad chemical process ended up with 50,000 tons of Nickel going to waste at some point.

On the whole people were supportive, with many "Sudbury Supports our Working Families" signs in many businesses. Seems like most everyone is on-side with the Steelworkers on this one.

In Winnipeg today and for tomorrow, heading to Saskatoon later monday. Be there Tuesday.

Cheers everyone, will try to drop by and meet those who want to as we go.

Infamous suits you better.

You've already topped most the news pieces on rabble.  Send me your address and I've donate $50 to you instead.

Yeah. Townhouse. Berni Desjardin's joint. A must see landmark. Went to the Smiling Budha too.

We went that way last summer, this is a continuation of the that tour, and we need to pick up on some missed dates out west. The promoters were really unhappy that we had to skip some dates, what with the baby being born and so on.

Yeah, that was fun; sitting around sipping beer, talking about the class struggle, hockey, lightning, breast feeding, Palestine and John Entwistle...

Regarding some of our conversation...

"Amal Saad-Ghorayeb is an expert on Hezbollah and her book on the Lebanese party has been widely praised and cited. She taught political science at Lebanese American University in Beirut. Currently, she is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Middle East Center in Beirut. "

I''ll be filling in for another host tomorrow, and will be airing a talk by Jack Shaheen, author of Reel Bad Arabs at 8:30 CST.

 http://www.cfcr.ca/

Hey! That would be cool. I'll be there for a while so we will get together for sure.

I'll be waiting!

I will be over on the mainland next week. Maybe a Cueball inspired babble get-together? or a few ales.

Ok, so anyone want to go out for a drink, at some place, at some time, this week somewhere here in Vancouver?

We will likely have our baby.

yea, i'm in.

Is there an eastern swing being planned?

Are you channeling Gary Gilmore, Catchfire?

Of course CMOT. I would love too.

Hey. That sounds great. Whereever. I can get down to Granville Island very easily, and I am basically free except for Friday night, so why not just PM me a time and a place and we can meet there, tomorrow afternoon. I don't know about activist war stories. I am actually pretty boring, in real life.

Til the begining of August.

CMOT, N.Beltov, and Cue, along with Cue Jr. and Mrs. Cue met today at Granville Island. Woo hoo

I swear man, next time I'll do better.:( 

There was so much that didn't get covered and my charm just seemed to evaporate.  You weren't too offended right?

We had a great time. There is only so much that can be covered in so much time. I wish we hadn`t been late

Off to jericho beach. will not be able to make the demo. am still here on the mainland until monday pm, in case you/cue would like to down a few ales, something we were unable to do, eg, in burnaby there is a great blues place called the marine pub.

It was good. For Vancouver, considering that it was about Toronto, not bad at all. About 200 enthusiastic people. Some people who were identified as the Black Block showed up all in Pink, but not much happened there. Certainly no broken windows. They started a chant: "No Justice! No Peace! Fuck the Police". I heard they had some personal confrontations with some other protestors but this was so much verbal argument, so nothing to serious.

Other than that it was a nice sunny day and the police were perfectly civil and did their job of directing traffic around the march and observing casually from a distance. I think (maybe) they followed the Pink Block contingent as it left the rally, but I didn't see anyone start anything up.

Oeerall good. It was very good to hear from three witnessess to the event, including a young lady who was shot twice by rubber bullets. Don Davies from the NDP said something pretty funny about Dalton McGuinty. Of course one wants there to be a huge crowd but the main thing was that it happened and people are organizing.

We need to keep the upward pressure on the establishment.

That is the problem with organizing in Vancouver, there is always Jericho Beach.

How about tomorrow night? I have no idea where this "Marin Club" is, but I think maybe even I have heard of it. Burnaby, should be able to make that in some form or another.

That sounds cool. But maybe its a bit far out for me for a late night, since we have the logistics of a baby and all. I might be able to swing a baby sitter for 4 hours or so, but the whole night is a bit of a problem. There is a cool place nearer to me that would probably be better, come to think of it.

No music but a good crowd. Lets talk tomorrow.

I'll call between 6 and 7. tonight.

Thank you. It was very nice to meet you as well. We have been having a good time meeting all these different Babblers.

Careful with that nickname form.  Nobody wants to read the last two letters the wrong way.

Any plans for the long weekend?

... three...

Thanks all! It's been swell meeting all these Babblers. Indeed, this trip has really filled in a lot of blanks, and taught me what a diverse and interesting community we all have here.

I'd like to post more and fill everyone in on the great learning experience this has been finding out some of the background on the politics and activism behind the personalities. Amazing, especially the local stories, about politics all over western Canada. However, we are back on the road tomorrow, and booting back to Toronto to take care of business, but perhaps I can add more detail when I have more time.

Thanks again, all!

Cheers!