TO events: ride, Bali, harm reduction, film, despair, tasers, right-to-know

[angela bischoff]

Join the next Critical Mass Ride - "Night of Mayhem"
Friday, January 25 at 6'ish pm
Meet at Spadina and Bloor Parkette

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STATE OF THE CLIMATE: REPORT BACK FROM BALI

The <http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php>Bali Road Map was
signed, but what will the new deal really mean? Hear eyewitness reports
and analysis from <http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php>Bali
climate change conference participants and join in a discussion on
building the climate crisis movement at:

<http://www.torontoclimatecampaign.org/>STATE OF THE CLIMATE: WHAT
HAPPENED IN BALI?
Saturday, January 26 at 2 PM
Steel Hall, 25 Cecil St., Toronto
(S. of College, E. of Spadina)

Eyewitness Reports From:

MAY JEONG
Climate Journalist, Activist
Canadian Youth Delegation to Bali

CAROLYN EGAN
President, Steelworkers Toronto Area Council
United Steelworkers (USW) Delegation to Bali

BRIAN CHAMP
Activist, <http://www.torontoclimatecampaign.org/>Toronto Climate Campaign
Report on <http://www.torontoclimatecampaign.org/day_of_action.html>D8:
Global Day of Action

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ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!  CULTURES OF RESISTANCE

DATE: Saturday, January 26, 2008, 7 p.m.
PLACE: Ryerson Student Campus Centre, 55 Gould Street
INFO: www.ryerson.ca/tsf, michelle.langlois at ryerson.ca or tsf at ryerson.ca

COST: Free!

An evening of music, art, film and poetry inspired by diverse struggles
for justice in our city and our world, as part of the World Social Forum
Global Day of Action.  Including a special tribute to the reproductive
choice movement on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the
Morgentaler Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in Canada.

Featuring:

Dionne Brand, LAL, Lee Maracle (MC), Marcelo Puente & Heather Chetwind,
Choice Monologues, Ulla Laidlaw, PATAC (Philippine Theatre Group),
Global Aware Photo Exhibit, Video on World Social Forum by Velcrow
Ripper, and many other artists and performers!

Sponsors:

Toronto Social Forum, ACORN, Canadians for Choice, Canadian Campaign for
Free Burma, Canadian Auto Workers, CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social
Justice and Democracy, Centre for Social Justice, CERLAC, Chinese
Canadian National Council (Toronto Chapter), Citizen's Income Toronto,
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Global Aware, Labour Education
Centre, LIFT, Maggie’s Toronto Prostitutes Community Project, MSF
(Doctors Without Borders), No One Is Illegal - Toronto, Ontario
Coalition for Abortion Clinics, Planned Parenthood Toronto, rabble.ca,
Ryerson Students' Union, Toronto Community Housing Corporation, Toronto
Forum on Cuba, Toronto International Socialists, Toronto Women's
Bookstore, United Steelworkers, War Resisters Support Campaign

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Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force
January Speakers Series
Canada's Federal Anti-Drug "Strategy"

Guest Speaker: EUGENE OSCAPELLA, B.A., LL.B., LL.M.

Wednesday, January 30th 2008, 1:30 pm.

410 Sherbourne Street - 3rd floor
(Sherbourne between Wellesley & Carleton)
Eugene Oscapella is a Barrister and Solicitor in Ottawa who earned his
Master of Laws degree from the London School of Economics and Political
Science in 1979 and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1980. He has served
as a commission counsel with the McDonald Commission of Inquiry into the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police and as Director of Legislation and Law
Reform for the Canadian Bar Association. Since 1985, Eugene has been an
independent adviser on Canadian legislative and social policy issues. He
has written and lectured extensively in Canada and abroad on privacy and
drug policy issues; is a former chair of the drug-policy group of the Law
Reform Commission of Canada; and a founding member of the Canadian
Foundation for Drug Policy. Eugene sat for several years on the policy
committee of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. He teaches drug
policy in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa.

If you work with any vulnerable/marginalized population where drug use is
a concern, or if you are concerned about the Americanization of Canada’s
approach to drugs, please join us for this FREE event.

Everyone is welcome! No registration required.

For further information torontoharmreduction at yahoo.ca or 647.222.4420

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A Little Bit of so Much Truth (Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad)

Film followed by Q& A with Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jill Freidberg

Thursday, January 31

7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

The Koffler Institute, Room 108

569 Spadina Rd. (the east side ofSpadina between College and Harbord,
north of Russell)

When the people of Oaxaca decided they'd had enough of badgovernment, they
didn't take their story to the media...they TOOK the media.

In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising
exploded inthe southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. It started off as a
teachers’ strikebut it led to a lot more. And what made history was the
people’s use of themedia.

A 90-minute documentary, “A Little Bit of So Much Truth” captures
theunprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of
schoolteachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers,
farmers, andstudents took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their
own hands, usingthem to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their
grassroots struggle forsocial, cultural, and economic justice.

Presented by Educatorsfor Peace and Justice (lemberg9598 at rogers.com)

Supported by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation(OSSTF)

For more information about the film, go to:
http://www.corrugate.org/corrugate/corrugated_films

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Private Despair to Public Action!

What will it take for this culture to stop killing the planet? What would
happen if we listened to such feelings of despair? What is that different
strategy?

Derrick Jensen in Toronto
Friday, Feb. 1, 7 p.m.
Church of the Holy Trinity
(just west of Eaton Centre)
Admission $10 or pay what you can

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Follow-up Workshop to Derrick Jensen for activists

Derrick Jensen’s presentation on Feb 1 will be followed on Saturday with a
workshop with Joan Simalchik and Yaya de Andrade. The workshop - for
activists - will discuss the similarity to social trauma of the pubic
awareness of the potential impact of global warming.

Here is Joan quoted in the Toronto Star in response to  Al Gore’s
Inconvenient Truth presentation  in the fall of 2006 after U of T received
a number of phone calls from parents whose children were distressed and
‘couldn’t sleep’ after seeing the presentation:

“The phrase (social trauma) is used to describe the dilemma of torture
victims and others who have gone through traumatic experiences. On a
lesser scale, it's also used to describe the stress that media reports of
global warming is creating among some students."

Professor Joan Simalchik knows the syndrome well. She's a historian and
co-ordinator of the Women and Gender Program at the University of Toronto
in Mississauga. For eight years, she was head of the Canadian Centre for
Victims of Torture.

"So, when they are confronted with predictions of species dying, of
drought, starvation, devastation of forests, rising oceans, disease and
the end of life as we have known it, and there is nothing available to
offer context and a measure of hope, then there is," Simalchik says,
"cognitive dissonance”.

This ‘cognitive dissonance’ freezes people - there are strategies to
unlock and mobilize people - but they require two things - an unflinching
awareness of the reality and a ‘sense of what is possible’.

On Friday Feb 1 - Derrick Jensen will describe ‘unflinchingly’ the reality
of environmental collapse (in a way the mainstream environmental movement
will not (see however Ross Gelbspan for another ‘honest’ assessment
<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=14488>http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=14488
 )  - and also give a very different ‘sense of the possible’.

On Saturday February 2 Joan Simalchik and Yaya de Andrade will help
activists think about how to translate this into mobilizing strategies.

Please contact me at this e-mail with questions or to make reservations.

Mike Balkwill <mbalkwill at iasc.on.ca>

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Forum on Tasers, February 6

Toronto Police Accountability Coalition is sponsoring a public meeting:

“The Shock of the Taser,”
A discussion of the police use of shock and stun guns
Wednesday February 6, 2008
7.00 pm
Town Hall, Innis College
St. George and Sussex Streets, one block south of Bloor

Speakers:
* David Reville, advocate and builder of  the psychiatric survivor movement.
* Naomi Klein, author of `The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism’
* Third speaker TBA
Moderator: Anna Willats, Toronto Police Accountability Coalition.

Please let your colleagues and friends know of this public meeting.
www.tpac.ca
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Community Right-to-Know Bylaw

We are two steps away from becoming the first city in Canada to pass a
Community Right to Know Bylaw which will be instrumental in reducing our
exposure to toxic chemicals.

Toronto Public Health (TPH) has just released a consultation document on
the draft bylaw and they want your feedback. TPH is asking residents to
answer 3 questions on the proposed program.

Consultation Document:
http://www.toronto.ca/health/hphe/enviro_info.htm

It is crucial that we show our elected officials that the residents of
Toronto strongly want this bylaw. Please take the time to send your
comments to the City.

If you are really tight for time, sending an email to
publichealth at toronto.ca with a quick line stating your strong support
for the bylaw will go a very long way.

Comments on this proposal must be received by February 6th, 2008.
Please send your responses/comments to
<mailto:publichealth at toronto.ca>publichealth at toronto.ca.

Toronto Public Health will finalize the draft bylaw by Spring 2008, and
we expect it go to council  in early Summer 2008.

For more information about the Community Right to Know campaign please
visit www.secrecyistoxic.ca.
Thank you for your time and support!

Lina Cino
Toxics Campaign Co-ordinator
Toronto Environmental Alliance
tel: 416-596-0660
 <mailto:lina at torontoenvironment.org>lina at torontoenvironment.org



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