And so it goes: Yahoos on the prairies.

I suppose some folks think that the regina mom is a yahoo cuz she’s shooting off her mouth all the time. Really, she hasn’t had a lot of time for that cuz she has spent the past year and a bit marketing her book of poetry, This hot place from B.C. to Ontario. (And she hopes to go further east with it this fall/winter.)

For now, however, a comment on the bunch of yahoos at the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District is in order. Their censorship of an event that had been scheduled for Regina’s downtown park is just ridiculous! The event, “Profs in the Park”, was to be just that: a series of lectures/talks by University of Regina professors.

But one prof’s lecture title got the yahoos tongues wagging. Assistant Professor, Emily Eaton, was to speak on “Solidarity with Palestine: The Case for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel.” But, according to the local daily newspaper, “the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID) told University of Regina professor Emily Eaton to change her lecture topic or her appearance at the Victoria Park event would be cancelled.”

Rather than condone censorship, the professors canceled the full series in the park, changed its name, and moved it to a local artist-run centre, Neutral Ground.

RDBID said it wasn’t their fault and Macleans magazine has yet another opportunity to smear the Queen City. Deservedly so, this time. Attacks on freedom of expression anywhere in the city, or the country for that matter, should never be tolerated.

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Alice Walker on Encountering the Horror

From the Voices Education Project

Alice Walker is one of my favourite American poets and political activists. She is, I believe, a role model for all poets and all citizens of the world. In her recent essay, OVERCOMING SPEECHLESSNESS: A Poet Encounters “the horror” in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel,” she details the horrors of hatre,d and the amazing capacity of women to survive, with references to each of those locations, most particularly Gaza.

There is no hiding what Israel has done or what it does on a daily basis to protect and extend its power. It uses weapons that cut off limbs without bleeding; it drops bombs into people’s homes that never stop detonating in the bodies of anyone who is hit; it causes pollution so severe it is probable that Gaza may be uninhabitable for years to come, though Palestinians, having nowhere else to go, will have to live there.

She reminds us that Israel fed the South African Apartheid government a diet of arms and expertise,  but that regime fell thanks to worldwide pressure.  She encourages each of us to take action, to speak out, to make our voices heard so that we bring down the Israeli regime.