this thing that happened
My brother sometimes sends me papers of his to edit. On every occasion but one, I've been able to read over his essay/reflection/research paper, give feedback, and return it to him by his requested time.
This afternoon, I turned on my laptop for the first time in nearly 48 hours, checked my email, and saw a Google Drive doc from him. A thesis proposal paper, in fact, sent yesterday. Logging onto Facebook, I received the following message:
hey, I just shared a paper with you
if by chance you manage to get a look at it before 2:00, could you just go through and correct any glaring errors. I won't have time to retype it
I am too tired to effectively proofread though :\
love you, and have an awesome day!
Oh dear.
I responded:
Gah, I'm sorry! I was accompanying people who chained themselves to a bulldozer yesterday.
...
Why yes! I'm glad you asked! Yes, Chris, Peter and I did accompany a group of concerned citizens yesterday, several of whom had chained themselves to equipment in order to protest the construction of a new pipeline that would carry tar sands bitumen through the Don Valley in Toronto!
The action had a few goals. One, to stop construction for a day. Two, to generate media attention--to get the media to come out, publish stuff, and thereby raise awareness about this pipeline. And three, through that awareness, to encourage Torontonians to call their MPs, etc., and raise their voices in opposition to this construction project.
I don't know how to gauge if the third goal was successful, but I can tell you that the first two definitely were: the foreman told us at like 7:15 that he'd called off the workers for the day, and indeed, while several employees hung around to watch/make sure we didn't break stuff, no actual work was accomplished. And, several media outlets, including CBC and CTV, sent reporters to talk to folks and take photos.
Also, the cops remained fairly chill throughout, and although we kept the lock-down going until dusk (so: twelve hours), no one was arrested. (Everyone locking down knew they were risking arrest, and had planned accordingly.) Woot.
It just felt super nice to be a part of an action that had such clear--and realistically feasible--goals, I'll be honest.
Here are a few of those news stories:
Line 9 work halted by protests in Toronto--from CBC. This reporter showed up quite early, and didn't wander very far back, so: no picture of the women Chris and I were accompanying. But the two other women pictured are chained to that barrel there, and the barrel was in front of the main entrance to the work site. The police were hanging out a few meters away, parked in their cars along the street. Peter and a few others did liaison work, while Chris and I mostly stayed back with Maggie and Andrea and the bulldozer.
Protestors stop repair work on Enbridge's Line 9, from the Toronto Star. Both of these reporters were super friendly, and seemed genuinely interested in talking with people and getting the full story. (Not like the CBC guy, who seemed like he felt he had better places to be.) And, this story has a photo of Maggie and Andrea, both of whom are Anglican priests, and both of whom had chained themselves with bike locks around their necks to a bulldozer. Maggie's bishop actually called her yesterday afternoon, about something completely different, and afterward Maggie indicated that she was okay with her bishop not knowing she was currently chained to a bulldozer. After the Star article went live, several people called and texted to say they'd seen the photo; Maggie and Andrea looked at each other and said, "Well I guess the bishop's finding out after all!" I don't know very much about Anglican priests or bishops, but I got the impression, hanging around these two, that they're a bit unusual.
Protestors in Ontario block work site of Line 9 project, from APTN news. Just a few more shots, with some commentary. Nice that it made the news, though.
...
Physically, yesterday was hard because it was literally freezing outside. We arrived at the site at 5:15 in the morning, and despite dressing warmly, I was shivering within the hour. Mostly it was my feet. Wearing two pairs of socks has never really worked for me, so I don't, but I wished I had yesterday, as I stomped and jumped and waggled and wondered vaguely about frostbite. Eventually the sun got high enough to turn all the frozen ground to mud, but the temperature never got much above 40F, which is still pretty damn cold when you're just standing around. And the site was in a suburban neighborhood-y area, so: no gas station runs for coffee (or bathrooms). I spent almost all of yesterday being far, far colder than I ever like to be, and that was hard.*
On the other hand, Chris and I reminisced merrily about our "blockade days," as we're already calling them, sniggering and laughing so much at points I'm convinced the other protestors--who didn't know us, not really--thought we were irreverent and disrespectful. (Not Maggie or Andrea; they know Chris, at least, and they know what we went through with the blockade at Elsi.) I'm afraid I couldn't summon the energy to care.
All in all, despite the cold, I think yesterday's action was both fun and effective. Though I'm not familiar with the Line 9 project, having just moved to this city, it seems like there's an awful lot of obfuscation happening on behalf of Enbridge, the corporation in charge of this and similar projects in Canada. (Obfuscation. In my head I hear Peter saying, "Or, as I like to call it, lying." Prevarication is not truth-telling.)
...
*Hard, but eventually we did go back to inside warm places, and we enjoyed a nice celebratory we-survived-yay! dinner at a local pub, and then came back to the house and slept in warm, comfy beds. There are a lot of people out there who do not have those luxuries, and I've been thinking about that, about them, since I realized I would be warm again, yesterday. I'm not homeless. I don't have to deal with blocks-of-ice-for-feet every day. Yet another privilege to carry knowingly, and to see how the knowingness of it changes me.
This afternoon, I turned on my laptop for the first time in nearly 48 hours, checked my email, and saw a Google Drive doc from him. A thesis proposal paper, in fact, sent yesterday. Logging onto Facebook, I received the following message:
hey, I just shared a paper with you
if by chance you manage to get a look at it before 2:00, could you just go through and correct any glaring errors. I won't have time to retype it
I am too tired to effectively proofread though :\
love you, and have an awesome day!
Oh dear.
I responded:
Gah, I'm sorry! I was accompanying people who chained themselves to a bulldozer yesterday.
...
Why yes! I'm glad you asked! Yes, Chris, Peter and I did accompany a group of concerned citizens yesterday, several of whom had chained themselves to equipment in order to protest the construction of a new pipeline that would carry tar sands bitumen through the Don Valley in Toronto!
The action had a few goals. One, to stop construction for a day. Two, to generate media attention--to get the media to come out, publish stuff, and thereby raise awareness about this pipeline. And three, through that awareness, to encourage Torontonians to call their MPs, etc., and raise their voices in opposition to this construction project.
I don't know how to gauge if the third goal was successful, but I can tell you that the first two definitely were: the foreman told us at like 7:15 that he'd called off the workers for the day, and indeed, while several employees hung around to watch/make sure we didn't break stuff, no actual work was accomplished. And, several media outlets, including CBC and CTV, sent reporters to talk to folks and take photos.
Also, the cops remained fairly chill throughout, and although we kept the lock-down going until dusk (so: twelve hours), no one was arrested. (Everyone locking down knew they were risking arrest, and had planned accordingly.) Woot.
It just felt super nice to be a part of an action that had such clear--and realistically feasible--goals, I'll be honest.
Here are a few of those news stories:
Line 9 work halted by protests in Toronto--from CBC. This reporter showed up quite early, and didn't wander very far back, so: no picture of the women Chris and I were accompanying. But the two other women pictured are chained to that barrel there, and the barrel was in front of the main entrance to the work site. The police were hanging out a few meters away, parked in their cars along the street. Peter and a few others did liaison work, while Chris and I mostly stayed back with Maggie and Andrea and the bulldozer.
Protestors stop repair work on Enbridge's Line 9, from the Toronto Star. Both of these reporters were super friendly, and seemed genuinely interested in talking with people and getting the full story. (Not like the CBC guy, who seemed like he felt he had better places to be.) And, this story has a photo of Maggie and Andrea, both of whom are Anglican priests, and both of whom had chained themselves with bike locks around their necks to a bulldozer. Maggie's bishop actually called her yesterday afternoon, about something completely different, and afterward Maggie indicated that she was okay with her bishop not knowing she was currently chained to a bulldozer. After the Star article went live, several people called and texted to say they'd seen the photo; Maggie and Andrea looked at each other and said, "Well I guess the bishop's finding out after all!" I don't know very much about Anglican priests or bishops, but I got the impression, hanging around these two, that they're a bit unusual.
Protestors in Ontario block work site of Line 9 project, from APTN news. Just a few more shots, with some commentary. Nice that it made the news, though.
...
Physically, yesterday was hard because it was literally freezing outside. We arrived at the site at 5:15 in the morning, and despite dressing warmly, I was shivering within the hour. Mostly it was my feet. Wearing two pairs of socks has never really worked for me, so I don't, but I wished I had yesterday, as I stomped and jumped and waggled and wondered vaguely about frostbite. Eventually the sun got high enough to turn all the frozen ground to mud, but the temperature never got much above 40F, which is still pretty damn cold when you're just standing around. And the site was in a suburban neighborhood-y area, so: no gas station runs for coffee (or bathrooms). I spent almost all of yesterday being far, far colder than I ever like to be, and that was hard.*
On the other hand, Chris and I reminisced merrily about our "blockade days," as we're already calling them, sniggering and laughing so much at points I'm convinced the other protestors--who didn't know us, not really--thought we were irreverent and disrespectful. (Not Maggie or Andrea; they know Chris, at least, and they know what we went through with the blockade at Elsi.) I'm afraid I couldn't summon the energy to care.
All in all, despite the cold, I think yesterday's action was both fun and effective. Though I'm not familiar with the Line 9 project, having just moved to this city, it seems like there's an awful lot of obfuscation happening on behalf of Enbridge, the corporation in charge of this and similar projects in Canada. (Obfuscation. In my head I hear Peter saying, "Or, as I like to call it, lying." Prevarication is not truth-telling.)
...
*Hard, but eventually we did go back to inside warm places, and we enjoyed a nice celebratory we-survived-yay! dinner at a local pub, and then came back to the house and slept in warm, comfy beds. There are a lot of people out there who do not have those luxuries, and I've been thinking about that, about them, since I realized I would be warm again, yesterday. I'm not homeless. I don't have to deal with blocks-of-ice-for-feet every day. Yet another privilege to carry knowingly, and to see how the knowingness of it changes me.