Solstice Moon - Gaza, Turtles, Indigenous Day, and Book Fair

This edition has four main pieces of content:

• Indigenous Peoples Day: Anishinabeg Algonquin Nation protocol and history

• *TODAY*: I’m tabling at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair

• It’s turtles egg-laying season!

• Gaza media (x5) I’ve been able to get out there.

INTR)

Last night was the full moon, on the solstice!

Full moon yoga at Lansdowne park pre-empted by Escapade (the music festival).

And it was Indigenous People’s Day.

That’s the first thing I was going to include something about in this email / newsletter edition.

But first, the opening photo, with a note:

I had decided to take one newsletter off, and that ended up being two. So a full month off of doing up a newsletter. But (and because) there was a lot else going on… it’s a busy season, at least in some circumstances.

For Indigenous People’s Day

What I want to share, is this piece and resource list about the Civic and Cultural Protocol between the Anishinabe Algonquin Protocol and the City of Ottawa.

It’s from two years ago, but how many people know about it, even now?

Along with the article about the Protocol, there is an expanded history resource list I put together based on the starting point of the five books recommended in the official Protocol.

And in the article itself, you can learn – for example – the reason behind the shift to “Anishinabe Algonquin” from “Algonquin Anishinabe.”

Please check it out!

For TODAY : the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair
12noon – 5:00pm at Tom Brown Arena (Bayswater @ Albert)

If you’re free and it’s not too arduous to get over there, it would be cool to see you there!

If not, I think my next newsletter I am thinking to profile my catalogue of what I have available in print form.

This will be my second tabling at the the OSMBF, you can see a ‘photo essay’ I did at the last one.

I do think that the offline, in person media opportunities are very important and valuable. (And, I could say a lot more about that… and probably will!)

Third, it’s turtles season!

It is mainly in June when the turtles locally lay their eggs, and the group I’m part of attempts to protect as many nests as possible from predators like raccoons and rats.

See more about the group here: linktr.ee/TurtlesOOES

I have a couple videos from this year, one of a turtle walking around looking for nest sight, and one of a couple of them on the land as intro to me finding a nest disturbed by City of Ottawa landscape workers. View both of these at the bottom of my Wildlife playlist on Youtube.

I do think it’s special to be able to see these snapping turtles out of the water, especially when they’re not in danger and they’re doing their thing (the laying). It’s often a couple hours total they’re doing it…. As the turtle expert likes to say, they’re basically like dinosaurs, having survived since way back then. So they know what they’re doing, so long as humans don’t mess things up too much.

Originally I didn’t want to video them, but then I learned that it is a way to help people connect better with them, when otherwise they might not. Creates new possibilities…

Fourth, media for Gaza

A number of things I’ve got published recently – because the situation requires a response(ability), it requires action on all our parts:

I put together a zine / pamphlet (it’s one page doublesided) on the student encampments: it was an anonymous piece published from UBC camp, and I thought it would be good to have something people can print and pass around. While doing up the layout, I also compiled links to other such pamphlets, so you can read (and print) both the UBC one as well as 8 others! Read (and print) them here.

I got a letter to the editor published in the Ottawa Citizen, about how Canadian law respecting international law (i.e. Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act) should be applied to the international weapons manufacturers and clients who come to Ottawa for this military trade conference. Note though, that the Citizen edited out a very important part of the letter: the edit is explained at my post of the letter.

Also included at that link is a short video I did from the CANSEC protests.

I think it was the most radical protest I’ve participated in in Ottawa; everyone who remained in the arrest zone after the last police warnings, was able to fight back and escape without arrest, save for one rogue person who’d arrived at the protest without being aware of the plans, who did get arrested. Props to the preparations that everyone put in to make this protest, plus the one at the airport, so successful.

I don’t remember if I had sent this out the previous newsletter, but I managed to record some and compile more of an archive of the WKCR student radio at Columbia University the night the cops did their raid on the Hind’s Hall occupation. Included there are some things you can read about the student coverage and how vital it is compared with the regular media, and there’s also a compelling short speech by a Columbia professor comparing the current student movement with the Vietnam era, and also the music video Hind’s Hall by Macklemore (which happens to have two visuals from Ottawa in it!)

And finally, the Gaza Solidarity Flyer now has a version with a back-side of links to local Ottawa groups, to help people connect more with what is going on locally. That version is the second link at linktr.ee/GazaSolidarityFlyer