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Operated by Rossiya for the Federal Government.
This would be the only time I got to photograph an IL62.
Seen here in 2002 under tow from the VIP apron to a remote stand for a likely Russian govt visit
This is a second floor bedroom of Mackenzie House, the former home of Canadian revolutionary William Lyon Mackenzie. Mackenzie was the first mayor of Toronto, a newspaper editor and later, leader of the failed 1837 Rebellion against the corrupt colonial British government of Upper Canada. Following exile in the US, he was later pardoned and returned to Toronto - although his followers didn't fare as well; being either hanged or shipped off to the Australian penal colonies. Mackenzie lived his final years in this home, dying here in 1861.
According to renowned Canadian author John Robert Colombo, Mackenzie House is "the most celebrated haunted house in Toronto and perhaps in all of Canada." The house receives similar billing in the books: Ontario Ghost Stories, The International Directory Of Haunted Places and Haunted Toronto.
Among the reported paranormal activities in this house over the years:
~ A woman with long hair and dressed in 19th century clothes seen moving through the halls and upstairs rooms. This female apparition is said to have physically struck one of the caretakers, leaving her with a black eye.
~ The kitchen rocking chair is known to start rocking on its own.
~ Strange sounds have been heard within the house, including footsteps going up the stairs and heavy booted footsteps across the floor.
~ The sound of somebody banging on the keys of the piano has been heard, as has the sound of someone playing the same piano.
~ During renovations, workers complained of having their tools and dropsheets moved at night.
More info at Toronto Ghosts and Hauntings Research Society
Reprocessed October 31, 2020
► All my images are my own real photography, not fake AI fraudography.
■ Please don't use my images for any purpose, including on websites or blogs, without my explicit permission.
■ S.V.P ne pas utiliser cette photo sur un site web, blog ou tout autre média sans ma permission explicite.
© Tom Freda / All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés
A Danish sentry box still stands outside Government House (1867) on Kongens Gade, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
The community that would become known as Hot Springs was established as early as 1820, though it was not until 1832 that the United States government declared the area a federal reservation. Ironically, this act had the effect of retarding investment within the valley of the hot springs due to the reluctance of potential investors to develop property of which they might be dispossessed. Therefore, small, wood construction bathhouses predominated until after the Civil War, when a number of forces combined to both make Hot Springs and its remarkable natural resources both more attractive and more accessible. Primary among these were the growing interest among the general populace in such waters for their therapeutic and medicinal value; the ability of certain talented entrepreneurs to develop and advertise their bathhouses in conjunction with the federal government; the appeal of gambling, for the pursuit of which the city could boast many attractive institutions; and the arrival of the "Diamond Jo" railroad line in 1875, named for "Diamond Jo" Reynolds, a successful Chicago businessman who deplored the rough coach roads that had heretofore provided the only means of access from the Cairo and Fulton (later Missouri--Pacific) Railroad that ran through nearby Malvern.
It is difficult to overestimate the impact of this relatively early arrival of a railroad line to the growth and prosperity of what would become one of America's premier resort cities. The access and convenience afforded travelers by relatively dependable railroad transportation single-handedly transformed the remoteness and isolation of this young city's rugged, mountainous setting from obstacles into attractions. Both literally and figuratively, visitors came to "get away" from the hectic pace and dizzying growth of America's late-nineteenth century industrial and commercial centers, and Hot Springs offered the unique combination of comfortable accessibility, rustic surroundings, and a myriad assortment of recreational opportunities. The city grew dramatically thereafter, and continued to experience a relatively high level of prosperity well into the second half of the twentieth century.
The Missouri--Pacific Railroad Depot in Hot Springs (seen in the photograph above) was constructed circa 1917 after the Missouri--Pacific Railroad had acquired the old St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern line that ran between Missouri and Texas as part of the its ambitious campaign to expand its network of rail lines all over the country, and to establish the railroad's corporate identity through the exclusive use of the Italianate/Mediterranean style of architecture for its passenger and freight depots. This particular depot is a single story, brick masonry freight and passenger depot designed in a distinctly Italian interpretation of the Mediterranean style. Its band of large, compound arched windows extending around the eastern, northern and western elevations, hipped Italianate tower and elaborate, decorative Italianate brackets that ornament the cornices throughout are all reflective of this influence, and also of the relatively high-style quality of this particular depot design. The plan is roughly V-shaped, a response to the triangular shape of its particular lot at the intersection of Broadway and Valley Street. The red clay tile roof and brick walls are supported upon a continuous, concrete foundation.
This passenger and freight railroad depot is associated with the Railroad Growth and Development in Arkansas, 1870-1940 historic context as a structure financed and erected under the auspices of one of the larger early twentieth-century railroads in the state. As such, it was nominated for and added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on June 11, 1992 via criterion A for these associations but also via criterion C as an excellent example of the Italianate/Mediterranean style of architecture. All of the above information was found on the original documents submitted for listing consideration and can be viewed here:
catalog.archives.gov/id/26139673
Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.
"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11
The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/
After passing 'Georges Plains' and rounding the bend to start the climb up to Wimbledon....
6029, Beyer-Garett between Bathurst and Winbledon.... Matthew Ayto
Transport Heritage NSW recently welcomed Australia’s largest operating steam locomotive, Beyer-Garratt 6029, into its operating fleet, following its acquisition by the NSW Government.
'The Garratt' entered service in 1954 and was a reliable work horse of the NSW Government Railways, travelling more than one million kilometres before it was removed from regular service in 1972.
© photo rights reserved by B℮n
Andalusia is located in southern Spain and covers an area of 8 provinces. Andalusia is the second largest autonomous region in Spain. Beautiful Andalucía, the land of olives, oranges, sunflowers, beautiful mountain ranges and valleys, nice white mountain villages with beautiful squares, is a bridge between two continents, Africa and Europe, and is the point where the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea meet. There is something for everyone in Andalusia, from culture to beautiful terraces, sights, long beaches, beautiful inland areas with beautiful reservoirs, mountains and nice villages to visit. Seville is the capital of the province of Andalusia. It has a colorful history dating back to the Romans. You will find beautiful historic buildings, but also tapas bars where they serve the tastiest dishes. And of course not to forget the flamenco. In 1929, as part of the Spanish World Exhibition, among other things, the Plaza de España was constructed: a crescent-shaped square with the Pavilion de España situated on it. There are fifty murals on the façade that refer to the fifty Spanish provinces. In front of it are benches, which are eagerly used. The Plaza de España is a classic place to go with the family on Sundays. The majority of these buildings are used today by the government such as the town hall. The square also served as a film set for Naboo in the 2002 film Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones.
The Plaza de España is a landmark in Spain located in Sevilla. A "Moorish paradisical style" with a half mile of tiled fountains, pavilions, walls, ponds, benches, and lush plantings of Mediterranean pines. The Plaza de España has been used as a filming location for in the Star Wars movie – Attack of the Clones. The scene of a young Anakin and Padmé arriving at the planet of Naboo, walking over the bridge and through the corridors of the Royal Palace.
Andalusië ligt in zuid Spanje en beslaat een gebied van 8 provincies. Andalusië de op één na grootste autonome regio in Spanje en meer dan twee keer zo groot als Nederland. Het mooie Andalusië, het land van de olijven, sinaasappels, zonnebloemen, mooie bergketens en valleien, leuke witte bergdorpen met mooie pleintjes, is een brug tussen twee continenten, Afrika en Europa, en is het punt waar de Atlantische Oceaan en de Middellandse Zee elkaar ontmoeten. Er is voor elk wat wils in Andalusië, van cultuur tot mooie terrasjes, bezienswaardigheden, lange stranden, prachtige binnenlanden met mooie stuwmeren, bergen en leuke dorpen om te bezoeken. Sevilla is de hoofdstad van de provincie Andalusië. Het heeft een kleurrijke geschiedenis die teruggaat tot de Romeinen. Je treft er schitterende historische gebouwen, maar ook tapasbars waar ze de lekkerste gerechten serveren. En natuurlijk de flamenco niet te vergeten. In 1929 werd in Sevilla, als onderdeel van de Spaanse Wereldtentoonstelling onder meer de Plaza de España aangelegd: een halvemaanvormig plein met daaraan gelegen het Paviljoen de España. Op de gevel bevinden zich vijftig wandschilderingen die naar de vijftig Spaanse provincies verwijzen. Ervoor bevinden zich bankjes, waar gretig gebruik van wordt gemaakt. De Plaza de España is een klassieke plek om op zondag met de familie heen te gaan. Het merendeel van deze gebouwen wordt vandaag de dag gebruikt door de overheid zoals het stadhuis. Het plein diende ook als filmset voor Naboo in de film Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones uit 2002.
01 April 2018
Its into the 9th year since I shot this and the situation in the DTES has only deteriorated. Governments have worsened the situation by piling more social housing in the area adding to the “customers with no cash” syndrome. The area is named “Canada’s poorest postal code” by activists and the poverty pimps love the situation making the area one of “Canada’s richest postal codes”, the only differenence being the pimp money goes home at night. Helpful groups support too many by offering them food daily with zero obligation. Its become an impossible sitiuation to address given the current state of political governance.
I wish this was just a sick April Fools Day joke but unfortuantely not.
Sleeping on a sidewalk in the Downtown East Side (DTES) of Vancouver BC takes on a different sense of survival than is observed in many west side sleepers. A combination of mental issues, drug sale and use, area resident poverty and the resulting community of "Customers With No Cash" combine for a perfect locale to take advantage of people on the edge where living is not comparable to what most of us bring to mind in our own comfortable world. Prostitution and drugs are a large part of this community. One can not help feel sorry and remorseful this exists in self important Vancouver.
The irony of this photo is it was shot about 10 feet from the entrance of BC Housing's recently opened Orange Hall office (open 10 am to 4 pm Monday to Friday) 297 Hastings Street at Gore Ave. This situation has steadily gone downhill since the Federal Governemt cut back funding for social housing.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH:
From BC Housing website:
October 3rd, 2014
VICTORIA – The B.C. government is strengthening the non-profit housing sector by transferring provincially-owned properties to non-profit housing providers.
The Province owns approximately 350 parcels of land throughout British Columbia that are currently leased long-term to non-profit housing providers who own and operate social housing buildings on these properties.
The non-profit housing sector has been asking for this step for many years. Having ownership of the land will improve a non-profit’s ability to support better long-term planning and selfsufficiency. Owning the lands they operate on will also help non-profits secure the financing they need to be sustainable.
In order to transfer title, the Province will end these leases, and then transfer ownership of the land to the societies. The properties will be transferred at fair market value. The Province will assist the societies to secure mortgages on the properties. The current operating agreement that BC Housing has with each non-profit society will remain in place. Approximately 115 properties will be transferred by March 31, 2015, and the rest will be transferred over the next three years.
In addition, the Province is looking to transfer ownership of two properties currently managed by BC Housing to non-profit societies. The Province will begin the process by posting Expressions of Interest for Nicholson Tower and Stamps Place in Vancouver shortly.
Tenants will not be impacted by these transfers, and the amount of affordable housing stock will remain stable. Non-profit societies have been providing social housing in B.C. for more than 60 years. Today more than 90% of social housing is managed by non-profit societies.
THE GLOBE & MAIL:
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 13 2014
Vancouver won’t solve street homelessness until both the city and province focus on targeting the limited supply of expensive social housing to those who need it most, say experts.
That means help can’t go to anyone who passes through a shelter or an outdoor camp or even to someone who sleeps outside temporarily. In the vast majority of cases, people who become homeless experience it briefly and are able to avoid losing housing again.
But people working on eliminating homelessness do not always understand that the thousands of people who experience homelessness in a year don’t all need expensive subsidized housing. That should be reserved for the chronically homeless, who are not sufficiently helped by temporary assistance with rent or other social supports.
“For nearly 90 per cent of people counted as homeless, they’ll get themselves out of homelessness on their own,” says Tim Richter, who led Calgary’s 10-year plan to end homelessness and is now the president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. “It’s critical to set priorities. It shouldn’t be first-come, first-served.”
One of the region’s most experienced homelessness researchers, former Vancouver city-hall staffer Judy Graves, said the city is reaping the results of city and provincial staff not always setting the right priorities for the past six years. This past winter, Vancouver still had a count of 533 people sleeping outside (less than in 2008, but more than in 2011), even though the province and city have opened up thousands of new social-housing units rented at welfare-level rates.
It’s an issue that is returning to haunt Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who promised in 2008 to end street homelessness by 2015, during this fall’s civic-election campaign.
His administration, which has pushed the issue non-stop since he was first elected, has recently exceeded previous efforts by jumping last month into paying for all the costs of converting a downtown Quality Inn to transitional housing, as well as all the costs of a new shelter nearby. Usually the province covers the majority of costs for both of those kinds of housing.
But Ms. Graves said even that unusual effort, accompanied by several hundred other new provincial units about to open, isn’t going to solve the problem by January, 2015.
That’s because the province is only committed to using half of the incoming housing units for the chronically homeless. And city staff also don’t always correctly identify who is the most in need.
“Both the city and province have bought into housing by wait lists,” said Ms. Graves. “It just can’t work. You have to work as though you’re in a disaster zone.”
She said she had doubts that the majority of people who camped in Oppenheimer Park over the summer were homeless, but they got priority for the scarce number of rooms available.
As well, in the early stages of the province’s big social-housing construction push, which will see 14 towers completed with around 1,400 units by the end, non-profit operators were simply moving people from residential hotel rooms into the new buildings.
That meant the housing didn’t go to the chronically homeless and the most in need, but worse, it then allowed landlords in the residential hotels to do renovations, raise rents, or refuse new low-income tenants once the former tenants were relocated to social housing.
That then reduced the overall number of private, low-cost housing units in the city. Ms. Graves said the whole region is experiencing an acute shortage of those kinds of private units now. It has become a game of musical chairs for housing-outreach workers to get a low-cost unit for someone trying to get out of shelters or off the street, she said.
All cities are grappling with constant pressures that create more homelessness at the front end: low working-class incomes that can’t keep up with gentrification and rising rents key among them, said Ms. Graves. That has left cities trying to solve the problem at the back end, trying to house all the people made homeless as a result of many larger forces.
24 HRS VANCOUVER - 16 OCT 14
16 Oct 2014 24 Hours VancouverJANE DEACON Comment at vancouver.24hrs.c
Laura Dilley, PACE Society Action Week, PACE plans to draft housing recommendations for city council before the coming election.
“Oftentimes we will create housing models not including the voices of those we would be housing,” said Dilley.
Rising rent prices that force people out of SROs is a significant factor, as well as landlords who refuse to rent to sex workers out of legal concerns, said Dilley. Low- income housing conditions that require tenants stay in at night or guests to sign in are also significant barriers. She estimates between 10 to 15% of sex workers fall under the category of “survival” or street- based prostitution. For that vulnerable population, simply switching professions is often not an option, said Dilley.
“They’re really forced and entrenched to continuously do that work because they have no options out of it, because we have such stigma in our society that they can’t seek help, they can’t find affordable housing, so they’re really stuck in that situation,” she said.
17 April 2019:
B.C. drug users demand clean supply, but fear they won’t live to see it happen
By David P. BallStar Vancouver
Tues., April 16, 2019
VANCOUVER—Several hundred Vancouverites marked three years since the province declared a public health emergency over the thousands of people killed by overdoses.
But as they marched Tuesday from the safe-injection clinic Insite through downtown Vancouver, advocates say “contaminated” drugs have taken a toll on their own leaders.
For B.C. Association of People on Methadone member Garth Mullins, the losses are mounting, and it’s been destabilizing and “disorganizing” for the drug-reform movement.
“We’ve lost rank and file members and leaders in such high numbers over the last five years,” he said, wearing a distinctive black case of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone on his belt. “It’s hard to organize or think strategically when you’re always doing triage, planning a memorial.”
Just last month the president of his organization, Chereece Keewatin, died from a fentanyl overdose. Mullins knew Keewatin for at least six years, and invited her to join the editorial board of the podcast Crackdown, of which he is executive producer.
“Chereece was really little, but she had this tremendous capacity to lift people’s spirits,” he said in an interview. “You’d have meetings where we talk about really, really bleak subjects, but she had these funny asides to cut through the bleakness.
“She made people laugh. In that way, she took responsibility for the whole collective emotional state of the group.”
It’s not just the B.C. Association of People on Methadone that’s seen the direct “casualties” of what Mullins called “a war.” The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the national Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs have also lost high-ranking board members in recent years.
Since 2016, nearly 11,000 people have died across Canada from opioid overdoses, according to the most recent federal and provincial data. The majority of those deaths were from opioids such as fentanyl or its more deadly variants, but B.C. remains the epicentre for roughly a third of those deaths, 1,500 of them last year alone.
On average, four British Columbians died every day from overdoses last year, much higher than the national average and largely unchanged since the province’s April 2016 declaration of a public health emergency.
11 May 2020
.
A wall mural in the DTES poses a valid question, "how do we end the drug crisis"? A more basic question, how did we get here?
Vancouver, B.C. is consistently ranked at the top of the list for the world’s most liveable cities - but not for many in the DTES.
The city has a dirty little secret that it has been trying to suppress for decades. The historic four-block area near East Hastings and Main Street — the DTES — known as one of the “poorest postal codes” in Canada, has a combination of drug use, HIV, homelessness, prostitution, mental illness, and crime all making up this poor off neighbourhood.
To be successful as a drug lord you need a steady, reliable, cheap supply of product, a location where you can operate relatively free from prosecution and away you go. The prime location ingredients Vancouver offers is the DTES.
Over the decades continuing city administrations have built a community of “customers with no cash” by loading the DTES with blocks of not for profit social housing. Along with the myriad of Single Room Occupancy hotels (SRO's) the area is prime territory for the drug trade.
Social housing should be spread throughout the city to provide a society of different financial means for common support - IMO.
Administrations over the years have been loath to attempt social housing in the rich city enclaves due to onerous push back. It was and still is more expedient to keep adding more social housing in the DTES where there is minimal opposition.
***** Today there are at least 6 City of Vancouver development permit applications on file for more social housing in the DTES.
The process is welcomed by the myriad of DTES support service groups who like their clientele close at hand and the clientele are fine with it as services are nearby.
DTES government and service support groups along with poverty pimp lawyers who have a hissy fit if anyone tries to change the dial, while also making money off the situation, has resulted in the perfect condition for drug dealers to flourish.
Social housing residents, many older, Asian and often mentally challenged are living in a hell hole neighbourhood with little individual voice.
In recent years, the area is seeing an east creeping gentrification. This is causing the DTES street population to be squeezed into a smaller footprint resulting in more confrontation and the appearance of a worsening situation even though overall the numbers of street people remains fairly constant.
The amount of taxpayer dollars spent in the area is staggering with little to show for the investment.
Vancouver has always had a drug problem. The opioids of choice — and the increasingly staggering death toll — have changed over the years.
In 2017 Fentanyl killed so many Canadians it caused the average life expectancy in B.C. to drop for the first time in decades. But for crime kingpins, it became a source of such astonishing wealth it disrupted the Vancouver-area real estate market.
SOME BACKGROUND:
Excerpt from the Province Newspaper by reporter Randy Shore 18 March, 2017.
When members of the Royal Commission to Investigate Chinese and Japanese Immigration came to Vancouver in 1901, they got an eyeful.
“There were whole rooms of Chinese lying stretched out on beds with the opium apparatus laid out before them — all unmindful that their attitudes and surrounding conditions are being taken note of to assist in keeping the remainder of their countrymen entirely out of Canada,” reported the Vancouver World newspaper.
The fringes of Vancouver’s Chinatown have always been the centre of Canada’s opiate trade. Ever more potent and easily smuggled versions emerged through the decades, culminating in the scourge of synthetic opiates — fentanyl and carfentanil — thousands of times more powerful and many times more deadly than opium.
Opium was a source of revenue for governments of the day. A federal duty imposed on importers fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars between 1874 and 1899. In B.C. ports, and cities charged hundreds of dollars to purveyors in the form of business licences.
Between 1923 and 1932, more than 700 Chinese men were deported for drug-related violations.
Under constant pressure from the police, opium users began to inject their hit, as the technique created no smoke or aroma and used smaller equipment, which could be easily hidden. In the 1920s and 1930s, white users tended to be young criminals, “racetrack hands, and circus and show people” who smoked opium or sniffed heroin.
By the mid-1930s, heroin was one of the most common drugs in circulation and white users were increasingly taking the drug intravenously, especially as prices rose due to scarcity brought about by vigorous law enforcement.
The outbreak of the Second World War put opiate addicts into a state of crisis, as opiate drugs were required in great quantities for the war wounded. The street price of a hit — whether heroin, morphine or codeine — shot up and crime along with it.
In the post-war period, right through to the mid-’60s, Vancouver was ground zero for Canada’s intravenous drug scene, made up mainly of petty criminals, troubled youths fed by drug lords.
Before the ’40s were over, highly refined white heroin had appeared and it was coming from overseas to satisfy a hungry market in Vancouver, home to half of the country’s drug users.
Heroin use remained a constant undercurrent in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside during the ’70s and ’80s, even as alcohol was the neighbourhood’s real drug of choice.
But a flood of a new and even more potent “China White” heroin arriving into the city reignited public outrage in the early ’90s. A spate of 331 overdose deaths in 1993 spurred B.C. coroner Vince Cain to call for the decriminalization of heroin and addicts be prescribed the drug to legally maintain their habit.
It would be nearly 15 years before the Study to Assess Long-term Opioid Maintenance Effectiveness (SALOME) began in Vancouver, just about the time a new threat emerged.
Up to 80 times as powerful as heroin, fentanyl hit the streets and reduced the risk for traffickers as it was so concentrated, transportation was easier.
The carnage wrought by fentanyl has been without precedent.
Heroin seized in drug busts is routinely cut with fentanyl and in recent months the presence of carfentanil.
SUMMARY:
Where will this go next, who knows ?
The richest of societies should be especially judged by how they treat their least fortunate, and Vancouver has its challenge set out for the foreseeable future.
UPDATE 23 MAY 2020 - VANCOUVER SUN
John Mackie: The Downtown Eastside is a war zone disaster — stop ghettoizing it.
John Mackie, Vancouver Sun 23 May 2020
Twenty years ago local musician Kuba Oms was recording at the Miller Block, a now defunct Hastings Street recording studio near Save-On-Meats.
He jaywalked and was stopped by a cop, who handed him a ticket.
“I said ‘Are you kidding me?’” Oms recounts. “You know there’s a guy shooting up over there, and a crack dealer over there. And the cop said ‘That’s a health issue.’”
That story pretty much sums up the city’s attitude toward the Downtown Eastside over the past few decades.
In some ways the cop was right — it is a Vancouver health issue. But letting people openly do drugs in public and turn Hastings and the wider Downtown Eastside into a ghetto is political correctness gone mad.
Drive down Hastings Street between Abbott and Gore and you’ll see dozens, even hundreds of people hanging out on the street, in various states of sobriety. They are definitely not social distancing. It’s a miracle that COVID-19 hasn’t swept the entire area.
The height of this madness was the recent occupation of Oppenheimer Park. Vancouver has real issues of homelessness, but to some degree Oppenheimer was about a fringe group of politicos manipulating the homeless.
Many police resources were diverted to the park and there was a crime wave in nearby Chinatown — one business closed because they were being robbed a dozen times a day.
The province recently made hotel rooms available for the homeless people occupying Oppenheimer Park, so things have calmed down somewhat. But the big question is what happens in a few months? Is government going to find permanent homes for them?
Odds are if they do, it will be in highrises in the Downtown Eastside. For decades that’s where the city and province have been concentrating social housing, especially for the mentally ill and drug addicted.
Their argument is these residents feel comfortable there. But the reality is the more poverty is concentrated, the worse the area seems to become.
Maybe it’s time for the city of Vancouver to give its head a shake and realize that its much-ballyhooed Downtown Eastside Plan is actually part of the problem, not the solution.
Part of the plan decrees you can’t build condos on Hastings between Carrall Street in Gastown and Heatley Avenue in Strathcona, or in historic Japantown around Oppenheimer Park.
Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city.
When the plan was unveiled in 2014, Vancouver’s former head planner Brian Jackson said the aim was to ensure that low-income people in the Downtown Eastside weren’t displaced.
“The plan is attempting to achieve balance,” he explained then.
In fact, the plan does the exact opposite. There is no balance in the Downtown Eastside: It’s been turned into a ghetto. A friend who’s worked there for two decades calls it a war zone.
The city desperately need some market housing, co-ops and development on Hastings and around Oppenheimer. The anti-poverty activists will scream blue murder that it’s gentrification, but it’s actually normalization. You don’t have to displace anybody, you just have add a different mix to make it safer.
I live in Strathcona, where about 6,500 people live in social housing and about 3,500 in market homes. It’s a close-knit neighbourhood that has the balance Brian Jackson was taking about — it’s diverse and features a variety of incomes.
Japantown and the Downtown Eastside could be a real neighbourhood again if the city retained its stock of handsome historic buildings but allowed some development of its many non-descript structures.
It could be like Strathcona, even the West End. But I fear it could get even worse, if the planners and politicians continue to concentrate all the Lower Mainland’s poverty and social ills in one small area.
jmackie@postmedia.com
John Mackie is a veteran Postmedia reporter who has written several stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Plan.
13 JULY, 2020
Vancouver can’t catch up to its housing crisis
ADRIENNE TANNER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED 13 JULY 2020
It is obvious now the cheers that erupted when Vancouver’s longest running tent city was dismantled were wildly premature. Fearing a COVID-19 outbreak would take hold in the overcrowded inner-city camp, the provincial government in April acquired emergency housing in hotels for homeless people living there and cleared the site.
Many camp residents embraced the offer of a clean room. Some refused and relocated outdoors. The camp shifted, first to some empty Port of Vancouver land, and when a court order quickly shut it down, finally landed in Strathcona Park. With each move, it grew.
Today there are about 150 tents Strathcona Park, roughly double the number there were in Oppenheimer Park. How many inhabitants are truly homeless is anyone’s guess. Some of the tents were erected by activists with homes. Others belong to people living in single room occupancy hotels, the worst of which are noisy, bug-infested and so hot that some residents prefer to spend summer outside.
There is already an air of permanence to the camp; the city has installed porta-potties, fresh drinking water and handwashing stations. Park rangers drop by a few times daily. The area is reasonably clean, but these are early days.
Strathcona residents are largely sympathetic to homeless people, but are understandably unhappy about losing a large chunk of park space. They fear the same violence and social disorder that cropped up at Oppenheimer is inevitable; there has already been a small fire and there appears to be a bike chop shop on site. There are cries for the city to sanction a permanent tent city location – elsewhere, of course.
So how exactly did the province’s efforts to shut down a tent city and house homeless people backfire so badly? The city and provincial officials have been out-manoeuvered and out-organized by anti-poverty activists who seized a COVID-19 opportunity when they saw it.
The pandemic raised fears the Oppenheimer tent city would turn into a reservoir of disease that could overwhelm the health system. The activists know that’s why the government cleared the camp and purchased hotels for social housing. They understand this is the moment to highlight society’s failure to solve homelessness, even if their end goals seem to differ. Some are calling for permanent housing – others prefer the idea of a permanent, free-wheeling tent city.
The sorry truth is, even with the addition of 600 units of temporary modular housing and, more recently, the purchase of three downtown hotels, there are still more homeless people than homes. Successions of governments at all levels have allowed this crisis to grow. They’ve failed to build enough social housing. Failed to provide adequate mental health services. Failed to fund enough drug rehabilitation programs for those who want to quit and provide a safe drug supply for those who can’t.
So, now here we are with the largest homeless camp the city has ever seen and another stressed-out neighbourhood. Legally, the new tent city may prove more difficult to dismantle – it’s a large park and the tents are well spaced so the pandemic may not wash as a valid reason. And unless housing is available for everyone who is homeless, it is unlikely the courts would grant an injunction.
Solving problems associated with homelessness is a huge challenge. We can start with housing, but that alone is not nearly enough. Many of the people living in the hotels and park are drug users. Many are mentally ill. Some are both. It takes money – and lots of it – to provide decent housing and supports for this segment of society.
But to cave to demands for a permanent tent city is an American-style admission of defeat. The park board seems resigned to tent cities in parks and is considering a bylaw seeking to control locations. City council has resisted sanctioning a permanent spot, instead offering up land for new social housing. The province has stepped up with money for temporary modular housing and purchases of hotels.
It will be tough to keep neighbourhoods onside if more parks are rendered unusable for recreation. There is only one palatable solution; the provincial government must stay the course and keep adding decent, affordable housing. It won’t be cheap or easy. Catchup never is.
01 APRIL 2022
More than 2,200 British Columbians lost to illicit drugs in 2021
The toxic illicit drug supply claimed the lives of at least 2,224 British Columbians in 2021, according to preliminary data released by the BC Coroners Service.
“Over the past seven years, our province has experienced a devastating loss of life due to a toxic illicit drug supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner. “This public health emergency has impacted families and communities across the province and shows no sign of abating. In 2021 alone, more than 2,200 families experienced the devastating loss of a loved one. In the past seven years, the rate of death due to illicit drug toxicity in our province has risen more than 400%. Drug toxicity is now second only to cancers in B.C. for potential years of life lost. We cannot simply hope that things will improve. It is long past time to end the chaos and devastation in our communities resulting from the flourishing illicit drug market, and to ensure, on an urgent basis, access across the province to a safe, reliable regulated drug supply.”
The last two months of 2021 saw the largest number of suspected illicit drug deaths ever recorded in the province, with 210 deaths in November and an additional 215 in December. The 2,224 total number of deaths is 26% more than the 1,767 illicit drug-related deaths investigated by the BC Coroners Service in 2020, and equates to an average of 6.1 lives lost every day.
The provincewide death rate in 2021 was 42.8 per 100,000 residents. Every health authority in B.C. experienced a record loss of lives.
Since the public health emergency into substance-related harms was first declared in April 2016, more than 8,800 British Columbians have been lost to toxic drugs.
Toxicological testing once again underscores the reality that the illicit drug supply continues to be unstable and increasingly toxic. Fentanyl was detected in 83% of samples tested in 2021. Carfentanil was present in 187 results, almost triple the number recorded in 2020 (66).
Additionally, 50% of samples in December tested positive for etizolam, more than three times the rate of detection in July 2020 (15%). Benzodiazepines create significant challenges for life-saving efforts as naloxone does not reverse its effects. As with previous reporting, almost all test results included the presence of multiple substances.
“We need decision-makers at all levels to recognize and respond to this public health emergency with the level of urgency it demands,” Lapointe said. “The reality is this: every day we wait to act, six more people will die. COVID-19 has shown what is possible when goverments act decisively to save lives. And in order to save lives in this public-heath emergency, we need to provide people with access to the substances they need, where and when they need them. Time has run out for research and discussion. It is time to take action.”
Additional key preliminary findings are below. Data is subject to change as additional toxicology results are received:
In 2021, 71% of those who died as a result of suspected drug toxicity were between 30 to 59, and 78% were male.
The townships that experienced the highest number of illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2021 were Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest numbers of illicit drug toxicity deaths were in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health authorities (765 and 615 deaths, respectively), making up 62% of all such deaths during this period.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver Coastal Health (49 deaths per 100,000 individuals) and Northern Health (48 per 100,000).
By Health Service Delivery Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver, Thompson Cariboo, Northwest, Northern Interior and Fraser East.
By Local Health Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Upper Skeena, Merritt, Enderby, Lillooet and North Thompson.
Quotes:
Dr. Nel Wieman, deputy chief medical officer, First Nations Health Authority –
“The number of deaths due to toxic drug poisonings for 2021 translates to devastating losses of First Nations people: daughters and sons, aunties and uncles, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. These are people who loved and were loved. In every year since this public health emergency was declared, B.C. First Nations people have been over-represented in toxic drug-poisoning events and deaths. We must change our understanding of the root causes of substance use and addiction, and work together to address the stigmas surrounding toxic drug use and the people who use drugs. We must continue to invest in Indigenous-specific, culturally safe harm-reduction, treatment and recovery services that are accessible, timely and free from discrimination and racism.”
Guy Felicella, peer clinical adviser, Vancouver Coastal Health –
“I join the thousands of British Columbians who are heartbroken, frustrated and angry over this unfathomable loss. Every one of these deaths was preventable and represents a failure to act, a failure to learn from mistakes. Change nothing and nothing changes. That’s been the story now for years as the approach throughout this crisis has been to meet policies where they’re at, rather than meeting people who use drugs where they’re at. This approach is killing and continues to kill people. Who has the courage to step forward and make this stop?”
AUGUST 2023
Today’s release of the report on drug toxicity deaths for the month of July 2023 by the BC Coroners Service is a stark reminder that the ongoing toxic-drug crisis continues to have a devastating impact on communities across our province. We hold in our hearts the memories of the 198 people lost in July in British Columbia.
The coroners service said the 1,455 deaths from January to July are the most ever reported in the first seven months of the year since a public health emergency over drug poisoning deaths in the province was declared in 2016.
It puts the province on pace to potentially exceed the 2,383 deaths recorded in 2022. A total of 12,739 people in the province have died from drug overdoses in the seven years.
30 NOVEMBER, 2023
At least 2,039 British Columbians have died from toxic drugs so far this year, according to preliminary figures released by the B.C. Coroners Service on Thursday, 29 November, 2023.
Of those, 189 people died in October, which is about 6.1 deaths a day. Most of the dead were between 30 and 59 years of age, and more than three-quarters were men, according to the coroner.
While the largest number of deaths reported so far has been in urban centres, such as Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria, the health authority with the highest rate of death in 2023 is Northern Health, with 61 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the coroner.
As in previous months, fentanyl was found in most — 85 per cent — of the illicit drugs tested, often combined with other opioids or stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Earlier this month, Interior Health issued a drug advisory warning for people who use drugs that some substances being advertised as hydromorphone on the black market contain isotonitazine, a drug the coroner says is as potent as fentanyl.
Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural disease combined, the coroner said.
Since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, more than 13,000 people have died.
JANUARY 2024:
Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, has released the following statement regarding the BC Coroners Service year-end report on illicit drug toxicity deaths:
“Today, as we reflect on the year behind us, our hearts are heavy with the loss of 2,511 people in British Columbia to toxic drugs. Each of these lives was precious and important, each with their own story, their own dreams and people who love them. They were part of our community, and their loss is felt deeply by us all.
So what is the game plane to stop it?
C. seeks to keep cash seized from Downtown Eastside gang
Courtesy Kim Bolan and the Vancouver Sun.
Kim Bolan is an experienced and award-winning journalist who has covered gangs in British Columbia for the past 40 years. Bolan also investigated the Air India bombing for 25 years until the publication in 2005 of her book, Loss of Faith.
The B.C. government has filed a lawsuit against a group of alleged Downtown Eastside drug traffickers, seeking the forfeiture of more than $150,000 seized from them.
The lawsuit, filed this week by the director of civil forfeiture, names four defendants that it alleges are part of a criminal organization investigated by the Vancouver Police Department.
While the group is not named in the statement of claim, details of the VPD probe outlined in the court document match an investigation into Zone 43 — a gang that originated in Montreal but has taken over the Downtown Eastside in recent years. Zone 43 has connections to B.C.’s notorious Wolfpack gang alliance.
In June, the VPD announced arrests of several Zone 43 gangsters, though they were released pending approval of charges.
The VPD said it had seized firearms, 24 kilos of drugs and $150,000 in cash during searches on May 14 in Vancouver and Burnaby.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit refers to three VPD searches done on the same date in the same cities and alleges Shayne Cozier-Flanagan, Evantee Jevontee Eustace Stoney, Tristin Johnson and Raimon Geday were “participating in the activities of a criminal organization.”
When police searched Stoney’s apartment on the 30th floor at 2388 Madison Ave. in Burnaby, they found $143,910.75 in Canadian currency and $607 in U.S. currency, the lawsuit said.
Officers seized another $5,800 at Cozier-Flanagan’s suite, also on the 30th floor, at 5665 Boundary Rd. in Vancouver, it said.
About $3,417 was seized from Johnson, who also lives in the Madison apartment, when he was arrested in the 300-block of East Hastings. Another $1,920 was found in Geday’s room in a supportive housing building on Kaslo Street, the lawsuit said.
The VPD also seized a 2017 Acura RDX, of which Stoney is the registered owner and which was used “to facilitate the trafficking of controlled substances,” the civil forfeiture director alleged.
The statement of claim notes that both Stoney and Geday have previous trafficking convictions and are banned from possessing firearms.
All four men named in the lawsuit “trafficked in controlled substances in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the surrounding areas,” the lawsuit alleges.
In the Boundary apartment, police also found a money counter and business cards with the number to call to purchase drugs — known as a ‘dialer’ number.
In the Madison suite, the VPD also found dilaudid pills, oxycodone pills and “score sheets” documenting drug sales, collection and debts.
In Geday’s room, police found crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and another 275 dilaudid pills, as well as score sheets, bear spray and “miscellaneous drug packaging materials.”
The cash and car should be forfeited to the government because they are proceeds of or were used for unlawful activity, the lawsuit alleged.
The crimes committed include possession for the purpose of trafficking and trafficking, committing offences for the benefit of a criminal organization, conspiracy, money laundering and failure to declare taxable income, it alleged
No statements of defence have yet been filed on behalf of the four men.
Vancouver Police Insp. Phil Heard said at the June news conference that Zone 43 gangsters “pose a very significant risk to the public. They’re involved in a well-documented conflict ongoing in the province of Quebec with a rival group.”
Sources say the gang is still selling drugs in the Downtown Eastside.
AUGUST 2025:
The law protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair
Pete McMartin: I'm tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse.
Published Aug 03, 2025
In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and I wrote a weeklong series of stories identifying the government social welfare programs — and their cost to taxpayers — in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Over 100 programs existed just for housing. Thirty provided health care, 30 offered family services and a miscellany of another 100 services — including a food bank for pets — brought the total to 260 social welfare agencies operating solely within the eight square blocks of the DTES.
Those 260 programs served just 6,500 clients.
Five years earlier, in 2009, Province reporter David Carrigg also did a survey of the programs available in the DTES, and he identified 174 social welfare agencies offering services to about 5,000 clients.
In other words, in the five years between Carrigg’s survey and Culbert’s and mine, not only had the number of people needing help grown but so had the number of agencies serving them.
And the cost to taxpayers?
Over $360 million annually.
That astounding figure — almost a million dollars a day — did little to satisfy the DTES’s voracious appetite for tax dollars. More to the point, it did nothing to eradicate the misery and living conditions of the people who lived there.
Rather than winning the war on poverty — and what a quaint phrase that seems now — governments engineered a truce, with the unstated understanding that if they couldn’t solve the problem or spend their way out of it, they could contain it. Those 260 social service bureaucracies weren’t solutions to an intractable problem; they were barricades. They ghettoized their impoverished clientele by concentrating the services on which they depended.
And let’s be honest: The public was complicit in this, and content for it to continue as long as the misery stayed confined within the borders of the DTES.
And yet here we are. The squalor spreads. It corrodes a once-vibrant downtown core. It infiltrates the suburbs. Daily acts of random violence and vandalism have become normalized, while a cornucopia of drugs — some decriminalized, some tolerated, many deadly — act as accelerants.
In 2016, a year after our survey, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall declared a public health emergency under the Public Health Act due to the alarming rise in opioid-related overdose deaths. Since then, over 16,000 people have died from those opioids. That’s not progress. It’s a plague.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked. Over the decades, the problem has been studied to death — admittedly, a poor choice of words — with consultants and academics and the legions of poverty industry advocates offering up solutions that ultimately fail. They fail because they’re predicated on two simple criteria:
1. Give us more money.
2. Give us more of everything — housing, hospital beds, food banks, drugs, injection sites, counselling or — and this is always implicit — empathy, with a side order of collective guilt.
I’ve seen this in my own newspaper.
In one recent opinion piece, the author laments that it has been the public’s and governments’ norm “to daily bypass our downtrodden, our homeless, our addicted or mentally ill on the street as though they are either invisible or merely equivalent to lampposts” — to which I have to reply: ‘Are you f—ng kidding me?’
The public and its governments have done exactly the opposite and, short of bathing their feet with Christ-like piety, have directed billions of tax dollars not only to ease the suffering of the homeless, the addicted and the mentally ill, but also to make them completely dependent upon those dollars.
Another Sun story — this one again by Culbert — examined the merits of involuntary care through the experiences of three addicts who underwent the process, and while two saw it as beneficial and helped them get clean, the third condemned it as “dehumanizing” and a cause of her PTSD. Though she no longer does drugs, she said that if she relapses she would prefer to take her chances with street drugs that could possibly kill her rather than be readmitted to hospital against her will.
Well, OK, I thought, ‘You’re an adult. Good for you for having the honesty to express that choice, however idiotic I may find it.’
But what I thought was missing in her testimonial was (a) any appreciation of the monumentally expensive efforts governments and the public had tried to make on her behalf, however ill-informed she may have believed those attempts to be, and (b) her failure to recognize the destructive effects that a relapse would have not just on her own health and family, but, more importantly, also on the collective health of the public, who would be asked to offer up yet more money, and deal yet again with her relapse — providing she survives it.
Finally, in The Sun, there was another column, this one by Sam Sullivan, who wrote that, after 52 years, it was time to end the DTES “experiment” and the restrictive housing policies that he believes led to the homelessness and violence bedevilling it.
Funny thing about that.
Between 1993 and 2005, Sullivan was a Vancouver city councillor, and for three years after that, he was mayor. Yet despite the fact that his 15-year tenure at city hall placed him in the midst of that DTES experiment, if not close to its helm, it is only now, 20 years later, that he publicly declares the experiment to be a failure, and — as far as I could tell from reading his opinion piece — without taking any responsibility for it.
I will refrain here, in my own column, from claiming to speak for the public or with any inkling of what popular sentiment might be.
But this is how I feel:
My patience is Exhausted.
I’m tired of the endless, self-regenerating calls for more studies and more funding when all I see is a colossal waste of money and effort leading to no improvement. I’m tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse. I’m tired of civil rights that supersede my own, and treat the right to defecate in the streets with greater regard than my right to be offended by it.
Finally, I’m tired of a social welfare system that not only encourages dependency, but refuses, out of moral timidity, to also admit its complicity in it, and which shies away from asking hard questions about personal responsibility and the consideration of measures more draconian than safe injection sites — measures like a return to complete drug criminalization, a higher threshold of minimum sentences for trafficking, the establishment of rehabilitation centres or work camps exclusively in wilderness areas far from the temptations of cities, the discontinuation of any efforts that facilitate drug use, and yes, the robust expansion of an involuntary care system.
It’s also my opinion that none of these measures, given the current legal climate, will become reality, at least for the foreseeable future. Under our Constitution and the Criminal Code, the law, in its majestic equality, protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair, and, as so often happens, bring about their own deaths.
How enlightened we have become! What progress we have made! We’ve reached that point when now sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing one’s daily bread are no longer evidence of a system’s failure.
They are the system.
Shorebirds of Ireland, Freshwater Birds of Ireland and The Birds of Ireland: A Field Guide with Jim Wilson.
www.markcarmodyphotography.com
Government buildings near Iveagh Gardens, Dublin.
Taken with a Leica M4-P and Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f2 lens on CineStill XX black and white film, and developed and scanned by the good folk in Gunns on Wexford Street.
United States Air Force Boeing C-32A | 09-0015
Carrying POTUS, thus it used AF1 callsign.
89th Airlift Wing | 1st Airlift Squadron
Bradley International Airport (KBDL) | Friday, June 16th, 2023
Designed by Paul Rudolph
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Service_Center_(Boston)
Leica M6
Ilford XP2
Voigtlander Ultron 35mm f2 lens
President Idriss DEBY is to attend France-Africa Peace & Safety Summit 2013. Callsign was "Chad 001". TT-ABD seen here at dusk. [CHAD001]
© photo rights reserved by B℮n
Koh Lipe is the southernmost island of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. It is part of the Adang-Rawi archipelago. This archipelago forms, together with the Tarutao archipelago, the National Park Koh Tarutao. The Chao Lay live on the island. This is a tribe that lives mainly on the islands in the Andaman Sea. There is a public school on Koh lipe. Public schools are administered by the government. The Baan Koh Adang school is een Elementary school. Education in Thailand mandates nine years of basic education (six years of elementary school and three years of lower secondary school). Education at public schools is free until grade 9. The government provides, in addition, three years of free pre-school and three years of free upper-secondary education. Although Koh Lipe is part of a national park, the inhabitants are only allowed to develop part of the island for tourism. All other islands is prohibit. On the car-free island there are a few narrow roads that connect the beaches, because that is what it is all about: enjoying the sun, sea and beach.
Koh Lipe is a small island in the Southern part of the Thai Andaman Sea. It is famous for it's white sandy beaches, crystal clear water and bountyful marine life. The main transport hub for Koh Lipe is Pak Bara with daily speedboats boats running all year. This cluster of islands is part of the much larger Tarutao National Marine Park, a nature reserve established in 1974 as Thailand’s second National Park. It consists of about 50 islands and covers 1500 km². We visit Koh Lipe in the low season. On the island there is an Elementary school. The Baan Koh Adang school is located near the sunrise beach. The teacher is checking the work of the young students.
Koh Lipe is het meest zuidelijke eiland van Thailand gelegen in de Andamanse Zee. Het maakt deel uit van de Adang-Rawi-archipel. Deze archipel vormt samen met de Tarutao-archipel het Nationaal Park Koh Tarutao. Op het eiland wonen de Chao Lay. Dit is een stam die voornamelijk op de eilanden in de Andamanse Zee leeft. Er is een openbare school op Koh Lipe. Openbare scholen worden beheerd door de overheid. De Baan Koh Adang school is een basisschool. Het onderwijs in Thailand geeft negen jaar basisonderwijs (zes jaar basisonderwijs en drie jaar lagere middelbare school). Het onderwijs op openbare scholen is gratis tot en met rang 9. De overheid biedt bovendien drie jaar gratis voorschoolse opvang en drie jaar gratis hoger secundair onderwijs. Ondanks dat Koh Lipe deel uitmaakt van een nationaal park mogen de inwoners slechts een gedeelte van het eiland verder ontwikkelen voor toerisme. Alle andere eilanden zijn onbewoond. Op het autovrije eiland lopen enkele smalle wegen die de stranden met elkaar verbinden, want dat is waar het op hier vooral om draait: genieten van zon, zee en strand.
...and, so, a man who would overthrow American democracy, a convicted felon will be sworn in as President.
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▶ “The throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud — and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process.
<...>
Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
— Final Report of Special Counsel
United States Department of Justice
7 January 2025.
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▶ "A separate volume of the report focused on Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, actions that formed the basis of a separate indictment against Trump, will remain under wraps for now."
— AP News
***************
▶ SPECIAL NOTE:
tRump is systematically 'disappearing' information from government websites, attempting to erase history. AP accessed and saved this document from the Justice Department website before tRump assumed office.
***************
▶ Full document: United States Department of Justice.
▶ Uploaded by: YFGF.
▶ For a larger image, type 'L' (without the quotation marks).
— Follow on Instagram: @tcizauskas.
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Berlin ExpoCenter Airport, Schönefeld, Germany,
September 15, 2015,
Military-Germany, Government-Germany, 15+01, Airbus A319-133X CJ, cn 3897
Black and white edit. The clouds just grabbed me and the comparison of old in the mansions and@new in one William street
The government local was a little tardy this AM which allowed me to get in position for a drone shot form the comforts of inside my vehicle. The thermometer read -9 when the bird was put in the air for this shot and the wind chill was south of -30.
This shot is in between Eudora and De Soto just east of the intermediate signal at MP 16.7. Nice of them to get the trees cleared off the ROW here.
Crystal clear skies were abound this AM but the trains were not. Broken rails and trains setting out bad orders really slowed things down and eventually the clouds showed up. Final tally was 3.
Government House in Christiansted, St. Croix, USVI, was built by the Danish in 1830.
It was the Governor's Residence until 1871 when the capital of the Danish West Indies was moved to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.
Government House in Nassau is the official residence of the Governor General of The Bahamas.
The residence sits on a hill known as Mount Fitzwilliam.
It is an easy walk from the cruise port.
Trying to get back into sketching, I managed to get out today and did this one, it took two sittings as it started to rain a bit. There is a new sidewalk bench which I used for the sitting - a must have for "urban sketching".
3B pencil, in Aquabee SuperDeluxe 9"x9" sketchbook.
Perspective is a bit wonky, I need to get my drawing "chops" back.
Made into an urban sketchers blog flag: www.flickr.com/photos/urbansketchers/21788220511/in/datep...
Me standing next to a quiet and poorly maintained side road in the Mount Laguna Area of the Cleveland National Forest. Foreground illuminated by a 45% moon out of frame to the right. Shot with a Canon EOS R and Sigma 15mm EX DG lens on June 27, 2020.
Cleveland National Forest encompasses 460,000 acres (720 sq mi (1,900 km2)), mostly of chaparral, with a few riparian areas. A warm dry mediterranean climate prevails over the forest. It is the southernmost U.S. National Forest of California. It is administered by the U.S. Forest Service, a government agency within the United States Department of Agriculture. It is divided into the Descanso, Palomar and Trabuco Ranger Districts and is located in the counties of San Diego, Riverside, and Orange.
Cleveland National Forest was created on July 1, 1908 with the consolidation of Trabuco Canyon National Reserve and San Jacinto National Reserve by President Theodore Roosevelt and named after former president Grover Cleveland. It is headquartered in San Diego. The Cleveland National Forest was the site of both of the largest wildfires in California history, the 2003 Cedar Fire, and the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889. Both fires widely consumed many sections of the area, and endangered many animal species as well.
The Red Wolf was a Southern species of Wolf that was slowly decimated throughout its wide range. The last wild Red Wolves were removed from the wild from a small area of Southeastern Texas that borders Louisiana in the late 1970's, it was extinct in the wild by 1980. Seventeen Wolves were saved and became the stock for breeding programs around the country. As of today there are 200 Red Wolfs in breeding programs and now about 200 Wild Red Wolves are released in North Carolina at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Introductions in other areas have failed because of funding or conflicts with humans! North Carolina has not been a good host because of landowners, State Government and a very strong hunting lobby!
North Carolina is the only state that does not recognize the Red Wolf as an Endangered Species, they consider it a non-essential introduced species, even though the Red Wolf was native to this state. This gives this species no protection under the Endangered Species Act! In fact one land owner was issued a permit to shoot Wolves on his property. North Carolina even went as far as attempting to allow night hunting of Coyotes in the same range as the Wolves.
If you get a chance to read about them it is well worth the time!! Thanks for looking and sorry about being so long winded!! It was absolutely a thrill to photograph this rare animal!!
Please be advised that our images are Copyright Registered and fully protected by US Copyright Law. The images may not be downloaded for personal, commercial or educational use, copied to blogs, personal websites, used as wallpaper, screensavers, or be deeplinked, etc. With NO Exceptions.
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Retired Polish Air Force Yak-40 Serial 044 on display at the Polish War Museum in Warsaw.
Aircraft: Polish Air Force Yakovlev Yak-40 044.
Location: Muzeum Wojska Polskiego, Warsaw, Poland.
Notes: The first Glebe Island Bridge was a private toll-bridge completed in 1862 and known as Blackbutts Bridge. It consisted of a timber viaduct with a small, hand-cranked, swing span tucked into the Pyrmont shore. This allowed shipping into Johnstons Bay and the adjacent Blackwattle and Rozelle bays. It was built from Tasmanian blackbutt timber. After 30 years, this bridge was in need of extensive repairs, so the Colonial Government purchased the structure and commissioned the Public Works Department to began planning for replacement bridge, which was opened in 1903.
Format: albumen photoprint, print size: 276 mm x 215 mm, title from album page.
Date Range: 1882
Licensing: Attribution, share alike, creative commons.
Repository: Blue Mountains City Library - library.bmcc.nsw.gov.au
Part of: Local Studies Collection - LS Images. McBroom Album
Provenance: Donation Hugh McBroom
Links: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDe...
One may be excused for borrowing cliches from the realm of popular utterances. Then, that is how it does feel when you see sights such as this in real life.
A perma frosted river slam bang in the midst of tropical coconut trees in Bangalore.
This is Bellandur in Bangalore, a place notorious for foul smell, skin rashes and breathing troubles and a prime spot of ecological disaster.
Bellandur Lake is the largest water body in the plateau that is Bangalore. The terrain made it a huge reservoir which cheked the flow of water from the Koramangla and Challaghatta valleys and then slowly discharged it into the Pennar river that flows into Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu.
Till the 1980s it was a ecologically sound lake with fishing, irrigation of crops and potable water being drawn from it. The city population exploded in the late 1980s when it became the hub of IT business. Houses and offices sprung up everywhere at a frenetic pace. The income and cash flow generation was enormous. Money flowed everywhere. Business flourished, more people came in. In a few years time, the lake lost its potability, its fishing and its pristine beauty. The clear water became a turbid black pool with hyacinth growing wild.
The storm water drains which used to bring in the excess rain waters into the lake became channels of sewage that the residential and commercial buildings discharged unfiltered into the waterways. The lake just died a quick death. The overpowering stench of hydrogen sulphide and allied sulphur & phosphorus compounds infused the atmosphere all around it. A stench that we in India are familiar with where letting pollutants freely into the eco-space is not regarded as a danger.
Today the lake is about 700-800 acres big and is overgrown with hyacinth and weeds and it has two outflow channels that takes its polluted waters downstream. The public works departments have made two spillways which are narrow and it is here that on rainy days the lake water generates lather and foam that rises up many feet high and it piles up. The rustling wind over the lake ever so often raises large suds in the air and they keep on floating up like soap bubbles in a child’s play toy. At times the foam covers the bridge over the spillway and people have perforce to pass through it.
It is from one of these places that this photograph has been shot on a post rainy day in July 2016.
In the year 2016, we still have this problem and looks like will continue to have it in the near future as well. It is to do with how things are done in India. The Sewage treatment plants filter and throw the water into these water bodies. Even if you consider this as a clean and not a reprehensible act, then you must know that almost 50 percent of these plants do not even work and untreated sewage goes straight in. Secondly the number of STPs are not enough. The government of Karnataka expresses it inability by quoting lack of finances.
The situation is the same as governments in India have always expressed. Take urban transportation. UN, World Bank and a whole host of other nations and institutions had always been willing to fund a metro system in Delhi etc but the government would not take the money as such projects did not have kickbacks and opportunities for contractors to generate bogus bills as a tight fiscal discipline was always a pre requisite for such grants. So it took decades for the Indian government to agree to have the metro system.
That is how the cookie crumbles in India and I guess people in Bangalore as well as the ones living alongside the holy Yamuna river must wait for some succour and common sense to prevail in the corridors of the government where one day they may agree to being funded under a tight fiscal control.
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