Resistance Art

The latest news about the ship breaking up off the coast of New Zealand and spilling hundreds of tonnes of oil near Tauranga is heartbreaking - people in The Bay of Plenty are heading out to clean up the mess with sand pails and rubber gloves. I remember as a kid, sitting on the veranda as my mother struggled to remove tar from my hands and feet - butter was the chosen remedy but it wasn't very effective. It seemed to take forever, the time lengthened, no doubt, by her irritation. How was I to know the newly-laid asphalt was still sticky? Lucky for both of us, we didn't have to lick each other clean because the toxins would likely have made us very sick.

Meanwhile, in Smithers, geomorphologist Jim Schwab has just released a report assessing the likelihood of pipelines breaking apart in landslides as the unstable landscape of the northwest shifts in winter freezes and thaws, rainstorms, avalanches and the kind of slippages that are a part of day to day life on uneven ground.

So, none of us are alone in our concerns; each of us chooses our way to respond to those concerns. Check out the article I wrote for the latest issue of Northword - "Resistance Art: A Special Beauty." It celebrates all of you who use your creativity to resist...