CF Miley, Oy rth Editor REMUS Tatas Tae “...and it saddens me, like televised casualties.” —Aesop Rock, Float “Too often we enjoy the comfort of opin- ion without the discomfort of thought.” —John FE Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963) I when my hot water tank went kaput on December 23. I sublet my base- ment, and my tenant’s living room flooded—forcing him to leave and take up residence at his parents’ house. I was had a rough go this holiday season left with no hot water over Christmas, and found myself trying to negotiate some quick fixes and rent reduction with my landlord over the holidays. I was bitter at having no hot water, and felt like the tim- ing of the incident was designed by the Divine to test my mettle. My swelling anger spoke volumes about my seeming failure to practice patience in my day-to- day life. All that changed on December 26, however, when a giant wall of water struck a bunch of people P’'ve never met in places Pve never been. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia—and the subsequent Tsunami—quickly snapped me out of my minor tale of self woe and into a state of disbelief. As the number of fatalities con- tinued to grow, I found something strange growing inside myself—perspective. Occasionally, we are all guilty of believing that we are somehow hard done by. As the bills and stresses of consumer- driven holidays and post-secondary education increase, so does my likelihood of feeling anger at my present situation. I forget sometimes just how blessed I really am in this world. I am blessed to have been born in the “first” world. I am blessed to have a family that loves me. I am blessed with a son I love dearly and friends that I respect. I have a warm home with a comfy bed and cable television. I spent Boxing Day deciding whether or not to brave the crowds in search of killer door-crashing prices, while half a world away, hundreds of thousands of human beings spent their Boxing Day in a final moment of absolute terror while a killer wave crashed through the last door they’d ever see. By all the gods and goddesses, I am living a blessed life. In seeing my own situation from my newfound perspective, I decided the should have been donated to a relief fund, I’m not into arguing over peanuts today. I'll leave that to the other monkeys. Today, I’m feeling just a bit to human—and humane—to be bickering over nonsense. I don’t ask much of you, dear reader, but today I’ve got a request: take a few minutes to be thankful. Count your bless- ings. There'll be plenty of time to be angry again next Tuesday after lunch, so long as your ticket doesn’t get punched “flooding” in my basement was exactly what it was—inconvenient. I got my hot water back on December 27; my tenant now has new carpet in his living room. I ended up eating $100 of his rent, and I ate it gladly. He deserved the break on the rent, and even though I think the money between now and then, that is. To donate to the International Response Fund, go to . Or, you can donate in person at businesses throughout the Lower Mainland and Vancouver. Bus Riders Fare Strike for Our Rights Heather Jones, Bus Riders’ Union Organizer and Former Douglas College Student . Please keep dry/do not fold. R January 12/8008 n December 8, 2004, the () TransLink board voted to increase transit fares for the third time in five years. Students at BC community colleges can ill afford to pay more money for bus fare. Between 2002 and 2005, tuition at BC community col- leges has increased by over 100 percent. At Douglas College you pay $78.75 per credit hour, and if you are an internation- al student you pay $350 per credit hour. Students are forced to work more hours and take money out of their food budgets to pay for tuition. A recent Statistics Canada report found that 71 percent of students who drop out of post-secondary education in BC do so because the cost of attending school is unsustainable for them. The fare increase hits community- college students particularly hard. Community-college students are strug- gling to get by and maintain success in school yet they do not receive a U-pass. Access to education means more than affordable tuition: access to education means being able to afford to eat, pay rent, pay for childcare, and pay for bus fare in order to attend school. Since January 1 when fares went up, I have talked to hundreds of desperate bus tiders wanting to know how TransLink could get away with another fare increase. They say that the increase means that they now have to take food off of their kids plates to pay for bus fare, that they can’t afford to attend school, that they are pre- vented from travelling to apply for work or go to job interviews, that seniors are isolated from family and friends. I have seen criminalization of transit-dependent people increase and watched angrily as SkyTrain cops target and humiliate poor people and people of colour for fare eva- sion. The irony is that it should be illegal for TransLink to raise fares and make the system more inaccessible for precisely the people who need it most. It should be ille- gal for TransLink to push more families into poverty in order to subsidize big business. How does TransLink justify increasing fares? They do it the same way that the BC provincial government and university and community college administrations justify deregulating and increasing tuition fees to supposedly improve and expand service. But the massive hikes to tuition have not translated to improvements to post-secondary education in this province. In the last three years, classes have become overcrowded and student- support services have been cut. In the same way, fare increases in the last five years have not translated into better bus service. Buses are increasingly overcrowd- ed and breaking down. Service availability, hours, and frequency are inadequate, par- ticularly in suburban areas. Instead of purchasing clean-air buses, TransLink chooses to run polluting diesel-fuel buses that damage air quality and the health of our communities. Instead of putting money into improving bus service, TransLink chooses to spend their money on megaprojects that don’t benefit bus riders. Just one week before TransLink voted to increase fares, the board approved putting over $1.5 billion in pub- lic money into the Richmond Airport-Vancouver SkyTrain Line. The RAV line will be constructed as a Public- Private Partnership which means that TransLink will pay a private company, SNC-Lavallin, to build the line and will turn it over to the company to run as a private service for profit and that they will charge transit riders five to six dollars in Continued on page 8 DUNEPPPeSs | 7