Blogging for Beginners August 18-25th

Posted on August 7, 2007 by raincoaster

Just a quick note to let everyone know that raincoaster media (ie me!) will be giving the popular course Bloggging for Beginners again. This will be split into two half-day sessions, a week apart, to give students time to work with their blogs and develop specific questions and fluency. Let’s face it: we were all overloaded after last month’s marathon 1-day session.

At some point in the next two weeks we’ll announce an online course session as well, via either MSNMessenger or Second Life, and in early September we’ll be giving our course in the sunny Okanagan.

Blogging for Beginners will run in Vancouver once per month for the forseeable future.

Students can choose from morning or afternoon sessions: the first will run Saturday, August 18th, and the second Saturday, August 25th. Morning sessions begin at 9:30 and end at 12:30, while afternoon sessions begin at 1:30 and end at 4:30. Classes will be held at Tradeworks Training Society downtown (loads of street parking, and easy access to buses and Stadium Skytrain Station).

Our original announcement is here; please note the format change.

What: Blogging for Beginners: from Zero to Technorati

When: 9:30am-4:30 pm, Saturday, August 18th and August 25th, 2007

Where: Tradeworks Training Society, Vancouver

Why: Get your blog up and running in one day; optimized and pimped out in two! Strictly limited to no more than 8 students, this course covers blog basics like:

· what a blog can and can’t do for you
· doing business on blogs/advertising and Adsense
· podcasting, video, audio, and text posts
· basic copyright law and accepted practices
· blog promotion
· joining the blogosphere at large
· solving basic technical problems, where to find help
· what to say when you have nothing to say/what to say when you have far too much to say.

Who: raincoaster media ltd, in partnership with Tradeworks Training Society.
Contact lorraine.murphy at gmail.com or use the contact form below for more information (details continue below form). If inquiring about our online classes, please let us know your time zone.

How(much)? $100 tuition. Pre-register to reserve your space: email lorraine.murphy at gmail.com or phone 778-235-0592, and pay via the secure Paypal link on running through rain.

Blogging is the most powerful self-publishing tool ever invented; not only is it free and accessible, but it’s easy. Let Vancouver blogger and entrepreneur Lorraine Murphy teach you the skills to start up, maintain and promote your own blog. Whether you’re interested in blogs for self-expression, showcasing your professional expertise, personal journaling, keeping in touch with family, making new friends, sharing poems, or even publishing a book, this intensive course will get you up and running.

With class size limited to 8, this will be a program of personalized, hands-on learning. During the class you will create your own blog, tweak the design, publish your first post, add a YouTube video, and even some music. Then you’ll learn how to let Google and Technorati and other search engines know you exist, and begin to take part in the blogging community as a whole, including where to turn when you need help. We’ll wrap up with a lesson on effective and values-driven blog promotion practices and netiquette. You will leave with a functional, optimized blog and all the skills you need to take it as high in the blogosphere as you want to go. See you on Technorati!

Bio: Lorraine Murphy is a Vancouver blogger, writer, and editor. She has been blogging for many years, both professionally and personally, and her flagship blog, raincoaster, is ranked in the top 16,000 blogs in the world. She also maintains The Shebeen Club Blog for the literary group of the same name, and running through rain, for students of her course Blogging to Personal Growth. Ms Murphy is the author of Terminal City: Vancouver’s Missing Women and a former Small Business Columnist at Business in Vancouver newspaper and Occupational Pursuit magazine. As one of the cornerstone volunteers in the WordPress.com technical help forums, she has long experience helping beginning bloggers develop fluency and achievement online.

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Charter Challenge Launched to Strike Down Prostitution Laws

Posted on August 4, 2007 by raincoaster

Charter Challenge Launched to Strike Down Prostitution LawsFor Immediate Release: August 3, 2007

VANCOUVER – Sex workers in Vancouver today initiated a charter challenge in the BC Supreme Court asking the Court to strike down the current criminal laws relating to adult prostitution.

The Charter challenge is being brought by a registered non-profit society called Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV), a group of current and former female sex workers from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The group has been meeting since 2005 and one aspect of their mandate is to lobby for law and policy reforms to improve the lives and working conditions of women involved in sex work.

“It can’t continue like this. Working girls are dying down here. The laws are to blame and they need to be struck down,” says Sarah, a member of SWUAV. “We asked the government to do something and there has been no action. So now we’re going to Court to ask them to make the legal changes necessary to make us safer.”

The Statement of Claim, filed today in BC Supreme Court, states that the current criminal laws expose sex workers to significant harm – physical and sexual violence, lack of access to police protection, social stigma and inequality, exploitation and murder. SWUAV will argue that the current criminal laws violate the security, liberty, equality and expression rights of sex workers, as set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Katrina Pacey is counsel for SWUAV and works for Pivot Legal LLP, a law firm that operates in conjunction with Pivot Legal Society. Joseph J. Arvay, Q.C. is co-counsel on the case and has argued many leading constitutional cases at the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We intend to call evidence that will show the harmful conditions experienced by sex workers under the current criminal laws,” said Katrina Pacey “Those laws create dangerous conditions that deny the basic human rights afforded to all Canadians under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

SWUAV’s challenge follows on the heels of another recent Charter challenge against prostitution laws, launched by law professor Alan Young in Toronto. No trial date has yet been set for either case.

The following sections of the Criminal Code will be challenged:
Sections 212(1)(a),(b),(c),(d),(e),(f),(h) and (j) and (3), and 213 of the Criminal Code of Canada

The Plaintiff will argue that these sections violate the following sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
Section 7: life, liberty and security of the person
Section 15(1): equality
Section 2(b): freedom of expression

Contact:
Katrina Pacey
604.729.7849

A full statement of claim is available upon request. Please call Katrina at the number above or email her at kpacey at pivotlegal dot com.

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About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins. We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law.

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quiet riot: a Canadian mob scene

Posted on July 27, 2007 by raincoaster

So there I was, down at English Bay, waiting for the fireworks. But I was not alone: no indeed, 200,000 of my closest strangers and several of my friends were there with me.

And they were ready for us.

The three cops.

Actually, there were a great many more than three, although a wholly insufficient number to deal with the number of people celebrating their Welfare Wednesday en plein air. Most of them, indeed, were involved in traffic-denials and bicyclist harrassment and had no free hands, what with all the pointing and waving and whistling and “hey buddy, you can’t go there”-ing they were doing, to be involved in any riot-quelling activities.

Which brings us to the three cops.

The riot police.

The specialists.

You could tell they were riot police because of the quarterstaffs they carried in sheaths attached to their saddles.

Well, I guess technically it’s the SIX cops then, if you take Brigadier’s Law into account.

The Yanko-Belgian (half Quarter Horse, half Belgian).

The Anglo-Percheron (sometimes known as the Heavy Irish Hunter).

The Freisian (aka “those ones that Martha Stewart has, you know, that match the trim on the house”).

And their associated humans.

All were dressed in proper riot gear, the modern equivalent of military plate: it’s the first time I ever saw horses with plexiglas faceguards, reinforced LED-accented tack, teensy poll helmets nestled behind the ears, shin and knee pads like an NHL goalie and, as mentioned above, quarterstaffs. Plus Tasers, guns, handcuffs, snaffles, the usual. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a broadsword, but alas I was disappointed.

And you know, they DID have a mob to deal with, much to the visible consternation of their human partners. Ooohh, those boys were not happy: they were livid, faces like slabs of meat ripped from the flank of a charging bull.

Yes, the entire time they were on duty they were surrounded by a mob six to twelve deep. A mob of Canadians. A mob with one thing, and one thing only, on its mind.

“Can I pet your horse?”

pic o’ the day: notice!

Posted on July 26, 2007 by raincoaster

So this one time I was down at the Heather, and, in fact, I’ve been there more than just the one time; I’m there all the damn time, in fact, I was there today, only this one time? That was not this time. It was a completely different time. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

What? I only had two drinks!

So this time, I was down at the Heather and so were quite a number of other people, it being, I think, a Friday, and don’t we all need a good, stiff drink of a Friday? Indeed we do, and particularly myself. And one of these other people, a loquacious and somewhat recovering-fratboy-type fellow of a certain girth and a certain volume, was telling another, a much more discreet and forgettable straight man type in a hat, that he loved living on the Downtown EastSide, and why? Why, because he could take pictures of the junkies tweaking in the alley and post them to his blog.

And, as he said this, I wrote it down.

Cuz that’s how I roll, yo.

And, as I wrote it down, the manageress discreetly elbowed said frat-alum and pointed in my direction for, lo, she knows my evil, gossip-recording shenanigans from way back, and is generally the sharpest knife in the drawer to boot.

And fratboy, looking straight at me, said, “OH! Well I guess I better be careful! Big Brother is watching!”

And I said, still writing and without looking up, “Yes, but at least he’s not taking pictures and uploading them to his blog.”

Which got, it must be said, a fair round of applause, if no free drinks.

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Blogging for Beginners: from Zero to Technorati in 7 Hours

Posted on July 24, 2007 by raincoaster

What: Blogging for Beginners: from Zero to Technorati in 7 hours

When: 9:30am-4:30 pm, Saturday, July 28th, 2007

Where: Tradeworks Training Society, 2nd floor, 87 East Pender Street at Columbia, Vancouver

Why: Get your blog up and running in one day:
strictly limited to no more than 8 students, this course covers blog basics like:

· what a blog can and can’t do for you
· doing business on blogs/advertising and Adsense
· podcasting, video, audio, and text posts
· basic copyright law and accepted practices
· blog promotion
· joining the blogosphere at large
· solving basic technical problems, where to find help
· what to say when you have nothing to say/what to say when you have far too much to say.

Who: raincoaster media ltd, in partnership with Tradeworks Training Society.
Contact lorraine.murphy at gmail.com for more information

How(much)? $100 tuition for the full day
Pre-register to reserve your space: email lorraine.murphy at gmail.com or phone 778-235-0592

To join our mailing list for future blogging classes, just fill out the contact form below.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Blogging is the most powerful self-publishing tool ever invented; not only is it free and accessible, but it’s easy. Let Vancouver blogger and entrepreneur Lorraine Murphy teach you the skills to start up, maintain and promote your own blog. Whether you’re interested in blogs for self-expression, showcasing your professional expertise, personal journaling, keeping in touch with family, making new friends, sharing poems, or even publishing a book, this intensive one-day course will get you up and running.

With class size limited to 8, this will be a day of personalized, hands-on learning. During the class you will create your own blog, tweak the design, publish your first post, add a YouTube video, and even some music. Then you’ll learn how to let Google and Technorati and other search engines know you exist, and begin to take part in the blogging community as a whole, including where to turn when you need help. We’ll wrap up with a lesson on effective and values-driven blog promotion practices and netiquette. You will leave with a functional, optimized blog and all the skills you need to take it as high in the blogosphere as you want to go. See you on Technorati!

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Category Archives: Vancouver

quiet riot: a Canadian mob scene

Blogging for Beginners: from Zero to Technorati in 7 Hours

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