Aren't We Asking The Wrong Questions?

Newspapers currently abound with stories of the toll taken by the bitterly cold weather that has taken hold of a good part of the continent, followed closely by tales of the perennial 'blame game.'

For example, countless numbers have railed against the decision to close Pearson Airport in Toronto for more than eight hours, prompting a massive ripple effect of cancellations and delays that are still being felt today.

Freeze-ups of Toronto streetcars created commuter chaos, prompting renowned ventriloquist and city councillor Doug Ford to call for their end and more underground transit.

Ontario's perpetually perturbed Tories are calling for an inquiry over the Ontario government's response to the ice storm that left so many without power for so long.

Toronto Public works Chair Denzil Minnan-Wong will conduct a review into the city's response to the emergency.

But shouldn't we be asking some much more fundamental questions? For example, what is at the root of this increasingly volatile weather, and how do we begin the long process of reestablishing climate equilibrium?

Of course, some of the answers may not be to our, or our overlords' liking.



I would express the hope that some real political leadership will emerge from all of this were it not for my reluctance to be dismissed as a hopeless idealist.

That Didn't Take Long

Bob 'Mad Dog' Runciman has a solution for those pesky protestors who dare embarrass the Prime Minister.

For What It's Worth

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield, January 1967

After reading this post by Alison at Creekside, and this one by Doctor Dawg, both dealing with Chuck Strahl and CSIS, and the latter's collaboration with Enbridge in spying on Canadians exercising their democratic rights, please enjoy the entire song:




As well, the CBC's Kady O'Malley weighs in here.

Some Things Never Change

Although the following Rick Mercer rant was made early in 2013, most, I think, would agree that nothing has changed in the interim:

I Am Weak

Already, I am breaking my New Year's resolution not to mock unhinged televangelists. Pat Roberston, as usual, provided a temptation I could not withstand:

Progress Or Politics?

If you start the following video at about the 5:30 mark, you will hear a surprising answer from Conservative MP Braid Braid when asked by Evan Solomon if the Harper government believes in climate change.


Progress or mere politics? You decide.

A Letter We Should Widely Share

Although he likely doesn't articulate anything that progressive bloggers don't already know, Star letter-writer Paul Kahnert of Markham neatly and succinctly addresses the real design behind tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. It deserves to be shared widely with those who may not be fully aware of some essential facts.

Have we had enough? Insight Jan. 4

Tories like Stephen Harper and Rob Ford (and Tim Hudak) follow the Tory plan of tax cuts, which mostly goes to corporations and the wealthy. Tax cuts then create a crisis in public services. Then the Tories bring in privatization to deal with the crisis by selling public assets and services to the corporations and the wealthy.

Why do we the public constantly vote for this scam? You can’t build a civilization on tax cuts. Look where we’re going with the Tories. A just civilization was never built on tax cuts and never will be.

Where is the politician who promises fair taxes, good governance and independent oversight? This is how we built our city, our province and our country before. This is how we built a just society.

There is more wealth now than there ever has been. We can afford healthcare, education, public services and livable pensions. The only reason Harper doesn’t want to increase the Canada Pension Plan is because his friends at the banks won’t get their service charges.

Strip away the smoke and mirror show of Harper, Ford and Hudak and you’ll see the truth. The only thing that Tories do, is transfer public wealth to the private few.

Paul Kahnert, Markham

The Polar Vortex Explained

In response to my post the other day about Donald Trump's fatuous dismissal of climate change because of the cold we are experiencing, The Mound of Sound, who does exemplary work on the subject, explained that the loss of Artic ice is powering the Polar Jet Stream currently engulfing us.

Here is a video that offers a clear and cogent explanation of the phenomenon:



A more detailed written explanation can be found here. All in all, things are unfolding as climate change experts predicted. And that is very, very bad news indeed.

Narrowcasting And The Internet

Narrowcasting can be defined as the process of aiming a radio or TV program or programming at a specific, limited audience or consumer market. While it is a term that is applied to traditional media, Noah Richler suggests in an interesting article in today's Star that increasingly, the Internet, by the choices people make, is quickly becoming a medium that is narrowing, not expanding, our capacity for critical thought.

While his article perhaps does not constitute a fresh insight, Richler points out that we are becoming increasingly susceptible to what he calls the tyranny of measurement, our propensity toward counting hits and likes as the barometer of just about everything we do now. In other words, we are letting what we read, and the sites we visit, be inordinately influenced by how many 'likes' a Facebook posting may have, how many 'hits' an article gets, etc., thereby reducing the marketplace of ideas to, well, a marketplace driven by the force of popularity.

Richler points out that the arbiters of ideas worth pursuing formerly had certain criteria by which things were evaluated and deemed worthy. Although now the process may be much more democratic in a sense, choices are now influenced by what he calls a pendulum of approval that has swung extremely towards that which is vindicated by the masses.

We are living in a period of gross aberration marked by a giddy counting that has seen us forget other ways to calibrate our common sense. We post a picture to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, and count the number of “Likes” and “Retweets” and “Comments” and compare.

The barometer is instant, just as it is for companies evaluating the content of their websites with their own easily tabulated scale of hits, or for political parties reneging on a lot of good ideas that, not so easily enumerated, are of less worth in the pursuit of power.

Such a trend can have insidious effects:

When it comes to the news, a smaller number of stories garner ever more massive amounts of attention before the reverb to which our own viral sharing pushes us to forget them. And, in the political sphere, the web’s herding of us into like-minded crowds means that we ignore even the smallest of contradictory arguments and conduct ourselves as ideologues.

Richler links the tyranny of numbers to something that we are all familiar with:

This tyranny of numbers, distracting from more far-sighted views, goes hand in hand with the “selective exposure” that the Internet encourages.

The Internet’s illusion of proximity to the like-minded, no matter how dispersed — the fellowship it creates in the virtual sphere that affects our behaviour in the real one — is one of its most distinctive properties. In the digital age, we gather all too easily alongside those whose messages are consonant with our own.

I think we all know how the verification and validation of our own views and philosophies is made easy by the Internet. For example, while I read a number of progressive blogs, it is rare for me to seek out a conservative one, although I justify it to myself by asserting that there are very few of the latter worth reading, given their proclivity for screeds, rants, and character denigration. But is that simply a comforting excuse for me to be less expansive in my perspectives?

Richler has much more to say in this provocative article; you can read it in full here.

Domestic Abuse?

Anyone who has experience with the elderly, be they grandparents, parents, or extended family members, knows that their medical needs are often complex, and their isolation profound. As we age, there is no assurance that despite our best efforts to keep healthy and vigorous, we will not find ourselves in the position of needing a great deal of help someday.

During my mother's protracted final illness, the last two years of which were spent at home under the loving ministrations of my father, home care became an essential part of their daily routine. For about an hour-and-a-half both in the morning and the evening, a personal support worker (PSW) tended to my mother's needs. Whenever I was there during one of her visits, I couldn't help but notice the grace, kindness and patience with which she carried out her duties. It is a job few would envy.

And yet, despite the vital role such personnel play in the lives of so many, they are woefully underpaid and unappreciated by the Ontario government, which is responsible for setting their rates of remuneration. Like so much else, it would seem that their promotion of home care as a viable alternative to hospitalization and long-term care of the elderly is so much blather and rhetoric, given their reluctance to properly fund and remunerate the workers who, in a non-unionized environment, make a minimum wage of 12.50 an hour, a rate the government established in 2006. Many such workers receive no benefits and are employed only part-time.

To get a better picture of what many would consider an exploited class of worker, I strongly encourage you to take a look at an article written by a PSW, Charmaine Kelegan, in today's Star.

After reading the piece, I suspect most would agree that it is an underpaid and underappreciated job, but one vital to our society.

So Much For Academic Freedom

You only have to watch the first two minutes of this video to see the unhealthy and evil influence of the Koch brothers. The video also helps demonstrate why I love Rachel Maddow.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I Think We Saw This Coming

Given the severity of this winter season, it was only a matter of time before the usual right-wing blowhards weighed in with their 'wisdom.' Led by Donald Trump, they are all reassuring us that the cold, wind, and snow many of us are contending with definitively prove climate change to be a hoax.

Here is the latest declaration from the great deluded one:

This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice

I find myself nostalgic for the time when the public strutting of ignorance and stupidity was something to be embarrassed about, not trumpeted.

A Friday Evening Reflection

Hmmm. I can think of some who might resist this perspective:

“God reveals himself not as one who stands above and who dominates the universe, but as He who lowers himself. It means that to be like Him, we do not have to place ourselves above the others, but come down, come down and serve them, become small among the small, and poor among the poor.”

- Pope Francis, December 2013

Harper's New Year's Resolution?

Thanks to the Salamander for alerting me to this tweet from Stephen Lautens:

Mandatory Voting And Social Cohesion

The Toronto Star recently featured the 2013 Atkinson Series: Me, You, Us, journalist and author Michael Valpy’s investigation into social cohesion in Canada — what binds us together, what pulls us apart.

In its final installment, given the decline in voter turnout, one of the suggestions put forth to advance the cause of social cohesion was mandatory voting. It is a notion that I don't personally favour, my reasoning being perhaps reductionist and simplistic: in a mandatory system, the element of resentment would be strong, and some would blithely check off the first name on the ballot just to get out of the polling station. An uninformed vote (and yes,I know there are all ready a lot of them) is worse than no vote, in my view.

Two letters from Star readers offer some interesting perspective on the problems extant in today's democracies:


Fixing the tears in our social fabric, Dec. 22

It isn’t young people not voting that’s pushing democratic legitimacy to a crisis stage, it’s the systemic failure of the political class to address our problems.

Since the triumph of global capital after the fall of the Soviet Union, all political parties fell in line with the neoliberal narrative. Free trade (really a bill of rights for corporations), privatization, offshoring, destruction of the social safety net, ad nauseam, became the bedrock of every political party.
It’s almost funny watching the Liberals and NDP desperately trying to find an issue they disagree with the Tories on. It’s a class consensus. By its nature it excludes an increasing majority.

Michael Valpy’s “solution” of mandatory voting is a pathetic attempt to ignore the cause of this democratic crisis and shoot the messengers. We should be demanding that our political class give us something substantive to vote for.

John Williams, Toronto

............................................................

The following letter makes reference to a piece that George Monbiot wrote for The Guardian. If interested, you can read it here.

Voting is not the root cause of our crisis, but out of control corporate power may well be. George Monbiot, in the Guardian, makes this case in, “Nothing will change until we confront the real sources of power.”

Monbiot begins, “It’s the reason for the collapse of democratic choice. It’s the source of our growing disillusionment with politics. It’s the great unmentionable. Corporate Power. The media will scarcely whisper its name. It is howlingly absent from parliamentary debates.

“Until we name it and confront it, politics is a waste of time. The political role of corporation is generally interpreted as that of lobbyists, seeking to influence government policy. In reality they belong on the inside. They are part of the nexus of power that creates policy. They face no significant resistance from either the government or opposition, as their interests have been woven into the fabric of all three main parties.”

Monbiot describes the U.K. situation and supports his views with 15 listed references. He ends with, “So I don’t blame people for giving up on politics,” and “when an unreformed political funding system ensures that parties can be bought and sold, when politicians of the three main parties stand and watch as public services are divided up by a grubby cabal privateers, what is left of this system that inspires us to participate?”

The U.K. situation described by Monbiot is not unique; it is the same for most countries.

Frank Panetta, Welland

Newsana: A News Aggregator To Help Keep People Informed and Engaged

“Our mission at Newsana, our goal, is ultimately to become the world’s arbiter of high-quality news, analysis, ideas and opinions” ... The biggest problem with the online news experience right now is there is just too much content.”

- Ben Peterson, Newsana co-founder

Those of us with a passion for a better Canada know that the key to achieving it lies in having an engaged citizenry armed with information, knowledge, and some critical thinking ability, none of which occur in a vacuum. Probably the biggest deterrent for most people in acquiring those tools is time.

To be sure, there are sites that aggregate the news, but foraging through the dross can still be time-consuming. Now there is a new kid on the block that may help address this problem.

A few days ago, The Toronto Star ran a feature on people to watch in 2014. One of those people is Ben Peterson, quoted above. In April of 2013, he, his partners and backers launched Newsana, a news aggregator with a difference - the stories it carries are those suggested by its members.

Here's how it works:

Newsana ... hand-picks news from members, highlighting the top five items in topic areas from arts and entertainment to business to the future of journalism, as voted on by members themselves. The top five can change throughout the day.

Members are also ranked: and if their pitches are well-received by others, they move up in the rankings of influence in chosen categories. The goal is to have members share ideas and debate issues.

Members must apply to join the site (to date, some have been rejected) or they must be invited by an existing member.

The blogs that I read on a daily basis are written by some very knowledgeable and passionate people who frequently lead me, with their insights and links, to information and perspectives that I would likely never have acquired on my own. Those bloggers have immeasurably enriched my understanding of the world we share.

So here is what I'm thinking. Having recently joined Newsana and become a contributor, mainly in the Canadian Politics topic, it occurs to me that the kinds of quality articles the organization is seeking could be very effectively provided by engaged bloggers. While there is no provision for writing one's own pieces, contributors are given the option of writing a lead-in to create interest, as well as the opportunity to engage in dialogue with those who comment on the articles provided, not unlike what we do on our own blogs. I also suspect that a news aggregator like Newsana will attract an audience of people who may not necessarily read blogs, but still want to learn more, which takes me back to my opening observation about the need for an informed and engaged citizenry.

So I invite my fellow bloggers to take a look at the site and consider helping it grow so that together, we can continue our efforts to challenge the sad status quo that currently exists in Canada and make positive change a real possibility.

I Am Nobody

Something for all disheartened Canadians to keep in mind, eh?

Some Good Environmental News For A Change

Let's hope this is the beginning of a trend.

Happy New Year

With the dawning of 2014, may the new year see increasing numbers of Canadians who:

REJECT the Conservative Party of Canada and its efforts to excise the heart and soul of our country;

RENEW their faith in a fair, just and compassionate Canada

REENGAGE in the democratic and political process as agents of change

RECLAIM both the heritage and the potential that has made Canada unique in the world.

Towards Greater Clarity Of Language

A little something from the conservative lexicon:



H/t I don't like what Stephen Harper is doing to Canada

Pass the Puffer, Please

You probably know that dolphins are highly intelligent creatures, with brain sizes that are comparable to those of humans. And, like humans, they are self-aware creatures with the ability to solve problems.

I therefore suspect these magnificent creatures lead quite complex lives, and as we know, the ability to engage in complexity brings with it a great deal of stress. Without doubt, dolphins must contend with a great deal of environmental stress, including noise, pollutant or toxin exposure, presence of predators, loss of prey, and/or habitat changes.

So how do dolphins unwind and find some respite from the cares and worries they undoubtedly carry? They pass the puffer fish:



As reported in The Times of India, [i]n extraordinary scenes filmed for a new documentary, young dolphins were seen carefully manipulating a certain kind of puffer fish which, if provoked, releases a nerve toxin.

Their purpose? To get high.

You can read all about it here.

P.S. No word yet on whether the Harper government will be imposing stiff new penalties for use of this recreational drug.

Charlie Angus Sings 'The Reactionary Blues'

Kind of catchy, and makes for a great singalong, don't you think?




They're melting down the ice caps And raising up the trolls.
Putting shutters on the windows And burning all the notes.
The climate bell is ringing
But they've turned it back to snooze. I'm here a-singing the reactionary blues.
There's a war you never heard of
Better join the big parade
Or they'll cut off all your funding
That's how they play the game.
We ain't in this all together or don't you watch the news
They want you all singing the reactionary blues.

They're Thatcher's ugly children
And their world is black and white.
They're hunting down the rainbow
And spoiling for a fight.
They'll put you in a message box
Where nothing is really true
Leave you there a singing the reactionary blues.

It's about pressing all the buttons
And turning all the screws
It's about a Third World in the Northland
Where the children always lose
The fat cats are feasting on your future
Like they always do
While you’re left a singing the reactionary blues.

I saw a Maple leaf a-flying
That wasn't ripped or torn
I saw a world that needed healing
Where little dreams were born.
It's gonna take a lot of effort
To rebuild all the things they blew
And we’ll never sing again
The reactionary blues

No I don't want no more
of your reactionary blues.

H/t The Huffington Post

All It Takes Is One Ant

H/t Occupy Canada

Another Indictment Of Police Leadership

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am a regular critic of the police. While recognizing the at-times difficult job they have and the very real potential of becoming jaded because of the criminal element with which they must deal, I have never had any sympathy, understanding or tolerance for the abuse of power that some regularly engage in.

Similarly, I am frequently offended by those who lead institutions but refuse to take responsibility for the dysfunctions that occur under their watch. We have, for example, Stephen Harper's declarations that he knew nothing about the Nigel Wright payoff of Mile Duffy; while I do not believe the Prime Minister, even if it were true, responsibility, and blame, as they say, resides at the top.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, about whom I have written many times, strikes me as one who enjoys the perks of power but refuses to accept responsibility when things go wrong with his troubled force. The G20 debacle is probably the most egregious, but hardly the only example of his failure as chief.

A story in this morning's Star offers the most recent indictment of Blair's leadership. The Supreme Court made a definitive ruling on police strip searches in 2001, forbidding the authorities to strip their suspects completely naked, declaring it a breach of Charter Rights. Despite this, however, Toronto Const. Sasa Sljivo declared during the trial of Lerondo Smith, charged with drug trafficking and breaching conditions ... that he has stripped “hundreds” of people completely naked as part of routine searches.

Two things are striking about this admission. First, Sljivo averred in court that he was unaware of the Supreme Court ruling, and second, he told the court that he was trained by his coach officer, a police mentor, to strip-search people fully naked.

The story goes on to say Toronto police adopted those rules (i.e., the prohibition laid out by the Supreme Court) in its procedure information sheet regarding “searches of person.”

My questions are few and simple:

If the rules have been clearly set out by the Toronto police, how is it that Const. Sljivo has carried out hundreds of improper searches, apparently endorsed by his training officer?

Does the Toronto constabulary regard the Supreme Court ruling as one more honoured in the breach than in the observance?

What kind of environment has the 'leadership' of Chief Blair fostered that this could happen not once, not twice, but hundreds of time?

How many others engage in this illegal practice?

Predictably, questions sent to police spokesman Mark Pugash about the pervasiveness of these searches and whether anyone has ever been disciplined for conducting them went unanswered.

Stripping prisoners naked is a time-honoured practice of torturers to break people down. It has no place in a democracy. Chief Blair has some serious police misconduct to answer for.

"The Truth Must Be Told"

By substituting the name of your own country for 'America' and 'person' for 'man', I think you will agree that Martin Luther King's message in the following speech is timeless:



Who can stir us thus today? Who can help us find that moral compass so necessary to heal the world? We are all part of the solution, if we can rouse ourselves beyond the perennial self-interest that shackles us.

Rather Apt, Don't You Think?

h/t Canadians Rallying To Unseat Stephen Harper

The Responsibility We All Must Assume

In a column entitled A disheartening year in Canadian politics published on Dec. 20, The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson recounts the corruption, buffoonery and scandals that permeate our municipal, provincial and federal governments. Whether we look at the antics of Toronto's Rob Ford, the widespread venality, graft and ties to organized crime endemic to Montreal politics as revealed by the Charbonneau Commmision, the gas plant scandal in Ontario or the diseased mentality surrounding Senategate, there seems little from which the average citizen can take heart.

In response to that column, a Globe letter-writer, Caroline Wang from Vancouver, offers an antidote that I think all of us who write progressive political blogs would heartily agree with. Rather than letting our disgruntlement and disillusionment be a reason to disengage from the political process, it should prompt all of us to channel our anger and become part of the solution:

Re A Disheartening Year In Canadian Politics (Dec. 20):

So isn’t it up to the “plenty of honourable and hard-working people” of Canada to change the unacceptable “culture of deceit, backscratching and venality” that appears endemic in political life and that caused the annus horribilis?

Jeffrey Simpson asks a good question: “How was it, with so many people complicit in the corruption for so long, that no one blew the whistle?”

If we want to see a change to the way of doing business that will promote a culture and system of legality and honour, this can only be done by Canadians who are “mad and disillusioned.”

The answer is not turning off. It is becoming more involved in order to challenge what is wrong.

Working together to stamp out the disease of “widespread, prolonged and systemic corruption” wherever it happens to be in our society is the first step to recovery.

Electing exemplary leaders who will shape our future and create a legacy that reflects and defines our national character is the only way to create the best from Canadian politics.

May 2014 mark the year that increasing numbers of us channel our inner Peter Finch and use our anger and our passion for a better Canada by devoting at least part of each day to learning more about the people and parties who have betrayed the trust that the electoral system has given them.

Boxing Day Shopping

It's never enough, is it?

UPDATE: Guest Post: The Salamander's Innovative Ideas For Bringing Down Harper

Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows;

- Ulysses - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I awoke this morning with a renewed sense of optimism, in part owing to a post that The Salamamder left on my blog yesterday, which I am reproducing in its entirety below. His comments and suggestions made me think of the possibilities before us, and once more reminded me of the strength, comfort and inspiration I take from my fellow bloggers. Not only do they so frequently lead me to information and insights not easy to find in traditional media, but they also leave me with the knowledge that there are many, many people in Canada who believe in and ardently seek a better world for all of us. The fact that they continue to advocate so passionately is proof, to borrow from and to paraphrase John Steinbeck, that the human spirit is alive and will not be vanquished.

The Salamander, I think you will agree, has some very creative and exciting ideas to share; please feel free to distribute them widely.

.. remember Thomas Nast's cartoons re Tammany Hall & New York City corruption... William M. Tweed reportedly said about them.. "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me.
My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures

.. remember that Stephen J. Harper's base are seemingly incapable of understanding the destructive values, policies, narcissism and entitlement inherent in Harper and all his political franchise.. but they too can understand simple pictures, cartoons and brief truthful & undeniable messages.

ie Linking Peter Kent with a wolf poisoned by airdropped strychnine to 'save' boreal & woodland caribou (see Canada 25 cent piece) whose habitat is being destroyed by tar sands, fracking and pipelines.

ie Stephen Harper (image) does not want Canada or countries we export to, to realize that we are shipping infected commercial salmon & killing off our wild salmon.

ie John Baird (image) thinks its OK to drive indigenous Bedouins off their tribal lands to make room for Israeli settlements

ie Jim Flaherty (image) is A-OK with Nigel Wright and Onex, managing the Canada Pension Plan & delaying when you receive your benefits (not by mail!)

ie ice covered F-35's being sniffed by curious polar bears
ie Benjamin Perrin (image) 'I swear to uphold solicitor/client privilege ..'
ie Jason Kenney is getting by just fine.. but then he lives with his mommy
ie Dean Del Mastro is getting smeared by himself and crying to us about it
ie Senator Gertstein.. too big, too important, to go to jail or tell the truth
ie Ray Novak (image) Just 'friends' with Stephen Harper.. Canada, not so much

The list is endless.. and could facilitate the 4 steps you defined ..
and that's just one type of campaign .. There are others ..... ....
How about videos on Youtube that go viral.. !!!
and gain International attention ??
and millions of views ??
Remember the farcical interview with Kathyn Hammond re 'ethical oil' funding ???
and the puppet version done later ?
How about 'Tell Vic Everything' ? That went big .. and his name is now mud

Spread a little funding among brilliant, patriotic and scathing artists
and you have political dynamite .. especially if you target that weird fragmented 10% of voters the Conservative Party is so desperate to recover or deceive

Merry Christmas ... !!

And this later addition from The Salamander:

.. Lorne .. I dream of how bright individuals, the power of groupthink or lateral thinking solutions could help initiate such campaigns. I always think about Franke James and how she reaches into public areas with her brilliant work.. I wonder how we can stimulate & promote hundreds, even a thousand like her. And how we can piggyback or point to articles and blogs such as yours, Simon, MoS and all the others with their varying approaches yet incisive, critical information..

Bottom line ? I cannot believe a farmer from Saskatchewan will vote for his local Conservative MP.. or a young Tamil in Pickering, or a fisherman in BC upon realizing their MP cannot explain why PM Harper, leader of The Conservative Party is litigating against wounded Canadian military veterans.. So the challenge is.. how do you get across a simple undeniable truth.. that mainstream media fails to deliver? Probably with humor, truth, hard work and good old real Canadian values and can do - will do - ingenuity..

.. from the icy flatlands.. Best wishes & thanks.. & A Merry Christmas



UPDATE: This just in from The Salamander:

.. inspired by indy Canadian bloggers like you, and so many others that present undeniable truths.. am beginning to tweet suggestions for PM Harper Commemorative CP One Dollar postage stamps. Well, actually one could stick them anywhere - can't cost much to produce limited runs of sheets, say 9 by 9 (81) stamps.

I've already tweeted a suggestion for a wonderful stamp..
a heroic Stephen Harper image with copy such as
'I've Been Very Clear - Spying On Canadians is Canadian Values'

Stamps like these would be great on telephones & computer screens

Organize - Resist - Challenge - Change can be driven in two directions at once in a McLuhanesque mischievous way..
More on that later.. plus the '#AskHarperWhy?' hashtag

.. and I do want to initiate the concept of 'the glowing hearts'

I dream of the day when Stephen Harper starts shouting in a bathroom.. 'those stamps are ruining me !!'

A Christmas Thought

While I was not going to post anything today, I offer the following brief thought:

During this season and throughout 2014, may our hearts be attuned to those who can inspire us rather than to those who seek to manipulate and subjugate. May we begin to rediscover, as our greatest moral heroes amply demonstrate, that it is possible to prevail over our natural selfishness and shortsightedness; we can be a much better people, and the world can still be a wondrous place in which to fulfill our potential.

And as we confront those who want us to believe only the worst about ourselves and our fellow human beings so as to make their policies easier to enact, we need to

Organize

Resist

Challenge

Change

Merry Christmas, everyone.

A Good Question

But what is the answer?

Re: ‘Golden age’ for Poland caps 500 years of pain, Dec. 22

Seeing the statement “communism’s iron grip” was too much. What about capitalism’s iron grip? Communism has come and gone in Poland, Russia and many other countries. But we have endured capitalism for centuries and it shows no sign of abating.

It tells us that we live under democracy, when in fact we can do nothing to stop the actions of mean and disgusting people like Stephen Harper and Rob Ford, when binding treaties are negotiated without our knowledge, when we are not permitted to know when we are eating genetically modified food, when the poor get poorer while the rich get richer. Capitalism has resulted in climate change, of which there is no end in sight, other than the destruction of the world.

Our so-called “democratic” structures were set up centuries ago by the rich and powerful to attempt to make capitalism run smoothly, and, above all, to guarantee the system’s persistence. It has not run smoothly, but it has stayed in place.

How do we extricate ourselves from the iron grip of capitalism?

Ken Ranney, Peterborough

H/t The Toronto Star

Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten

H/t Catherin Bradbury

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

-excerpted from The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Coleridge

In what may seem like a very long time ago but is, by historical standards, really but a blink of the eye, our forebears had a quite healthy respect for nature. They knew of its power and its fury, its capacity both to give and to take, and the rhythms of the seasons imposed their own kind of discipline on people. Whether setting off on a sea voyage or planting crops, there was an innate understanding of humanity's place in the scheme of things. We were not the masters and mistresses of our own fates. Although we were bold and took many chances, propelled by our curiosity about the world around us, we still recognized our limitations.

Sadly, that wisdom has been forgotten.

When I was in the classroom, one of the works I delighted in teaching was Coleridge's The Rime of The Ancient Mariner. For me, the poem has always stood as a parable of humanity's willfulness; very briefly, it is the story of the humbling and horrible lesson a mariner must learn. The hubris informed by his own ego tells him that he is the pinnacle of creation and thus entitled to do as he pleases, with disastrous results.

In the early part of the poem, the Albatross is associated with good fortune, leading the sailors out of a dire predicament. After the crisis has passed, however, for reasons never directly explained, the Mariner, who is essentially the captain of the vessel, kills the albatross, an act that ultimately results in the death of his entire crew and the complete isolation, both physical and spiritual, of the Mariner. As I used to suggest to my students, he likely killed the Albatross simply because he could; in other words, it is one of those many heedless acts that seem to reflect so much of our human nature.

By the poem's end, the Mariner has learned his lesson, but at a horrible price. Unfortunately, in our time we seem, as a species, incapable of gaining such insights, the evidence of our willfulness so plentiful I will not insult you by pointing it out.

Every so often, even in our cossetted 'first-world' experience, we are reminded of our folly. In Southern Ontario, where I reside, yesterday's ice storm left parts of my community, including our house, without power for six hours, a minuscule inconvenience compared to the over 250,000 still without power in the Toronto area as I write this; some may even remain in the dark until at least Christmas Day.

Yet the storm, emblematic of a much more profound disturbance in the environment, will, as other countless disasters in recent years, go largely unremarked by the population at large and, of course, by those we entrust to lead us. Climate change amelioration? Carbon pricing? Valuing capital? Forget it. Adaptation? Maybe. But more likely our 'masters' will continue to say and do things that people want to hear: everything is fine, the economy is rebounding, and global warming is but a contentious 'theory'.

The Ancient Mariner learned a hard lesson that drastically altered the course of his life. It seems to be our fate as a short-sighted species never to learn ours.

Tory Policy-Making: The Dangers Of Simplistic Thinking

Fallacies of reasoning are easy traps to fall into. Whether it is absolutist thinking, straw man arguments or any number of other errors of thought, we are all prone to them, and I am sure that I am no exception. Our best defense against such faulty thinking is to try to cultivate our critical faculties as much as we can; one of the best ways of doing so is to read widely and deeply. There is no alternative, unless wants to make a virtue of simplistic and lazy cognition.

The latter, of course, is what the Harper regime has excelled at since it was first elected. Most issues have been reduced to an either/or option; perhaps the most infamous was the facile and inflammatory statement Vic Toews made over those who opposed his failed Internet surveillance bill, namely that people “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

The Tory propensity for reducing issues to their simplest forms has done a grave disservice to the people of Canada, who have essentially been told time and again that they need not think deeply and engage vigorously with issues of public policy, but rather let an autocratic majority government decide instead what is best for them. People increasingly seem more and more passive when told, for example, that now is not the time to improve the CPP, OAS must be delayed to age 67, or home mail delivery must end, all due to cost constraints.

And yet, with critical thinking, there is always room for alternative approaches to public policy. One such instance can be found in Canada Post. Although a crown corporation with an ostensible degree of independence from government influence, the recent decision to end home mail delivery and raise stamps to $1 each has all the earmarks of a government bent on the erosion and ultimate dismantling of public programs and institutions. No compromises were seriously entertained, for example moving to three-day a week delivery to cut costs. It is a classically absolutist policy decision that will ultimately see the end of Canada Post.

In his column in Saturday's Star, Thomas Walkom introduces a notion that could, in fact, make Canada Post very profitable and facilitate the retention of delivery services: a postal savings bank, an idea that has been advocated by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

Arguing that Canada Post has the technology and infrastructure to make such a venture both possible and highly profitable, Walkom points to New Zealand, France, Italy and Britain as successful examples of the concept:

New Zealand’s postal banking system, which was re-invigorated just eight years ago, now accounts for 70 per cent of the profit earned by that country’s post office. The comparable figure for Italy is 67 per cent.

France’s postal savings bank accounts for 36 per cent of its postal service’s pre-tax earnings. Britain is privatizing mail delivery. But it is not privatizing its system of post offices and postal savings banks. They’re too lucrative.

Indeed, as Walkom points out, former Canada Post CEO Moya Greene, who was hired away by Britain's Royal Mail, was an advocate of postal banking:

Speaking to a Senate committee three months before taking up her Royal Mail job, Greene said Canada Post was seriously considering the idea of offering full financial services.

“We . . . need to diversify the revenue stream and be in wholly different businesses than we are today,” she told the committee. “I note, for example, that many postal administrations have made a success of banking.”

Another compelling and potentially gratifying reason to offer such service resides in the conservative nature of our chartered banks which, many feel, should be shaken up a bit by competition. It is their conservative nature that is partly responsible for the fact that upwards of 15 per cent of Canadians are estimated to have no bank accounts at all, making them easy prey to the payday loan operations whose rates in Ontario can exceed 540 per cent.

So again, some reflection, analysis and good policy-making could solve two problems: the end of home delivery and the usurious interest rates that the poor without bank accounts must contend with.

But the Harper cabal is one that cares neither for nuance nor cerebration. After all, the solutions to problems are simple, reflected in just these mantras: privatization good, public ownership bad, and long live the 'free' market.

Another Timely Reminder From Canada Post

Perhaps the new levels of geriatric fitness to be achieved by ending home service will save government so much in health care costs that they can someday restore service? Just askin'

H/t The Toronto Star

Is Nothing Sacred?

My, my, my. These Santas were giving out something few would want to receive:

Canada Post Has Our Best Interests At Heart

Of course it does.



H/t The Globe and Mail

The Affluenza Judge Seems To Have A Double Standard

Now why does this not surprise me?

Were This The Best Of All Possible Worlds...

Were I of Dr. Pangloss' rosy outlook and believed that this is the best of all possible worlds, I might have some sympathy for people like Industry Minister James Moore who, as most will probably have heard, recently opined that it is not his job to feed his neighbour's child, an inapt remark for which he subsequently apologized.

He did add, at the time of his original offending remarks, that "We’ve neven been wealthier as a country than we are right now. Never been wealthier,” and boasted of his government's job-creation program.

And therein lies the problem. Mr. Moore and his ilk (i.e., the Harper regime and the neoliberal agenda) seem to reside in a parallel universe, one where there are jobs just for the asking, and anyone who finds him/herself in straightened circumstances is there largely due to personal fecklessness. In his column yesterday, The Star's Thomas Walkom neatly summed up this mindset, tracing it back to nineteenth-century liberalism:

This belief holds that individuals are responsible for their own destinies, that markets distribute income fairly and that (with limited exceptions) governments should get out of the way to let people live their lives.

That means allowing individuals to marry whomever they will. It also means relying on parents to care for their children as best they can.

Walkom also suggests that this worldview explains the federal government's refusal to consider the much-touted idea of pension reform:

The real reason for axing CPP reform, I suspect, has more to do with belief. The Canada Pension Plan is a form of forced saving. It requires workers to put aside money whether they wish to or not.

To the 19th century liberals of Harper’s government, this is anathema. Under their view, individuals should be free to save or spend as they please.

At retirement, the very poorest will be cared for by government at starkly minimal levels. The wealthiest can fall back on their inheritances.

So I might have some sympathy for the notion that people have to live within their means, save for their retirement, and essentially be as self-sufficient as possible IF we actually inhabited the world of Mr. Moore's imagination. However, the economic realities of the times, which sees an ever-growing precariat, a dearth of good-paying jobs, the erosion of company pension plans, and a massive proliferation of low-paying service jobs demand government compassion and involvement in the lives of people, something the Harper regime seems incapable of.

Let us hope 2015 sees the election of a party that has a better grasp of the economic realities of far too many Canadians than Harper's Conservatives do.

Now Here's An Interesting Idea

At a time when workers' rights are under constant attack, dangerous, Draconian, Orwellian and unconstitutional measures have been passed in Alberta that not only strip away the arbitration rights of public servants, but also limit their freedom of speech.

First, to the 'less contentious' of the two bills recently passed by Alison Redford's Conservative government. In Alberta, strikes by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, who have been without a contract since last March, are forbidden. However, recently passed Bill 46 removes the underpinnings enjoyed by most unions where strikes are prohibited: binding arbitration. With the removal of that right, Redford's government will now be able to impose the following after the negotiation deadline of January 31:

... a legislated four-year deal with no increases over the first two years and one-per-cent increases in each of the next two would come into effect.

However, there are even more grievous measures contained in companion Bill 45, ostensibly legislation to introduce a more comprehensive range of measures that can be applied when there is an illegal strike or threat of an illegal strike that goes much further.

As noted at Rabble.ca, the bill

... denies individuals the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Bill 45 introduces for the first time in Canada, a vague legal concept of "strike threat" which makes it illegal to canvass the opinion of "employees to determine whether they wish to strike" or to freely express a view which calls for or supports strike action.

So Bill 45 essentially attempts to strip away our constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech; it likely will not withstand a Charter challenge, but the bill's intent nonetheless provides a rather frightening look into the minds of legislators today, minds that seem to endorse the attack on essential rights and freedoms as somehow good and just. Even the Calgary Herald and Wild Rose leader Danielle Smith condemn such a worldview. The former describes the bills as marking a dark chapter in Alberta history.

How does one fight such a mentality? Writing in the Edmonton Journal, Lloyd Maybaum, an Alberta physician, draws upon his experience in 2012 during a period of protracted negotiations. He suggests an innovative strategy to combat this assault on basic rights: a virtual strike.

During a virtual strike, unlike an actual strike, there is no cessation or slowdown of work, and everyone earns their regular pay.

The power of the virtual strike lies in the strategic donation of earned income. In the case of a hostile, bullying government, one could follow the adage that the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend and donate income from virtual strike days to opposition parties in the legislature.

Every Wednesday, for instance, union leaders could encourage nurses from across the province to go online and donate $100 to the political party of their choice.

By so doing, the union would be taking its fight directly to the governing party, not allowing patients to become caught in the crossfire of negotiations.

And as Maybaum points out, every $100 donation would only cost $25 after the political donation deduction, and could prove a potent weapon in a jurisdiction that is apparently trying to cripple people's rights.

Should those of us not living in Alberta be concerned? Without question. Both federally and provincially, workers are increasingly seen as impediments to the unfettered profits of business. There is, for example, Tim Hudak in Ontario who wants to make the province a 'right to work' jurisdiction; the Harper cabal seeks to cripple unions through disclosure of expenditures via Bill C-377, legislation that has been weakened, fortunately, by a amendment in the Senate put forward by Hugh Segal.

Constant vigilance is required. Truly, the battle taking place in Alberta is everyone's fight.

Somedays

... I think of Canada's citizenry, in its willingness to take whatever the Harper regime dishes out in the way of mean-spirited, regressive and repressive legislation, as a beaten-down dog.

Chief Bill Blair And Secrecy

Presiding as he does over a very troubled organization, it is perhaps not surprising that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair prefers a cloak of secrecy to cover how he manages his force. But it is difficult to see whose interests, other than those of the good chief, are served by refusing to share with the public how he deals with his officers when they abuse citizens.

One of the first casualties of this refusal to shed light is surely public trust, a fact attested to by letters to The Star, one of which you can read below:

Re: Cops used ‘torture’ to get confession, top court rules, Dec. 13

Thanks to the Star for reporting on the sickening story of police brutality. Torture is a crime; police are not authorized to use force to obtain “confessions.” Charges are supposed to rely on evidence of criminal activity by the suspects, not by the police.

We pay the police to uphold the laws of our society, which include our civil and human rights. When police impunity is such that police believe that brutalizing people (and telling them to lie) is “part of the job”, it’s (past) time for our governments and courts to start to protect Canadian rights.

They might start by giving the SIU real teeth; police should be forced to respond promptly and honestly to SIU requests for information. There were many police who violated police rules and the rights of Canadians at the G20 several years ago, yet only one or two seem to have been called to account. Every one of the police identified as having broken any rules (such as not wearing proper identification) should have been punished appropriately. The courts should make the police fully accountable for violations of people’s rights. The police violations of Canadian human and civil rights should no longer be tolerated.

Karin Brothers, Toronto

The general public is not the only segment harbouring grave misgivings about those who 'serve and protect.' A hard hitting Star editorial in this morning's edition, entitled Toronto police secrecy undermines public trust, makes clear that the chief's evasions and subterfuge have no place in a democracy:

Undue secrecy when police investigate their own only saps public confidence that justice is done when an officer breaks the law. For that reason, if no other, Toronto’s police board should reveal reports that Chief Bill Blair prefers to keep hidden.

The reports refer to a specific offence allegedly committed by Toronto police: failure to co-operate with Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, the outside agency summoned whenever police are involved in a fatality or serious injury, or are accused of sexual assault.

The editorial goes on to observe that while Blair asserts that he has investigated all of the concerns brought forward by the SIU, he insists they remain confidential, only to be shared with the Toronto Police Services Board. Not even the SIU is privy to what he claims to have done. This stands in stark contrast to other police services that make the result of investigations public, excising only the most confidential information.

So who is Blair really protecting here?

There are many reasons I am glad not to be a resident of Toronto; the fact that it has a largely unaccountable police force led by a man who seems contemptuous of the public is among my chief ones.

In This Season Of Getting And Spending

... a timely reminder about the practices of the world's biggest retailer:



This article is also worthy of perusal.

A Lion In Winter

Like a bloated, aging and wounded lion who realizes his hold over his pride is at an end, Conrad Black is lashing out. Still licking his wounds from lacerations received at the hands of the CBC's Carol Off, Black used his column in Saturday's National Post (which as a rule I do not read, but more about that later) both to justify his journalistic ineptitude and to strike back at his growing list of adversaries who include Star editor Michael Cooke, Star columnist Rosie DiManno, The Star itself, and well, just about anyone else who finds fault with him.

With false leonine pride, in his column Black maintains the fiction that it was not journalistic ineptitude but rather the show's format that explains his toothless interview with disgraced Toronto pretend-mayor Rob Ford:

As co-host of the Vision Channel television program Zoomer, I invite people to sit down with me in civilized conversation, which often included unwelcome questions. But I do not conduct an antagonistic debate. This is a format that viewers seem to enjoy, and it was on this basis that guests — including Mayor Ford, last week — have agreed to speak with me.

He goes on to dismiss the controversy over Ford implying that Daniel Dale is a pedophile as a sideshow, and then launches into what can only be described as a screed against The Star and its staff, most notably its most prolific and acerbic writer, Rosie DiManno, whom he describes as a feminoid who is so disconcerted by my wife’s timeless appearance that she refers to the frequent praise of her as a form of “necrophilia.”

Which brings me to how I wound up reading Black's piece. This morning, The Star's own lioness, Rosie Dimanno, still apparently in her prime, extrudes her own claws as she responds to the Black attack.

Here is her opening salvo:

Mrs. Conrad Black is the most gorgeous septuagenarian on the planet.

And, while hardly a kitten with a whip any longer, Barbara Amiel remains quite the dominatrix in print, a polished writer who can stick a stiletto heel into any subject’s jugular. A far better wordsmith than her husband, too. Indeed, Black isn’t even the best writer from among her five spouses.

I mention the Baroness only because hubby has specifically accused me of not appreciating her timeless beauty. I do. And maybe at some future date, Amiel can give me the name of her plastic surgeon.

Lest you think her column is simply a catty attack on Mrs. Black, she soon turns her attention to her real target:

We now know also why disgraced newspaper baron and felon Connie (Con, for short) devotes himself to producing remainder-bin biographical doorstoppers about dead people — because he doesn’t have to interview them. His singular lack of skill in this most basic reportorial function was on grotesque display last week whilst “chatting” — Black doesn’t call these puffball exchanges interviews — with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford on his Zoomer show, an excruciatingly embarrassing episode that should be shown to J-students as instructive lesson on how not to do it.

There is much more in her piece which, depending upon the exigencies of time and interests, you may wish to check out.

While there are admittedly much bigger issues that need to be addressed and pursued in the world today, sometimes there is an innate satisfaction to be had when bullies, whether of the physical or verbal kind, are soundly and roundly put in their place. And while many may lament the fact that age eventually diminishes all of us, we do no one any service by using that to excuse the effete roaring of a lion in winter.