Pray For Jimbo

Apparently, crazed televangelist evangelical Jim Bakker has enemies that are legion.

“I don’t dare wear a Trump hat. The evil in this country is so bad if I was a Republican — which I have been my whole life — I couldn’t wear a hat with my candidate on it without concern about being murdered in the street,” Bakker said.

These Are Brave Ladies

When you are young, it is easy to find heroes, people whose daring exploits elicit awe and wonder. When I was a kid, Superman was my comic book hero. Although fictitious, he was an exemplar people could admire. Indefatigable, strong and incorruptible, Superman, although an alien, showed the best qualities humanity is capable of.

And that, to me, is the essence of a hero.

In my adult life, Nelson Mandela, about whom I have written on this blog, was my hero. His grace, dignity and refusal to compromise during all his years of imprisonment showed us the best that human nature has to offer.

Now that Mandela is gone, it is hard to find real inspiration in this fractured world, a world in which avarice, dissension, hatred and pettiness have seized centre stage, a world in which real leadership seems absent.

In Canada, our politics is one of opportunism and hypocrisy, something we were all reminded of during this past weekend's Conservative Party convention in Halifax. And the Liberal Party, despite the bright promise they seemed to present during the last election, have proven they learned nothing during their years in the wilderness. Justin Trudeau's betrayal of his environmental promise, in my view, was the coup de grâce to optimism about the future.

And yet ....

There are those brave and principled souls who refuse to be consumed by despair and yield to forces much bigger than themselves. People who know that their obligation goes beyond themselves and their immediate families. People who care about the generations that will come along after they are gone. People like the 'sinister seniors'. People like Charlotte Gyoba:

Gyoba was one of the protesters who broke a court injunction filed by Kinder Morgan that set limits on how close people could be from the gates. The protesters stood right in front of the gates at one of the Kinder Morgan facilities at the Burnaby Mountain tank farm.

Of the group of nine that faced initial jail time for convictions on July 31, the first to be sentenced was 70-year-old grandmother Laurie Embree. Indigenous elders have also been arrested at the gates.

Meanwhile, the penalties for defying the injunction continue to increase, with the people arrested this week facing a sentence of 14 days in custody from the B.C. Supreme Court.

Gyoba herself wound up spending four days behind bars with four other protesters, all over the age of 65, and she has no regrets:

“I won’t be here much longer, but I worry about what kind of planet the next generation will inherit from us,” the 74-year-old said. “People have to stand up when they see an injustice. If they don’t, then democracy doesn’t work for anybody.”

The thought of incarceration frightens the hell out of me. Am I capable of such courage? I don't know. But as long as there are people like Gyoba and the others profiled in the above-linked article, it is clear that heroism is not dead, and there is still some hope for humanity.

Memo To The Press

As usual, Robert Reich is spot-on in his insights. Here, he offers some solid advice to real journalists on how they should cover Trump:

About That Odour In The Air

While The Great Pretender and his faux Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, continue to utter platitudes about climate-change action while visiting formerly Beautiful British Columbia, smoke is not the only pollutant in the air. The unmistakable stench of a steaming pile of bovine excrement is also becoming decidedly pronounced, its source not hard to detect for anyone not blinded by unthinking allegiance to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Letter-writer Mike Ward, of Duncan B.C., believes he has found its source and offers up a solution to the miasma:

B.C. and Alberta are engaged in a carbon trading scheme of sorts, and it is to no one’s advantage.

Alberta sends carbon-rich bitumen to British Columbia, which, when added to the atmosphere, contributes to global warming.

Global warming in turn produces the warmer winters that allow pine beetles to thrive, together with the longer, hotter, drier summers during which B.C.’s disease-stricken forests ignite.

Prevailing winds spread this suffocating carbon smoke throughout both provinces, choking the tourism industry, impacting people’s health, threatening towns and destroying the livelihood of communities dependant on forestry and fishing.

It hurts to think that the new normal for our children may be smoky white summer skies, breathing masks and the eerie light of an orange sun.

Further investment in this perverse carbon trading scheme, such as in the proposed Trans Mountain expansion, defies reason as it can only accelerate global warming and amplify the enormous economic, social and health consequences we are already experiencing.

Clearly, it’s time for change. The cost of our stubborn reliance on fossil fuels has simply become too great a price to pay.

Also, your mendacious self-congratulatory rhetoric notwithstanding, this is no time to take a victory lap, Catherine.

It's All Connected

Humans are a lamentably short-sighted species. Sure, we understand some of the basic underlying principles that govern our existence, but that knowledge seems to have little overall impact on the way we conduct ourselves.

Take, for example, cause and effect. We understand that if we hit our hand with a hammer, pain and possible fractures will ensue. Similarly, we know that if we toss a match into flammable material, a fire will follow. Ergo, unless there is something really wrong with us or our intent is to build a bonfire, we tend to avoid such behaviours. Beyond understanding such immediate consequences, however, our thinking tends to get a tad fuzzy.

Take, for example, the ever-increasing occurrences of forest fires. We know beyond a doubt that climate change is greatly exacerbating their threat, the fire season starting earlier and, in some cases becoming a year-round phenomenon. Yet when we think of the consequences of forest fires, we tend to think only of their relatively short-term effects: property destruction, carbon release and future mudslides, the absorption capacity of the land having severely been compromised.

As the following report shows, however, there are much more insidious cnsequences, ones that remind us that when we talk of ecological systems, everything is interconnected.

Days Of Outrage

The expression of outrage can serve a useful purpose, no doubt. It can promote new awareness that facilitates change; it can lead to levels of engagement that ultimately may improve the lives of many; it can change how we look at the world.

Or it can simply be an exercise that begins and ends on social media, a self-limiting foray that may make the participant feel virtuous but accomplishes little or nothing in the real world.

Today, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is no doubt celebrating what it must see as a massive victory:

After more than a century behind bars, the beasts on boxes of animal crackers are roaming free.

Mondelez International, the parent company of Nabisco, has redesigned the packaging of its Barnum's Animals crackers after relenting to pressure from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The redesign of the boxes, now on U.S. store shelves, retains the familiar red and yellow coloring and prominent "Barnum's Animals" lettering. But instead of showing the animals in cages - implying that they're traveling in boxcars for the circus - the new boxes feature a zebra, elephant, lion, giraffe and gorilla wandering side-by-side in a grassland. The outline of acacia trees can be seen in the distance.

This change has come about as a result of pressure by the animal rights' organization. Forgive my cynicism, but this changes virtually nothing. It is cosmetic and, as most efforts at spin are, profoundly shallow. We continue to eat animals; big-game hunters, although under significant pressure, seem indefatigable in their bloodlust; homeless animals still abound. In other words, while people may feel virtuous over PETA's 'victory,' the status quo continues.

And that gets to the crux of the matter, in my view. We have entered an age where remote participation in causes has become a substitute for real involvement. Instead of people going out in the streets to protest, making principled boycotts of businesses, writing actual letters to CEOs, they instead merely sign online petitions, send out heartfelt tweets, post on Facebook, etc. (all of which I am guilty of, I might add.) While such 'spooky action at a distance' may promote short-term feelings of virtue, for far too many, they become ends in themselves.

The thoughtful reader may object. Isn't some involvement, however transitory or shallow, better than none? In my view, it is far too late for such gestures. The natural world is collapsing while we tweet our outrage. Temperatures around the world are rising; Arctic ice is rapidly melting; floodwaters are rising; drought is widespread; forests are aflame, and feedback loops are fully operational. Yet we still drive our cars everywhere and idle them with abandon in parking lots so we can have our air-conditioning to insulate us from some inconvenient truths.

Taking real action is hard, demanding time, commitment and real resolve. Expressing outrage is easy, and serves, if anything, as a powerful distraction from the real problems confronting our sorry world.

George Orwell Meets Rudy Giuliani

"Truth isn't truth," proclaims the increasingly zany and demented uncle known as Rudy Giuliani. Start at the 1:20 mark to take the full measure of the man, the man he represents, and the fulfillment of George Orwell's direst warnings:

Jack Dorsey, Hypocrite

I am posting less these days, likely because I am losing faith in the possibility of positive change. I realize now, more than ever, that our fate is not in our hands, but rather in those of the powerful that have captured government and will protect and enhance their profits until the bitter end.

While this fact is most evidenced by the refusal of national governments to enact measures to meaningfully combat the ever-growing peril of climate change (disaster capitalism is alive, well and thriving!), it is also seen in less obvious ways. To get a taste of this truth, watch the following interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, conducted by Lester Holt. The interview initially revolves around Twitter's suspension (cutely called a 'time-out' by Dorsey) of hate-monger Alex Jones. The suspension itself, of course, is hardly a brave or principled stand, given Jones' removal from other social-media platforms already.

Dorsey's moral vacuity, bottomless hypocrisy and capacity for spin are pretty obvious here. And the fact that the CEO, a stand-in for so many other 'movers and shakers', will not let the public good interfere with his ceaseless march for greater and greater profits becomes very clear in the second part of the interview, when Holt asks him about Donald Trump and his Twitter account.

Playing To The Lowest Common Denominator

...looks like this:

On Canadian Hypocrisy

While many (but not our strangely silent allies) have cheered Canada's tweet critical of Saudi Arabia's abuse of human rights' activists, it has not escaped others that the gesture has the stench of hypocrisy about it. The Star's Tony Burman reminds us:

that it was this Liberal government that approved the $15-billion deal to sell military vehicles to Saudi Arabia originally worked out by the previous Harper government. There is reason to believe that some of these vehicles have been used by the Saudis to crush the very internal dissent that Canada embraces.

If the Middle East has taught us anything, it is that talk is cheap.

Similarly, Star letter writers offer some critical thinking:

The Canadian admonition of the Saudi government is evidently hypocritical, and lacks moral integrity.

Hamid S. Atiyyah, Markham

So Canada will have to stop selling weapons of war to the Saudi Arabians for them to use against their own people and against civilians in Yemen.

Good.

Alan Craig, Brampton

A year ago it was reported that Canada was Saudi Arabia’s second largest arms supplier. While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland expresses outrage at Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, she conveniently turns a blind eye to scathing reports by UN officials and a long list of civil society groups over Canada’s lucrative weapons trade in defiance of international norms.

Joe Davidson, Toronto

My guess is, had Canada known the kind of overreaction its tweet would provoke from the Saudis, it would not have issued such a public castigation of the dictatorial state. On the other hand, I'm sure there is a bright side to the whole situation, as a government and a prime minister hoping for reelection can now once more assert to a largely uncritical world that Canada is back; it certainly worked wonders for Justin Trudeau's image when he declaimed thus after winning the last election.

Lord knows, given the massive disappointment he has been on so many fronts, a little prolonged diversion may be just what the spin doctor ordered.

Hothouse Earth

Hot on the heels of the news that Justin's folly will now cost taxpayers at least another $1.9 billion comes widespread acknowledgement that we may indeed be reaching the climate-change point of no return. For specific details about this, check out The Guardian and The Mound's post yesterday. As well, Owen's post is well-worth the read.

Also, you can watch the following newscast to get a greater sense of our peril:



Still, our politicos fiddle while the world burns. This is the inevitable outcome of the plague known as captured governments, of course.

I Don't Know Why

... but I never tire of watching lunatics like Jim Bakker and his brethren. Guess I am just desperate in these trying times for some comic relief, and believe me, the good pastor and his cretinous cohorts deliver it in abundance:

A Betrayal With Far-Reaching Implications

Despite the inspiring persona he peddled to win the last election, Justin Trudeau has turned out to be just another politician. As hard as that might be to accept, his betrayal of his promise to be something else, something better, is undeniable. For me personally, the sting of his failure to enact meaningful measures to combat climate change hurts the most.

And I am not alone in recognizing the fraud he perpetrated. Both The Toronto Star's editorial board and columnist Thomas Walkom offer lacerating assessments of the prime minister's perfidious antics. His most recent decision, to scale back the carbon tax, is emboldening the retrograde Doug Ford, Ontario's new premier with some very old (think 1950's) ideas:

... in scaling back one element of the national plan to put a price on carbon, Justin Trudeau managed to weaken an already too tepid program, and hand some provincial premiers — who are determined to oppose any carbon tax — more ammunition to fight in the court of public opinion, never mind, possibly, in the courts of law.

Emission-intensive industries that compete with companies in jurisdictions without a carbon tax, were already set to receive credits worth 70 per cent of what an average firm in their sector would pay under Ottawa’s plan.

Now, most won’t have to pay the carbon tax until their emissions reach 80 per cent. And four industries deemed to face particularly high competitive risks — iron and steel manufacturing, cement, lime and nitrogen fertilizer producers — won’t pay until they hit 90 per cent.

The Ontario government is running with this retreat:

Already, Ontario’s Environment Minister Rod Phillips is crowing about how this change is proof that his government was right to kill Ontario’s cap-and-trade plan, and right to fight Ottawa’s carbon tax in court.

All of which, of course, panders to a public that is far more eager to embrace willful ignorance than confront harsh reality, a hint of which was recently released by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which revealed

2016’s record-breaking year of damage caused by natural disasters such as wildfires, floods and ice storms across the country cost $4.9 billion. And that was just in “insurable” damage.

Thomas Walkom comes at this issue from a different perspective but with the same underlying premise, that Trudeau's weak carbon tax will accomplish little:

Before Ford became Ontario premier, Trudeau was in danger of being outed as a fraud on the all-important climate change file. But Ford is such a laggard in this area that no matter how little the Liberal prime minister does, he seems active by comparison.

Ford’s decision to challenge Trudeau’s carbon tax in court serves to obscure the reality of the proposed federal levy, namely that it is too low to be effective. And it allows Trudeau to continue pretending that his climate change strategy is vastly different from that of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper — when in fact it is not.

And Walkom offers compelling evidence that the emperor has no clothes, nor any real climate-change convictions as he echoes the old Harper way of doing things, such as mirroring U.S. behaviour:

In 2016, he very publicly matched Obama’s decision to reduce methane emissions. A year later, after Donald Trump reversed that Obama move, Canada’s Liberal government quietly announced it would delay implementation of its new methane rules until 2023.

Last week, Ottawa announced even more quietly that it plans to ease proposed carbon tax rules for big industrial polluters in order to match the new laissez-faire attitude of the Trump regime.

But surely Trudeau's carbon tax marks a bold departure from American inaction? Well, not so much:

Ottawa’s fallback carbon tax — set to start at $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions next year and rising to $50 per tonne by 2022 — is too low. If carbon taxes are to work, they must be high enough to discourage consumers from using products, like gasoline, that create greenhouse gas emissions.

Experts I’ve talked to say that, to be effective, carbon taxes must be set at about $30 per tonne now, rising to $200 a tonne by 2030.

There is no indication that the Liberal government is willing to be so audacious.

Supporters of the Trudeau government will argue that something is better than nothing, and that economic realities constrain Trudeau's hand. The only problem with that thinking is that it is much, much latter than we like to think, and smiles, rhetoric and half-hearted measures will not slow the tide of the earth's inexorable march to a new normal, one that already is proving decidely unpleasant and deadly for millions of people.

In The Realm Of Canadian Political Whoredom

I nominate Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine Mckenna as Queen:



And here is what she had to say after news of the Trudeau climate betrayal emerged:


Prostitutes are renowned for weaving fantasies. In that regard, McKenna is clearly and most eminently qualified.

Speaking Of Neoliberal Tools

It is never nice to shatter someone's illusions, but sometimes it is necessary. That is exactly what iPolitics is doing as it reports a not unexpected but nonetheless egregious betrayal of the environment and climate change mitigation as it dawns on our perfidious prime minister that an election is coming up next year:

Bowing to concerns about international competitiveness, the Trudeau government is scaling back carbon pricing guidelines for some of the country’s heaviest energy users, and signalling that more easing could come before the plan takes effect in 2019.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has issued new guidelines that increase the emissions threshold at which polluters will have to pay a carbon tax.

... after meeting with industry stakeholders, it determined that four industries in particular – cement, iron and steel, lime and nitrogen fertilizer producers – face a high competitive risk and will have their carbon price thresholds adjusted.

Draft regulations issued in January indicated a benchmark for when industries would start to pay the carbon tax at 70 per cent of average emissions.

However, the new rules set to take effect in the new year will increase the carbon tax threshold to 80 per cent of emissions intensity.

The four sectors assessed in the high competitive risk category will not have to pay the tax until they reach 90 per cent of emissions.

The government says other sectors may see adjustments to their greenhouse gas output measures, depending on further review of the impact of carbon pricing on their domestic and international competitiveness, with revised draft standards expected by fall.

Those who follow politics closely will not be surprised by this. Those who place their faith in sunny ways, pearly smiles and nice hair, however, will likely be shocked and seek solace in government propaganda justifying this sabotage of what already was a wholly inadequate plan.

Flying The Not-So-Friendly Skies

One of the major disappointments I have lived to experience is the fragility of democracy. That democratic traditions, customs and practices are so vulnerable to dismantlement, often with either the passive acquiescence or full-throated approval of 'the people' is something I never would have anticipated.

The latest example of this devolution is to be found in an investigation conducted by The Boston Globe:

Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.

The previously undisclosed program, called “Quiet Skies,” specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base,” according to a Transportation Security Administration bulletin in March.

... some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat — a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third.

The criteria for such surveillance are remarkably broad:

The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a “jump” in their Adam’s apple or a “cold penetrating stare,” among other behaviors, according to the records.

Additional criteria include whether passengers go to the bathroom, use their phone, eat, or talk to other passengers.

Will this Orwellian nightmare, now that it has been exposed, provoke outrage? I doubt it. As you will see in the following NBC report (advance to the 5:15 mark), the TSA assures the public that "ordinary Americans" are not being surveilled. I take it that is code for white citizens. Ergo, if you are an 'old-stock' American, step back and let the authorities protect you.



In The Second Coming, Yeats writes, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity."

Applying that to today's sad state of democracy, I'd say he got that right.

My Catholic Upbringing

It is a long time since I believed in Hell, yet the following scenes are eerily reminiscent of what the nuns used to warn would be our destination if we weren't good Catholic boys and girls.

Advance to the 10:30 mark to watch the infernal action:



Meanwhile, the rest of the world, both Christian and non-Christian, isn't faring much better:

Sad Beyond Words

If you are at all familiar with Ansel Adams, you will know that much of the palette for his photographic genius was Yosemite National Park. Indeed, I have a framed print of one of his most iconic pictures, Yosemite Clearing Storm, hanging in my dining room.



To look upon his work is to look into the soul of a man with a deep and abiding affinity for the world of nature, a man who took great pains to interpret and depict that world through some very intricate photographic and printing techniques that conveyed both the majesty of nature and the awe that it inspired in him.

If you are unfamiliar with his work, I strongly encourage you to explore it.

It therefore pains me deeply to learn that Yosemite is now under threat. Although at this stage of my life I have learned to accept some bitter truths, this is one I would fain turn away from, if I could.

The report begins at the 4:40 mark:

The New Normal

Watch or don't watch the following; it really won't make any difference, as the trajectory is already firmly set, momentum is building, and catastrophe can no longer be averted:

Second Verse, Same As The First

The playlist is, I know, increasingly repetitive, but Earth-station has but a few records remaining on the turntable, and they will only be played louder and louder as the party winds down.





Meanwhile, the wildfires in Greece, fueled by heat and drought, have claimed more than 70 lives:

Further Down The Road

For those whose sense of weather peril is somewhat muted, the following picture of a London park, the top part showing it in May, and the bottom part as it appears today thanks to prolonged drought and heat, may help awaken the senses and cognition about how far down the one-way road of climate change we have travelled:



Still not convinced? Perhaps something a little closer to home will help:



Very soon, of course, these images will lose their power to impress, so common are they becoming. The new normal, indeed.

The Rising Tide

I have just begun a book called Extreme Cites, by Ashley Dawson. As I have discerned it thus far, its thesis is that the world's great coastal cities are destined for massive inundation and destruction because of rising sea levels. This likely now-irreversible fate is undergirded by the one of the central facts of contemporary capital: its rapacious appetite for continuous and unlimited growth. I won't bore you with the details except to recommend that you read the book.

Should you have neither the time nor the inclination, an article in The Guardian, about another book dealing only with American coastal inundation, can provide much useful information. It also explores the work of Harold Wanless, chair of the geology department at the University of Miami, who, in taking issue with the more conservative estimates of two to six feet sea-level rise over this century, has come to some damning conclusions about his city:

“The rate of sea level rise is currently doubling every seven years, and if it were to continue in this manner, Ponzi scheme style, we would have 205 feet of sea level rise by 2095,” he says. “And while I don’t think we are going to get that much water by the end of the century, I do think we have to take seriously the possibility that we could have something like 15 feet by then.”

Why?

Dig into geologic history and you discover this: when sea levels have risen in the past, they have usually not done so gradually, but rather in rapid surges, jumping as much as 50 feet over a short three centuries. Scientists call these events “meltwater pulses” because the near-biblical rise in the height of the ocean is directly correlated to the melting of ice and the process of deglaciation, the very events featured in the documentary footage Hal has got running on a screen above his head.

Fun fact:

From 1900 to 2000 the glacier on the screen retreated inward eight miles. From 2001 to 2010 it pulled back nine more; over a single decade the Jakobshavn glacier lost more ice than it had during the previous century. And then there is this film clip, recorded over 70 minutes, in which the glacier retreats a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. “This is why I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the largest meltwater pulse in modern human history,” Hal says.

A wealth of information and scientific studies demonstrates beyond doubt our headlong plunge toward disaster. Despite that, we argue incessantly over piddling and ineffective carbon taxes while ignoring the real work that mitigating disaster would require. It used to be said that knowledge is power. That is obviously no longer true as we choose to willfully, egregiously ignore that knowledge.

Our fate is all but sealed.

Be Skeptical. Ask Questions.

Given the very strange times in which we live, some sound advice from Jonathan Jarry:

Blessed Are The Benighted

My good friend Dave in Winnipeg often rails sardonically against the twin curses of intelligence and critical-thinking. If you start the following video at about the 50-second mark, you'll see that some have 'blessedly' been spared such affliction.

No Commentary Required

Paging King Canute

His lesson needs to be relearned, methinks.

Words Mean Little Anymore

While I realize it is not healthy to obsess over things over which I have no control, I find myself consistently astounded and dispirited by the dystopian reality we now inhabit. While the world has been deteriorating for many years, I find it hard to deal with the fact that we now live in a world which, were it a movie script, would be rejected by all major studios as so preposterous that it would have no chance of box-office success. A script that showed such complete contempt for the audience's intelligence would be a very tough sell.

And yet that is precisely the world that Donald Trump and his ilk inhabit and cultivate, a world where the president and his enablers utter the most outrageous falsehoods shamelessly and fearlessly. We have descended into a world where words have lost their meaning.

The Star's Daniel Dale keeps a running tally of Trump's mendacity which you can filter by topic. I urge you to visit the site. As well, today's Star explores this phenomenon,

the most comprehensive picture yet available of what historians say is an unprecedented avalanche of serial lying.

The following news story features Trump in his full mendacious 'glory,' his absolute contempt for truth and, by extension, people, made manifest:



Although it is likely apocryphal, the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times," has never seemed more relevant or more biting.

Feeling Like An American

Now that Ontario is in the thrall of Doug Ford and his Regressive Conservative Party, I am beginning to understand how sane and balanced Americans must feel having an obscene fool as their national leader. It makes everyone look bad.

While Ford and his merry band of obsequious MPPs secured their majority thanks to a minority of voters who were filled with "passionate intensity" while the "best lacked all conviction" and chose to vote in smaller numbers, all of us, because we live in a democracy,' must bear the shame and ignominy.

The tail wags the dog here in Ontario. And make no mistake - just as Trump plays to his base, Ford et al. have every intention of tailoring their time in office to the demands of the minority who elected them. Just take a look at yesterday's Throne Speech:

The Tories will ... free police from “onerous restrictions that treat those in uniform as subjects of suspicion and scorn,” [a return to carding and loose SIU oversight?] end “unaffordable green energy contracts,” and expand beer and wine sales to convenience and big-box stores.

Ignoring the fact that extensive consultation paved the way to the revised 2015 sex-ed curriculum, this benighted new government

... will replace the 2015 “sex education curriculum with an age-appropriate one that is based on real consultation with parents.”

In a sop to the social conservatives who helped him become Tory leader in March, the new premier’s administration will use the 1998 sex education syllabus, which predates Google, same-sex marriage, and social media, until a new lesson plan is developed.

Crazed evangelical leader Charles McVety is delighted, observing that

students can now “go and learn how to tie their shoelaces and do arithmetic and read and write and do what they should be doing in school instead of learning things that belong, really, in post-graduate studies.”

Others were not so kind:

Green Leader Mike Schreiner countered that Ford has “declared war on the modern world.

“I mean, to have no climate change plan and to take our sex-ed curriculum back to 1998 is taking the province backwards,” said Schreiner.

That old curriculum was woefully antiquated, in no way addressing the problems and concerns bedeviling 21st century children:

The 1998 health and physical education curriculum describes a society that few elementary school students would recognize. It does not mention the words cyber-bullying, social media, race, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. It only once mentions the word Internet, and only to say that kids can use computers to surf the “World Wide Web” for information.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture that our 'new' government has some mighty 'old' ideas and beliefs.

On a personal note, it is very difficult for me to be anything other than contemptuous of my fellow Ontarians. But that, I suspect, will be the subject of a future post.

Amerika's Formula For Success

As noted the other day, the United States or, as I like to call it, Trump's Amerika, no longer even bothers to conceal its contempt for the rest of the world. It's disgraceful threats at the the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly against Ecuador for sponsoring a resolution to encourage breastfeeding, thereby reducing the profits of the corporate behemoths that produce baby formula exemplifies its shameless corporate thralldom.

Today, Star letter-writers weigh in on the magnitude of Amerika's crime against newborns:

The World Health Organization estimates that 800,000 child deaths worldwide each year could be prevented by breastfeeding.

A 2016 Harvard study found that 3,340 infant and maternal deaths a year could be prevented by breastfeeding in the U.S. alone. In Third World countries where destitute moms dilute formula, often with dirty water, the rates are much higher.

They want their infants to look like the pictures of healthy babies on the advertising they are given by sales people dressed as medical professionals. So why would Trump threaten to withdraw military and other aid to Ecuador if they put forth a resolution supporting breastfeeding at the World Health Assembly?

Because Third World countries are areas of major growth for Nestlé and Abbott Nutrition, and they are big Trump supporters.

It is once again time to boycott the products from both of these companies, like we did in the 1980s. It helped then. Let’s make a difference now.

Gail Rutherford, Toronto

It is indeed stunning, but probably not surprising, that the Trump government would threaten countries with punishing trade measures to support American business interests against a breastfeeding policy that experience and science have proven to saves lives. Baby formula kills when mixed with polluted water that can be the only water available.

The U.S. is going back to the days when the American government would wage wars and depose elected governments to support an American company. We must acknowledge that Trump is at war with the rest of the world — except for the other strongarm dictators.

Ian McLaurin, Port Perry, Ont.

America The Beautiful

There's no country like it, eh?

The Signs Are All Around Us

How's that climate-change denial thing working for you these days?

It’s so hot in Australia that drivers’ tires are covered in melted tar from the roads pic.twitter.com/eH6enH3jXr

— EveryBody vs Trump (@EVRYBODYvsTRUMP) July 10, 2018

Forecast: Expect more of the same and worse in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

American Thuggery

By almost any metric, the United States is a rogue nation. The depth of its depraved thuggery was recently made evident to the world:

A resolution to encourage breastfeeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breastfeeding” and another passage that called on policy-makers to restrict the promotion of food products many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

Then the U.S. delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

Captured by neoliberal forces, the once admired country resorted to mafia-like extortion to try to get its way:

Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

Health advocates frantically sought another sponsor for the resolution, but none could be found as sundry countries cowered before the American behemoth. Then in a turn that amply demonstrates the inversion the world is currently experiencing, an unlikely ally came to the rescue:

It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.

The move to thwart maternal health benefits is part of a much larger pattern of strong-arm tactics from a nation clearly unmoored from moral underpinnings:

The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a WHO effort aimed at helping poor countries obtain access to life-saving medicines. Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.

God bless America? Not on your life.

When Is A Scab Not A Scab?

When (s)he is a 'replacement worker'.

I have always loved the word 'scab'. A fitting description of strikebreakers, it is a word that conjures up ugly imagery, imagery quite appropriate for those who act without integrity by engaging in strikebreaking behaviour, which are essentially shameless public declarations of individual extollment of the self over the collective good. There can be few lower forms of human than scabs.



During his time as Ontario Premier, Bob Rae passed legislation that banned these scourges, legislation that was repealed when Mike Harris, devoid of any semblance of integrity, became the next premier. Tellingly, subsequent Liberal governments were quite happy to continue his neoliberal labour view. Scabs therefore are alive and well in Ontario.

And yet, despite the fact that we live in a time when collective-bargaining rights are under regular assault by scabs and their enablers, the word itself seems to have disappeared from our lexicon. The euphemism, replacement workers, is an anodyne that attempts to conceal the ugliness of the act of strikebreaking. One is reminded of Orwell's observations about the insidious use of euphemisms:

Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.

Tamper with the language and you tamper with the reality.

Take a look at the following article, about an ongoing strike at a Goderich salt mine.

A rural community is rallying around salt mine workers who have been embroiled in a strike since April, a disagreement that has involved wooden pallet barricades, demonstrations and busloads of replacement workers.

The workers at the Goderich mine have been off the job since April 27.

Unifor Local 16-O represents the workers, and alleges Compass Minerals has been flying in replacement workers from New Brunswick to break the strike while demanding concessions that include mandatory overtime, reduced benefits and a weakening of contracting-out provisions.

In a letter to the community on June 28, Compass Minerals said it has used contractors to produce salt to fill long-term orders, and had little choice to do so in a competitive market.

The strike ramped up when workers blockaded an access road to the mining site this past week to express their frustration over the use of replacement workers. Photos posted on Unifor Canada’s Twitter showed wooden pallets stacked high in a barricade on the road. Videos also showed Unifor national president Jerry Dias walking out the replacement workers from the mine as onlookers chanted “Don’t come back!”

Representatives from local Unifor unions across the country have rallied at the picket line with the Goderich workers and flooded social media with solidarity. Lana Payne, Unifor Atlantic Regional Director, shared an open letter on Twitter that had been written to Laura Araneda, CEO of Vic Drilling, the company Payne says has been allegedly flying the replacement workers from New Brunswick to the Goderich mine.

“By crossing the strike line and doing the work of striking miners, Laura Araneda’s replacement workers are undermining the bargaining power of fellow miners,” she wrote. “The fact is, there is always somebody willing to do your job for a lower wage in more dangerous conditions.

Now do a quick reread, this time replacing the term replacement workers with scabs.

You can see how language choices have a great impact on how we perceive things.

Perhaps the ugly reality about scabs is best reflected by Unifor national president Jerry Dias:

“Crossing a picket line is shameful behaviour that cannot be tolerated,” ... no job is worth stealing food from another worker’s family.”

I close with a video that should leave anyone who has ever crossed a picket line feeling deep, deep shame.

Calling All Steadfast Canadians

Being pro-Canadian instead of complacent and meek in the face of American tariff oppression can take many forms. Perhaps the strongest expressions of how we feel are to be found in our purchase and travel choices.

Tim Harper reports that many are making those choices:

If Canadians are, in a typically understated way, spending their vacation dollars at home, taking a few extra moments at the grocery store to determine where that ketchup was made or buying Ontario rather than California wines, a national statement is being made this summer.

While technically not a boycott, it is a means of condemnng the Trump administration and its mistreatment of traditional American allies.

It is not a boycott to decide to holiday in New Brunswick rather than Maine.

If I decide to forego an annual baseball and beach jaunt to the U.S., or as TVO’s Steve Paikin wrote, the U.S. doesn’t deserve his money, or Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson or NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh courteously decline an invitation to a July 4th party thrown by the U.S. ambassador in Ottawa, we are not bringing the White House to its knees.

Nobody shouted their decisions from the barricades. We’re not boycotting. We are making individual decisions.

Increasing numbers are making those individual decisions:

A Nanos Research poll published by The Globe and Mail Thursday showed 73 per cent of respondents were “likely or somewhat likely” to stop or cut back travel to the U.S.

Another 72 per cent said they were “likely or somewhat likely” to stop buying American products and 68 per cent said they were “likely or somewhat likely” to stop purchasing goods from U.S. retailers.

Others are taking even stronger measures. Martin and Carole Lajeunesse, co-owners of a restaurant in Quebec, decided that national integrity needs strong expression:

Martin ... suggested they pull the American wines from their menu. They asked the server who runs the restaurant’s Facebook page to post a notice, and she wrote, in French, “In solidarity with our Canadian jobs, LaLa Bistro suspends the sale of wines from the United States for an indefinite period of time.”

And the resistance is spreading:

Many Canadians who’ve had it with Trump just crave a chance to do something, almost anything. For instance, in Halton Hills—a collection of communities northwest of Toronto that adds up to a municipality of 61,000 people—the town council voted unanimously for a resolution to “encourage residents and businesses with the town to become knowledgeable about the origin of the products and services that they purchase [and] consider avoiding the purchase of U.S. products where substitutes are reasonably available.”

Individual empowerment is not just a lofty ideal. Everyone can realize it:

In Ottawa, labour lawyer Scott Chamberlain ... on a recent grocery trip for his family, ... found himself standing in front of a display of oranges from the U.S. and others from Morocco, so he picked the Moroccan produce, then decided to see if he could buy an entirely “Trump-free” grocery cart. “It wasn’t out of anger . . . it was more out of solidarity,” he says. “I was really proud that people set politics aside to put a common front together to support Canadians. It was an attack on all of us.”

Chamberlain has altered his travel plans, too. He has family in the Maritimes whom he visits three to four times a year, but now instead of driving through New England, his family will stay in Quebec and New Brunswick hotels.

Merideth Broughton, a paramedic living an hour north of Calgary in Torrington, Alta., has made the same decision. She had planned to travel throughout the U.S. Midwest with her dog Scout this summer:

But between the trade tariffs and the horror of detained migrant children, Broughton just won’t do it. “I can’t in good conscience contribute to that economy or that government,” she says. Instead, she and Scout will stick to the Badlands of southern Alberta and wander through Saskatchewan to visit friends and family.

Want to get in on the action? Here are two videos that may help inform your choices:

An Encouraging Development

Is momentum building? Let us hope so. As the following video explains, major restaurant brands are planning to ban plastic straws. (I suggest you turn off the sound in the following, as the overly-dramatic music is a bit much}:

To Go, Or Not To Go

I have written elsewhere on this blog about the decision I and others have made to boycott travel to the U.S. as long as Donald Trump and his peculiar brand of madness hold sway. I am happy to report that Steve Paikin has come to the same decision:

[I]t’s been a Paikin family tradition for many years to travel to the U.S. for a baseball road trip with my dad and as many of my kids as can attend. We’ve done Boston, Cleveland, New York , Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and others.

We’re not going to do it this year.

....when President Donald Trump began slapping tariffs on Canadian goods for reasons of “national security,” it felt wrong. It was an intellectually dishonest move. How could the country that fought alongside the U.S. in World War II, in Korea, and in Afghanistan be a national-security threat? It makes no sense.

Even most Americans seem to recognize how misguided the tariffs are, given the negative impact they’re having on innumerable U.S.-based businesses. And when I saw the federal Liberal government and the incoming Progressive Conservative provincial government speak as one on the stupidity of this policy (with the support of all other major parties), I thought: Okay, that’s it.

America, you just don’t deserve our money.

Even though as individuals we may doubt we have much influence, money, as they say, talks:

We will not spend hundreds of dollars on your baseball tickets. We will not spend hundreds of dollars on your restaurants and hotels. We will not spend hundreds of dollars on your gas. We will not spend hundreds of dollars at museums or at the theatre. We will not spend hundreds of dollars on souvenirs and gifts.

I think it’s time I looked at product labels of all kinds much more carefully. California wines? Not anymore. I’ll try some local brands, from Niagara-on-the-Lake or Prince Edward County. And maybe I should make the extra effort to purchase groceries at local farmers’ markets rather than buy American brand-name stuff at the supermarket.

On a personal note, since Trump imposed those absurd and insulting tariffs on us, I have decided (reluctantly) to extend my boycott to bourbon, (there's no liquor like it) and will instead begin exploring some of our Canadian whiskies. As well, although it is impossible to avoid American goods, I am trying as much as possible to purchase Canadian.

In light of the deteriorating connection to our southern neigbours, we must ask ourselves a fundamental question:

Do we regard ourselves simply as citizens of a globalized world, or does being Canadian still mean something to us? Your answer will no doubt tell you whether taking a stand against what the U.S. now represents is a worthwhile endeavour.

UPDATED: It Can Be Done

"Where there's a will, there's a way," my mother always said. The question is,"Does that will exist?"

These two videos offer a glimmer of hope:





UPDATE: If you crave even more good news about a ban that, if enacted, will improve the health of coral reefs, click here.

Happy Canada Day

Vive la difference!

She Stands By Her Man

When we talk on the phone, my good friend Dave in Winnipeg often talks about the twin 'curse' of intelligence and education. Life would be so much easier, he says sardonically, without them.

I was thinking about Dave last night as I watched an NBC News report detailing the actions of one of Trump's legion. As a group, those people are indefatigable, and, to use a word favoured by the religiously insane, 'convicted' in Trump. And it becomes immediately apparent that the woman in the following video has 'escaped' the curses Dave speaks of.

Viewer Advisory: Do not watch if you have just eaten.

Neoliberal Friends With Benefits

Kinder Morgan couldn't have a better friend than Justin Trudeau:

Texas-based Kinder Morgan made a seven-fold return on the sale of its Trans Mountain pipeline system to Canada's federal government, according to a new report that also warns the federal budget deficit could jump by 36 per cent because of the purchase.

The project has an estimated $7.4 billion price tag, of which Kinder Morgan says it has already spent about $1 billion. But the IEEFA report estimates that the company has only put about $600 million into the project so far. It estimates the company will make a 637-per-cent gain on the $4.5-billion sale.

The federal government is on the hook for about $11.5 billion in costs, including both the purchase and the remaining cost of construction, the report estimates.

"This transaction and the cost of further planning and construction could add a $6.5 billion unplanned expenditure to Canada's budget during (fiscal year) 2019," the report stated. "This would increase Canada's projected deficit of $18.1 billion by 36 per cent. to $24.6 billion."

The magnitude of Liberal ineptitude is stunning:

"There is every indication that the Canadian government has bought the pipeline at a high price and is likely to resell it for far less than it will pay to build it," Tom Sanzillo, the institute's [Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis] director of finance, said in a statement.

"Canada is weakening its finances by taking on unlimited costs to buy an unneeded pipeline with an uncertain future and giving an unusual profit to a U.S. company," he added.

But hey. That's what happens when you elect a neoliberal government. But Justin still has nice hair.

Signs Of The Times

Tyranny Has More Than One Face

Methinks there is much truth in the following:

Trump's Amerika: "A Toxic Mix Of Senseless Cruelty And Corporate Greed"

The private-prison industry stands to make a fortune from Trump's immigration crackdown. This toxic mix of senseless cruelty and corporate greed means big profits.

The Truth About Carbon Pricing

The taxation levels for carbon set by the federal government will likely prove wholly inadequate in getting people to modify their behaviour to combat climate change. However, given the exit of Ontario from its cap-and-trade program by the incoming populist and reactionary Doug Ford, the truth is, it's better than nothing:



This Star letter-writer, I think, has the correct perspective, one that should give us all pause:

Think of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in terms of a leaky roof, with each country responsible for fixing its portion. Canada, with only 1/200th of the world’s population, has to fix only that little patch of roof.

However, the average Canadian emits about 20 tonnes of GHGs per year, compared to 6.9 tonnes in Europe on average, 7.7 tonnes in China, and 1.9 tonnes in India. That means Canada’s share of the roof is leaking three times as fast as Europe’s and 10 times faster than India’s!

Ford’s elimination of the price on carbon, the one tool proven effective in controlling emissions, is irresponsible.

We are all under the same roof, and we all have to do our part.

Alan Slavin, Otonabee, Ont.

Is This Really Something To Be Proud Of?

I find myself these days thinking about the beasts that have been unleashed upon society. In the United States, of course, it is Donald Trump who has made it acceptable to openly hate, mock, exclude and even kill. In Ontario, citizens have selected Doug Ford as their new premier. While both Trump and Ford masquerade as "for the people," they are really devoted only is unleashing the beast that resides in all of us, the most selfish and destructive aspects of humanity, for their own gain. All they have to do, as time goes on, is to find new targets for their diabolical agenda.

I was out walking, and a question occurred to me: What is it that people feel when they have had ample opportunity to spew their bile, vent their prejudices, vituperate a particular group or cause, or given the middle finger to succeeding generations by vociferously opposing any measures that might help mitigate the climate change that is quickly overtaking all of us? At least when we do something positive, whether it be a contribution to a cause, support for an issue, a personal kindness or gesture that recognizes and acknowledges our shared humanity, we are left at least a little enlarged, a little bigger inside for what we have attempted, maybe even a little more fulfilled.

What do those who choose to embrace the darkest paths feel?

Perhaps an appropriate frame, if not an answer, can be found from an episode of Breaking Bad, a series about a high school chemistry teacher who turns his resentments and the fact that he is dying into a crystal meth empire, one that ultimately costs countless lives. It was a show I was addicted to (no pun intended, well, okay, maybe a small one) despite the fact that it was the darkest meditation on human nature I have ever seen.

In the following scene, Jesse Pinkman, seduced into the crystal meth business by his former teacher, Walter White, have a discussion:

And this is where Jesse now found himself. Sat in his partner's living room, trying to set himself free from the life he could no longer be a part of, with Mr White not willing to allow him to go.

Finally, Walt spoke up again, his words hard and determined. And upon hearing them, Jesse knew he was fighting a battle he couldn't win.

"Jesse, you once asked me if I was in the meth business or the money business.” Walt looked up from his glass, and eyed Jesse. “I'm in the empire business.”

Jesse gaped back at him, and managed a small shake of his head. Bringing a hand up to cover his ever worsening head ache, he replied, “I don't know, Mr White. Is a meth empire really something to be that proud of?”

And that is the same question I pose here, in this later part of my life, looking at a world gone mad:

Is your embrace of a darkness that does nothing other than to weaken and to destroy really something to be proud of?

This Is What They Are Fleeing

While Trump and his apostles demonize the migrant families seeking sanctuary in the U.S. as rapists and drug dealers, here is a part of their reality the profoundly intolerant choose to ignore: