Despite the way it may appear in some of my blog postings, I really take no particular pleasure or delight in pointing out the deficiencies and foibles of most of our politicians. Such is the weakness of my character, however, that I do exclude the brothers Ford, the mayors of what was once a proud city, Toronto, from that assertion. Rarely has caricature come to life in the political arena as manifestly as it has under their administration.
The latest source of my amusement and bemusement comes from the Sunday edition of The Toronto Star, which has the following headline:
Doug Ford suggests schools explore UFC-linked program
It seems that brother Doug, apparently oblivious to, or contemptuous of, both local and province-wide attempts at tackling (there's a word I know Rob understands) bullying (another word I suspect he is intimately acquainted with) in schools, believes that the best way to ensure at-risk students turn into real men and women is to teach them how to fight.
As reported by The Star, still experiencing the petulant wrath of the Ford bros, Ford’s constituency assistant, Anna Vescio, asked a Toronto District School Board trustee to circulate a brochure touting an initiative called UFC Community Works.
According to the brochure, the program promotes “the development of discipline, respect, teamwork, honesty, time management and physical fitness” through mixed martial arts training and meetings with UFC fighters.
UFC has become notorious for its brutal, bloody, no-holds barred fighting. Mixed martial arts events were banned in Ontario until this year.
I suppose that none of this will come as much of a surprise to close observers of the scrappy duo, who have formed a tag-team of sorts in the political arena, supported by the howling crowd known as their executive committee and those seeking elevation in their municipal status. Nonetheless, even if they like their confrontations at City Hall to be nasty, and brutish, they really should curb their blood lust and not try to inflict it on Toronto students.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
A Disturbing Article on Cell Phone and Wi-Fi Radiation
While I have written before on the link between cellphone electromagnetic radiation and cancer, I just completed an article by Christopher Ketcham entitled Radiation From Cell Phones and WiFi Are Making People Sick -- Are We All at Risk? that offers some disturbing evidence of the dangers of the wireless world in which we live and to which, in varying degrees, almost all of us are addicted.
Looking at a variety of studies as well as anecdotal evidence, Ketcham affords us the opportunity to ask ourselves whether we are risking our health, indeed, our very lives, for the price of the alluring convenience of our various electronic gadgets. For anyone embarking on research of the evidence, there is one proviso that should be borne in mind, as pointed out in the article:
Published meta-reviews of hundreds of such studies suggest that industry funding tends to skew results. According to a survey by Henry Lai, a research professor at University of Washington, only 28 percent of studies funded by the wireless industry showed some type of biological effect from cell phone radiation. Meanwhile, independently funded studies produce an altogether different set of data: 67 percent of those studies showed a bioeffect. The Safe Wireless Initiative, a research group in Washington, DC that has since closed down, unpacked the data in hundreds of studies on wireless health risks, arraying them in terms of funding source. "Our data show that mobile phone industry funded/influenced work is six times more likely to find 'no problem' than independently funded work," the group noted. "The industry thus has significantly contaminated the scientific evidence pool."
Looking at a variety of studies as well as anecdotal evidence, Ketcham affords us the opportunity to ask ourselves whether we are risking our health, indeed, our very lives, for the price of the alluring convenience of our various electronic gadgets. For anyone embarking on research of the evidence, there is one proviso that should be borne in mind, as pointed out in the article:
Published meta-reviews of hundreds of such studies suggest that industry funding tends to skew results. According to a survey by Henry Lai, a research professor at University of Washington, only 28 percent of studies funded by the wireless industry showed some type of biological effect from cell phone radiation. Meanwhile, independently funded studies produce an altogether different set of data: 67 percent of those studies showed a bioeffect. The Safe Wireless Initiative, a research group in Washington, DC that has since closed down, unpacked the data in hundreds of studies on wireless health risks, arraying them in terms of funding source. "Our data show that mobile phone industry funded/influenced work is six times more likely to find 'no problem' than independently funded work," the group noted. "The industry thus has significantly contaminated the scientific evidence pool."
Friday, December 2, 2011
Rob Ford Continues To Make An Ass of Himself
While the title of this post might strike many as redundant, even I, despite having borne witness to a great deal of asinine behaviour over the years, was surprised to see the following headline on The Star's website a few minutes ago: Mayor Rob Ford to Toronto: Don’t read the Star
Apparently the big boy is calling upon 'Ford nation' (is there anyone still residing there?) to join him in a boycott of The Star. Still petulantly miffed over a story that the paper still stands by, one revealing that he was asked to stop coaching football at a Toronto high school for inappropriate behaviour, the Toronto mayor continues to show the stuff he is made of, and because I prefer to keep a certain level of decorum and language on this blog, I will let the reader infer what that might be.
But please read the story, as it will make you laugh, cry, despair, or exult, depending upon both your level of maturity and, perhaps, political orientation.
Apparently the big boy is calling upon 'Ford nation' (is there anyone still residing there?) to join him in a boycott of The Star. Still petulantly miffed over a story that the paper still stands by, one revealing that he was asked to stop coaching football at a Toronto high school for inappropriate behaviour, the Toronto mayor continues to show the stuff he is made of, and because I prefer to keep a certain level of decorum and language on this blog, I will let the reader infer what that might be.
But please read the story, as it will make you laugh, cry, despair, or exult, depending upon both your level of maturity and, perhaps, political orientation.
Apparently They Don't Hold With That Readin' Thing Either
Or that might be the easy inference to draw about Mayors Rob and Doug Ford. As reported yesterday, The Toronto Star is filing a complaint with the City of Toronto's ethics commissioner over the lads' embargo of The Star of all official notices and pronouncements from the mayor's office. Today, their ability to interpret basic text (pedagogy for being able to read) must be called into question.
The front page headline in today's Star reads: Doug Ford to Star: Drop dead. The story reveals the deep insights of ideologically-conjoined twin Rob Ford:
“No one can force anyone to talk to anyone,” he said in a brief interview during a council meeting.
“You can quote me: if you apologize on the front page, it’s done. You can go to the Supreme Court and try to get Rob to talk to the Star — he won’t talk to you. He just won’t. Until you do it. It’s simple: put that one-liner (apology) in there, it’s over,” he said.
Either intentionally or unintentionally, the protective sibling misread or misrepresented The Star's complaint. As Torstar chair John Honderich has said:
[T}he complaint would not try to compel Ford to speak to Star reporters. Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, nonetheless portrayed it as an attempt to do so.
One can only hope that at least collectively, the Fords and their ilk more carefully read the proposals that come before council.
The front page headline in today's Star reads: Doug Ford to Star: Drop dead. The story reveals the deep insights of ideologically-conjoined twin Rob Ford:
“No one can force anyone to talk to anyone,” he said in a brief interview during a council meeting.
“You can quote me: if you apologize on the front page, it’s done. You can go to the Supreme Court and try to get Rob to talk to the Star — he won’t talk to you. He just won’t. Until you do it. It’s simple: put that one-liner (apology) in there, it’s over,” he said.
Either intentionally or unintentionally, the protective sibling misread or misrepresented The Star's complaint. As Torstar chair John Honderich has said:
[T}he complaint would not try to compel Ford to speak to Star reporters. Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, nonetheless portrayed it as an attempt to do so.
One can only hope that at least collectively, the Fords and their ilk more carefully read the proposals that come before council.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Toronto Star Fights Back
Because the ever-petulant Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, backed by his always doting and sycophantic executive, continues to boycott The Toronto Star on all official notices and pronouncements from his office, the paper has decided to file an official complaint with the city's integrity commissioner.
As reported in an article by Torstar Chair John Honderich in today's edition, the genesis of Ford's childish edict is a story that the paper ran during the mayoral campaign about his conduct as a football coach. At the time, Ford the candidate said he was going to sue the paper for libel, but never followed up on his threat, and has since stipulated that his freeze will stay in place until the Star runs an apology above the fold on page 1. As he recently told reporter Daniel Dale, “I don’t talk to the Star till you guys apologize. You guys (are) liars.”
Putting aside the howls of outrage that would have attended such a proclamation had a liberal mayor issued such a fatwah against a right-wing news organization, the Star, I believe, is right when it says that his boycott raises a serious issue of abuse of power and directly affects [their] ability to cover city hall and serve [their] readers.
The issue clearly goes beyond one person with an axe to grind. Ford, because of the political power he wields, was able to get political compliance from his executive committee to shelve Councillor Adam Vaughan's “free press and democracy” motion [that] would have prohibited city employees and politicians from excluding any specific journalist or news outlet from any “media conference,” “media event” or news release.
It has been said that all politics is local. That is also probably the best place to take a stand against political corruption as well.
As reported in an article by Torstar Chair John Honderich in today's edition, the genesis of Ford's childish edict is a story that the paper ran during the mayoral campaign about his conduct as a football coach. At the time, Ford the candidate said he was going to sue the paper for libel, but never followed up on his threat, and has since stipulated that his freeze will stay in place until the Star runs an apology above the fold on page 1. As he recently told reporter Daniel Dale, “I don’t talk to the Star till you guys apologize. You guys (are) liars.”
Putting aside the howls of outrage that would have attended such a proclamation had a liberal mayor issued such a fatwah against a right-wing news organization, the Star, I believe, is right when it says that his boycott raises a serious issue of abuse of power and directly affects [their] ability to cover city hall and serve [their] readers.
The issue clearly goes beyond one person with an axe to grind. Ford, because of the political power he wields, was able to get political compliance from his executive committee to shelve Councillor Adam Vaughan's “free press and democracy” motion [that] would have prohibited city employees and politicians from excluding any specific journalist or news outlet from any “media conference,” “media event” or news release.
It has been said that all politics is local. That is also probably the best place to take a stand against political corruption as well.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Where In The World Is This?
What follows is a series of pictures, the link to which my son Matthew sent me. They are all pictures of the same country, the last one offering you the only real clue as to its identity. I urge you to look at each one slowly, and when you come to the end and discover its identity, ask yourself what your previous notion of its essential geography was, and consider why you have that notion.
I will have a few comments following the photos.
The last photo, of course, is the only real indication that these are pictures of Iran. What was your preconceived notion of the geography? If you are anything like me or my son, you probably thought of the country as a largely arid wasteland, a rather forbidding, uninviting and sterile country.
Continuing with my didactic tone, I have to pose one more question: Why do so many of us have that notion of Iran? A big part of the answer, it seems to me, is that, aided and abetted yet again by the bulk of the media, that is the image western governments want us to have. To view it thus is to predispose us to seeing Iran as the monster in the current drama being played out regarding its alleged nuclear weapons' program, upon which I have written two previous posts.
In any event, I regard these pictures as timely reminders for all of us to cultivate and practise the skill of critical thinking.
Should you wish to see more pictures of Iran, please click here.
I will have a few comments following the photos.
The last photo, of course, is the only real indication that these are pictures of Iran. What was your preconceived notion of the geography? If you are anything like me or my son, you probably thought of the country as a largely arid wasteland, a rather forbidding, uninviting and sterile country.
Continuing with my didactic tone, I have to pose one more question: Why do so many of us have that notion of Iran? A big part of the answer, it seems to me, is that, aided and abetted yet again by the bulk of the media, that is the image western governments want us to have. To view it thus is to predispose us to seeing Iran as the monster in the current drama being played out regarding its alleged nuclear weapons' program, upon which I have written two previous posts.
In any event, I regard these pictures as timely reminders for all of us to cultivate and practise the skill of critical thinking.
Should you wish to see more pictures of Iran, please click here.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Now This Really Is Funny
It is a rare occasion when I experience a good belly laugh, but the following bogus media release, reported by the CBC's Allison Crawford, had that effect. While I doubt that the morose and ostensibly humourless Harper government will be amused, those with a degree of normalcy in their mental and emotional makeup probably will. Enjoy:
Harper Government Announces New Fitness Tax Credits for Seniors Shovelling Snow
OTTAWA - The Hon. Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency today announced a new Fitness Tax Credit for Seniors who shovel their own sidewalks, effective immediately.
Aglukkaq said that the new program is the first in a series of "preventive" health care measures from the Harper Government that will pare health care costs by encouraging Canadians to take greater responsibility for their health, while also supporting independent living and fitness in those 55 and over.
"Studies show that seniors can improve muscle mass and cardiovascular fitness through strenuous physical activity," said Aglukkaq. "By instituting a Seniors Fitness Tax Credit for Shoveling Snow, seniors on fixed incomes will not have to pay anyone to shovel their walks, they will be rewarded - even posthumously - for doing it themselves."
Aglukkaq said that seniors who mail in photographic or video proof that they shovel their own sidewalks will receive a crisp $50 Canadian bill in the mail. If the snow is heavy and wet, the amount rises to $100.
Concerns that shoveling snow might lead to heart attacks was unwarranted, said Aglukkaq.
"There is no scientific consensus on the link between shoveling snow and heart attacks," said Aglukkaq. "In fact, there is considerably more credible scientific evidence for climate change."
Aglukkaq said that if the program is widely adopted, it would actually save the government hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars by reducing overspending in CPP, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and health care costs. The savings would be achieved mostly through attrition, she added.
-30-
Media Enquiries:
Health Canada
(613) 957-2983
Public Enquiries:
(613) 957-2991
1-866 225-0709
Harper Government Announces New Fitness Tax Credits for Seniors Shovelling Snow
OTTAWA - The Hon. Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency today announced a new Fitness Tax Credit for Seniors who shovel their own sidewalks, effective immediately.
Aglukkaq said that the new program is the first in a series of "preventive" health care measures from the Harper Government that will pare health care costs by encouraging Canadians to take greater responsibility for their health, while also supporting independent living and fitness in those 55 and over.
"Studies show that seniors can improve muscle mass and cardiovascular fitness through strenuous physical activity," said Aglukkaq. "By instituting a Seniors Fitness Tax Credit for Shoveling Snow, seniors on fixed incomes will not have to pay anyone to shovel their walks, they will be rewarded - even posthumously - for doing it themselves."
Aglukkaq said that seniors who mail in photographic or video proof that they shovel their own sidewalks will receive a crisp $50 Canadian bill in the mail. If the snow is heavy and wet, the amount rises to $100.
Concerns that shoveling snow might lead to heart attacks was unwarranted, said Aglukkaq.
"There is no scientific consensus on the link between shoveling snow and heart attacks," said Aglukkaq. "In fact, there is considerably more credible scientific evidence for climate change."
Aglukkaq said that if the program is widely adopted, it would actually save the government hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars by reducing overspending in CPP, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and health care costs. The savings would be achieved mostly through attrition, she added.
-30-
Media Enquiries:
Health Canada
(613) 957-2983
Public Enquiries:
(613) 957-2991
1-866 225-0709
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