A Journalist Writes About A Pattern

The other day I wrote a post about detecting patterns in political behaviour, opining that most media spend a disproportionate amount of their considerable resources covering trivia like celebrity gossip and acting as shallow and lazy supporters of government propaganda. The Toronto Star, I asserted, is one of the few exceptions in the world of newspapers.

Despite my feelings of repugnance toward The Globe and Mail, they still have at least one journalist who writes and thinks independently: Lawrence Martin. Yesterday, in a piece entitled The time has come for a progressive revival, Martin, drawing upon the work of a blog posting by Alex Himelfarb, the Clerk of the Privy Council under Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien and, briefly, Stephen Harper, discusses the slow but relentless dismantling of the progressive state at the hands of Harper Inc., a change that was presaged by the dropping of the word Progressive from the party's name and one that is accelerating under recent legislation.

I hope that you will have time to read both pieces. While Himelfarb's analysis is lengthy, it is a solid testament to the robust nature of the politcal blogosphere. Martin's piece is much shorter but, I believe, captures the flavour of the originating work.

Please Read This

It is a very eloquent and heart-felt rebuttal to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s observation that there are “no bad jobs.”

Thomas Mulcair: Wastrel or Canny Investor?

Given the widespread support that the the NDP Leader of the The Official Opposition is enjoying these days, it is hardly surprising to see a public campaign to erode that support getting underway. The latest, of course, is the non-story of Thomas Mulcair remortgaging his house 11 times; as the trained seals the Canadian public is expected to be, we are supposed to recoil in horror at the thought of this wastrel ever becoming Prime Ministere and doing the same with our 'fragile economy', to borrow a phrase from the perpetually-consternated Labour Minister, Lisa Raitt.

After reading an article in the Financial Post my son, who recently moved to Alberta, sent me the following thoughts:

Everyone's criticizing Mulcair for taking out 11 mortgages on his house and not understanding how to handle money, with the implication being that he'll bankrupt Canada. Here's a good rebuttal to that, saying that it's the opposite, and that he's very savvy with money. As the article says, borrowing to spend is a bad idea, but borrowing to invest is a good idea.

"If you are borrowing money at 3.5% and you have an opportunity for a yield of about 4.5% in a basic investment of say real estate investment trusts, that looks like a winner even before you consider the advantage of writing off interest."

Since he likely borrowed all that money to fund his political campaign, he made a superb financial investment.

Guess that means Harper Inc. is going to have to do a little more work on the Mulcair character-assassination file.

A Victim of Bullying Speaks Out

I have a confession to make: I'm a survivor of bullying. Educated in the Catholic elementary and secondary high school system, it was common for me to be the target of verbal harassment that questioned my worth as a human being and physical abuse in the form of sudden and explosive slaps to the face, hair-pulling, and books slammed over my head. Needless to say, I was not the only victim of such assaults

It literally took decades to lose my hatred of the teachers, both lay and religious, who perpetrated those acts of violence against me, under the pretext of 'corrective discipline'.

It was those experiences, I suspect, that planted the seeds of what became a life-long suspicion of all institutions, both religious and secular, and a deep, abiding contempt for all who abuse their authority in any arena of human activity.

And so it is with a mixture of fascination, bemusement and contempt that I read about the current outrage being expressed by Catholics and political opportunists (i.e., the Hudak Conservatives) in Ontario over the McGuinty government's insistence in its amended anti-bullying initiative that all school boards, both public and Catholic (the latter of which in fact is public, given that they are taxpayer-funded) permit the use of the term gay-straight alliances if requested by students.

Indeed, no less a church luminary than Toronto Archbishop and Cardinal Thomas Collins has weighed in on the controversy. The frequently red-accoutered prelate, in rhetorical flourishes approaching the hysterical, warns ominously, and with holocaust overtones, that

other faiths could become targets of the government if the anti-bullying bill becomes law and doesn't allow Catholic schools the right to deal with homophobia in their own ways.

"I would say to people of other faiths and even those who disagree with us on (gay-straight alliances): if this could happen to us it can happen to you in some other area," he said.

"When religious freedom becomes a second-class right, you also will eventually be affected."

Consider us warned, Cardinal Collins. And one more thing: get over your fear of the word 'gay' and try practising Jesus' command of unconditional love.

Lisa Raitt Promises To Get The Trains Running

And will she promise to get them running on time?

We're The Real Opposition Party - No, We are - NO, WE ARE

While the federal Liberals have adopted an interesting strategy by teaming up with Elizabeth May to introduce amendments that could delay the passage of the Conservative government’s omnibus budget bill, their childish boast that “We very clearly indicated that we are the real opposition here because we found that the best way to deal with this ...." tends to undermine any claim to superiority over the NDP.

Poisonous partisan politics, something Harper Inc. loves.

Patterns

Something that occurs just once is mere happenstance; twice is a coincidence, and three or more times is part of a pattern. - Anonymous

Being able to detect patterns, whether in the lab or in the crucible of political behaviour, requires time, intelligence, and access to extensive sources of information. Few of us possess sufficient amounts of all three to be able to conduct such analysis in isolation; therefore collaboration would also seem to be a fourth requirement.

While the Internet has made it easier to detect such patterns, and indeed there are certain bloggers I read who are masterful in their capacity for pattern-detection (Dr. Dawg and The Sixth Estate come immediately to mind), there is still a vital role to be played by organizations that should have all four components in abundance - the mainstream media.

Sadly, however, many newspapers and television networks have degenerated into lazy, sycophantic and shallow promoters of government policy and celebrity gossip, affording little upon which the critical thinker can draw for nourishment. However, there is one paper who readers of this blog know I take a special interest and pride in, and that is The Toronto Star.

Canada's largest-circulation newspaper, The Star is often dismissed by the reactionary right as a 'leftist-rag', a derogation not surprising since nuanced thinking is not the extreme-right's forte. However, in my view it provides much-need information so sadly missing from Canada's self-proclaimed newspaper of record, The Globe and Mail, a journal I have occasionally written about on this blog.

The fact that The Star has such high circulation figures and healthy profits is a clear indication of the appetite that exists in this country for solid journalism. It is certainly why I subscribe to it.

A national debate on key issues affecting the lives of Canadians cannot take place in a vacuum. And while Harper Inc., probably the most secretive government in our history, sees openness and truth as an impediment to the implementation of its neo-conservative agenda, The Star continues to ensure that the vacuum is never absolute.

I therefore highly recommend perusal of this morning's editorial, in which The Star, while discussing the changes in the Employment Insurance appeals system, detects a larger pattern at work here, ending with this assertion:

What is emerging is a system that gives more power to the government and makes it more difficult for Canadians to challenge the way their tax dollars are being used, their rights are being eroded and their avenues of appeal are being shut down.