Upper Class Twit of the Year?

I have long given up trying to fathom the 'mind' of America. The behaviour of its political leaders, both Democratic and Republican, and the following such behaviour inspires, leaves me particularly perplexed.

However, Mitt Romney's recent foray abroad to display his foreign policy bona fides has at least provided me with an opportunity to wax nostalgic about the Monty Python comedy troupe, especially this classic:

All kidding aside, the fact that Romney is considered a serious candidate, as Thomas Walkom points out today in The Star, should be cause for world-wide alarm.

Democracy Watch's Indictment of Harper Government Hypocrisy

The following concise indictment of Harper corruption and hypocrisy says a great deal, doesn't it?

PM's ex-aide charged with fraud, July 28

The federal Conservatives responded to the influence-peddling charges that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former adviser Bruce Carson is facing by with this statement: “Any individual who doesn’t respect our laws must face their full force, as well as the consequences that come with them.”

This is a deeply hypocritical statement from the Conservatives whose leader has done nothing to penalize dozens of Conservative cabinet ministers and MPs who violated federal good government rules by handing out government cheques labelled with the Conservative Party logo.

For instance, he has done nothing to penalize cabinet ministers Christian Paradis (who violated the federal ethics law), Tony Clement (who violated federal spending rules in the G8-G20 fiasco), Jim Flaherty and Peter MacKay (who violated federal budget rules by hiding the actual cost of the fighter jets and who also violated rules by using a military helicopter for a personal purpose), and Bev Oda (who violated rules governing expenses, and also misled Parliament).

In some cases, these ministers and others have faced no consequences for violating key rules also because a watchdog agency like the Auditor General or Ethics Commissioner has no power to penalize them, or has failed to enforce the law effectively and properly and no one is allowed to challenge their improper enforcement in court.

Because nothing can be done to force a Prime Minister to penalize Cabinet ministers and politicians who violate rules, the watchdog agencies must be required to conduct random audits and to investigate all complaints and situations in which there is evidence of a violation, and must be given the power to, and required to, penalize violators, and everyone must be allowed to challenge any watchdog in court who fails to enforce rules properly.

As well, the huge loopholes must be closed in key good government laws because these loopholes currently make it legal in many cases for people involved in politics to be dishonest, unethical, secretive and wasteful.

For example, loopholes in the federal lobbying law, and weak enforcement, have meant that no one has been prosecuted for failing to register as a lobbyist since the law was enacted in 1988, and dozens of lobbyists have been let off the hook.

Recently, a House of Commons Committee has recommended some changes to close some of the loopholes in that law, and to strengthen enforcement, but not enough changes to stop secret, unethical lobbying of the federal government.

Tyler Sommers, Democracy Watch, Ottawa

The Scourge of Online Anonymity

I have spent the better part of my life, it seems, writing letters to the editor and occasionally newspaper articles. Never once, during all those years did I ever think twice about the publications' policies requiring the use of the writer's real name. My reasoning is, if I have something worthwhile to say, I will stand behind it with my identity disclosed.

On the Internet, however, these requirements do no seem to apply, as newspapers and other publications with readers' forums allow for the use of pseudonyms, an identity-concealing facility I have never availed myself of.

Judging by any perusal of such sites, however, it is readily apparent that anonymity frequently lowers the level of discourse to mere sniping and hate-mongering. With rare exceptions I have stopped, for example, reading the comments following Globe articles, as the first few may be insightful, but what invariably ensues are attacks on the constructive commentator's politics or intelligence. The term used to describe such attackers is trolls.

Alternet, one of my favorite alternative news and commentary sites, has an interesting article entitled Why Online Comments Are So Toxic. Written by Lisa Selin Davis, it is well-worth reading.

Media Quietude Over Climate Change

A few months ago, when we were seeing mid-summer temperatures during early spring, I remember Tom Brown, the CTV weatherman, looking grim and saying words to the effect that "This is something we all need to be concerned about." It was, I assume, a brave but oblique allusion to climate change.

Why brave? Since it was an observation never again repeated, I assume old Tom knew he was treading dangerously close to something that the corporate ownership of CTV does not want discussed, lest it offend sponsors or potential sponsors whose ultimate message is to consume like there is no tomorrow (rather prescient in some ways, aren't they?)

I had occasion to think about that reference last evening as I was watching my local news, and there was a report on the extreme weather we have been experiencing this summer (extreme humidity, drought, and sudden destructive storms), yet not a word was said about the broader implications of this weather.

Earlier this month, The Guardian ran a story by Amy Goodman, who is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,000 public television and radio stations worldwide. In it, she observed that in U.S. reporting,

The phrase "extreme weather" flashes across television screens from coast to coast, but its connection to climate change is consistently ignored, if not outright mocked.

In her column today in The Toronto Star, Linda McQuaig, makes similar observations about the cone of silence that permeates weather news in Canada:

CBC TV’s The National announced a report on this summer’s “wicked weather.”

...But the report focused on “storm chasers” — people who follow tornadoes for a hobby. And it raised the question of whether the wild weather could affect our insurance rates. Not a word about whether the unusual heat, drought and storms could be a symptom of what we’re doing to the planet.

McQuaig goes on to suggest:

...the issue seems to have lost its cachet with media managers, who apparently consider it too negative or tedious for audiences they feel obliged to entertain. Media commentators tend to ignore it or dismiss it, apparently afraid of looking too earnest or Earth-hugging, and therefore out of sync with our money-driven corporate culture.

I guess it is a truism to say that we are a very short-sighted species that prefers to ignore things until they can no longer be ignored. We seem to have reached that point, but one has to wonder how long it will be before the mainstream media acknowledge that fact.

Chris Hedges On The Perversion Of Scholarship

One of my favorite writers, Chris hedges, continues to do via alternative news what is so rare today in the mainstream media: challenge the status quo.

His latest salvo is against the tyranny of conformity endemic in post-secondary institutions which, he posits, are no longer places where one goes to learn how to think, but rather where one goes to be told what to think.

Hedges suggests that the veneration of athletes and their coaches, admittedly greater in the United States than in Canada, is symptomatic of the pervasive influence of the corporate agenda on places of higher learning.

Hedges reserves his greatest contempt for the Big Ten Conference colleges where, he suggests:

The student is implicitly told his or her self-worth and fulfillment are found in crowds, in mass emotions, rather than individual transcendence. Those who do not pay deference to the celebration of force, wealth and power become freaks. It is a war on knowledge in the name of knowledge.

He says much more in the column, which I hope you will get the opportunity to check out on Truthdig.

Sayed Shah Sharifi Arrives In Canada

Thanks to the doggedness of The Toronto Star, for whom social justice and journalistic integrity are more than mere words, the long tale of Sayed Shah Sharifi, the Afghan interpreter, is finally over.

In a world where victories are often few and far between for the 'good guys,' today is a day we all should celebrate the fact that despite all of the efforts by Immigration Jason Kenney to prevent his immigration to Canada, likely out of spite for making a public fuss over delays, Sharifi is now safely in Canada.

You can read the full story here.

The Cost of Profound Ignorance

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I have to admit that the profoundly ignorant deeply distress me, especially those who revel in that ignorance, wear it as a faux badge of independent critical thinking, and refuse to entertain the possibility of error.

Take, for example, climate-change deniers. Despite the overwhelming evidence that it is taking place, indeed, accelerating at unanticipated rates (see, as an illustration, Kev's graphic at Trapped in a Whirlpool) and has almost universal agreement amongst scientists that it is mainly human-caused, they blithely dismiss such data as mere 'opinion.'

I had reason to reflect upon this sad fact the other day when I ran into a neighbourhood woman walking her dog. As is the norm when talking to people we don't know well, we discussed the weather, specifically the incessant heat, humidity, and drought that has plagued my part of the country this summer.

While I realize that the volatility and harshness of any one season cannot be attributed to climate change, I opined that perhaps we are paying for our environmental 'sins.' Immediately she snorted and pointed out that there had been a dustbowl in the thirties. I responded by saying that the problem now, unlike the thirties, is that a pattern has clearly emerged in which the frequency and extent of meteorological volatility stands in marked contrast with previous periods.

She informed me that she doesn't 'believe' in climate change, and that the aberrations we are now experiencing are simply part of 'natural cycles.' Her logic eluded me, and I had to wonder when belief in scientific data became optional and simply a matter of opinion.

It does not bode well for our survival as a species, does it?

Well, time to go out for a bike ride. This morning is one of the few days this summer without a humidex.

UPDATE: The Guardian reports the following:

In a survey of more than 1,000 readers of websites related to climate change, people who agreed with free market economic principles and endorsed conspiracy theories were more likely to dispute that human-caused climate change was a reality.

As well, you might find this of interest: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic