A Monday Thought Experiment

As a matter of course, I allow myself one hour of television news per evening, 30 minutes local and 30 minutes of either American or Canadian national news. It is a practice I highly recommend, not simply as a means of keeping up with events in this tortured world, but also as a window into the lives of others.

One conclusion I have drawn from this habit is that we can never know the lives of others, especially the burdens they must bear on a daily basis. In this, I am not talking solely about the very public problem of the homeless, but they certainly count. I am also talking about windows into the often fraught lives of people caring for special-needs children,  elderly parents, waiting in the ER, or any number of other exigencies that comprise life. The common denominator is insufficient funding for the support they need.

In my more wistful moments I imagine a regime of fair and progressive taxation, where those who are more than comfortable pay a little more for programs directed toward the public good. At the very least, some of the aforementioned problems would be ameliorated. Yet we live in times where we have little control over how our money is spent, as, truth be told, we are not the ones calling the shots, political theatre notwithstanding.

This post was prompted by two letters in today's Star, which I reproduce below:

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Dental program leads to inequity

Federal dental care program will exclude 4.4 million uninsured Canadians: report, Jan. 17

Canada’s proposal for expanding health care coverage to dental and medical drugs is flawed. The law would have handsomely fed politicians arbitrarily sitting in judgment over who beneath them can afford dental care unassisted and who cannot. Further the plan cuts out any Canadian currently paying private insurance premiums, under the facile presumption that anyone — let’s say, a retiree struggling to support a live-in parent with dementia, and put food on the table under roof that is beginning to leak, heated by a furnace nearing the end of it’s projected life — who has private health insurance can comfortably afford it.

We live under the rule of governments that take their policy orders from corporate economists and boardrooms. We are told that fulsome public health care would be too costly, in the same breath that we are told the inflated prices corporations charge us for essentials must only be combatted by using interest rates to make those essentials too expensive, and that modest homes must be taxed yearly on speculated values.

Canada can afford universal dental, vision, medical care but taxing all wealth equitably. Level the field.

Darcy McLenaghen, Toronto

 

Health care crisis

No end to the ER crisis without investments and addressing workers’ concerns, Jan. 17

The conclusion of the authors of this article is that we just need to invest $1.25 billion annually to solve the health-care crisis. Where will the money come from? I would gladly pay a reinstated licence plate renewal fee of $120 per year, as would most people I suspect, if the billion dollars saved by cancelling it would be put toward our health care system. If that will reduce wait times, improve worker incomes and boost staffing levels across the province, I don't see a downside. Politicians are the only thing standing in the way.

Ken Beckim, Oshawa, Ont.

The Noble And The Depraved

Most nights, after watching a half-hour of American news,  my presence at the dinner table is suffused with cynicism and disgust. Tales of violence, savagery and complete disregard for other people depicted nightly will do that to a person. However, occasionally amidst all of the mayhem, a light emerges and I am reminded that despite the myriad failures of our species, there are strong, good, even noble people in our midst. 

Such is evident in the following interview of two of the three Palestinian-American students who were shot last November in Burlington Vermont, presumably for being Palestinian. The depraved gunman has pleaded not guilty.

One of the victims, 20-year-old Hisham Awartani, was paralyzed in the assault. It is he who speaks so eloquently about the experience. Although well-aware that racism was the basis for the attack, he expresses gratitude for the medical treatment he has received and a heartfelt concern for those Palestinians in the homeland who have no access to such care. 

As you will see, he is mature and self-possessed well beyond his years.

I very much doubt I could act with such grace under his circumstances.

Boeing: A Followup

If you read my previous post, you will know that the recent failure of a door plug in an Alaska Air flight was presaged by the air crashes of two 737 Max-8 flights, one in 2018 and one five months later, in 2019. Not only was the company culpable for shoddy, profit-driven practices, but so was the FAA, which had delegated safety inspections to Boeing employees, a clear conflict of interest if there ever was one.

The following deals with the aftermath of the recent near-disaster on Alaskan Air, which should not have been a surprise to those in the know. Belatedly, it would seem the FAA is ready to start enforcing real standards for this corporate behemoth.

Will these changes be enough to avert future catastrophes? A nervous public awaits the answer. 

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing

 I will be the first to admit that my viewing tastes are unusual for a man my age. I enjoy the off-kilter, the unusual, even the bizarre in movie/streaming fare.  And although I never watch television during the day, that still amounts to both wasted, and some well-rewarded, hours. 

Sometimes, my tastes are more down to earth, so to speak, and such was my experience the other night when I watched a riveting documentary recommended by my brother-in-law entitled Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. Although made in 2022 and focussing on the crashes of the 747-Max 8, it sheds incredible light on the current safety issues plaguing Boeing, and in that regard is must-viewing.

Here is a trailer for the film, and I am happy to report the entire documentary can be found for free at Daily Motion. It is also available on Netflix.

How does a company go from one admired worldwide for its sterling safety record to one where two catastrophic crashes occurred within five months of each other? The answer is surprisingly simply: corporate greed. But the real story is how Boeing succumbed to such venality.

It began in 1997, when Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged. Unfortunately, in that merger, the culture of the latter ultimately supplanted that of the former, whose decisions had been determined largely by engineers, their guiding principles innovation and safety. A comprehensive detailing of the results of this merger can be seen in this Atlantic article.

The film outlines how, in order to wrest sales supremacy from its new rival Airbus, Boeing embarked on an enhancement of its 737s, in operation since the late sixties. Speed, rather than safety, was of the essence. Because the new Max-8 required an alteration in the angle of the engine, the chances of a stall after takeoff, as the craft was ascending, increased. To counteract that possibility, they developed the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), a flight stabilizing feature. 

Because things were being done on the cheap by this time, there were two major problems with the system: there was only one sensor (which could be easily disabled by a bird strike, for example) in the nose of the plane to measure its angle of attack as it ascended, and NO ONE was trained in its use. The big selling point for the Max-8, one that allowed it to regain sales supremacy, was the assurance that no flight simulator training was needed for MCAS. Such training is very costly to airlines, given the time needed to allow pilots to become proficient. This turned out to be a fatal false economy, and like a malevolent ghost in the machine, MCAS sent hundreds of people to their deaths.

The two crashes that ensued within five months of each other, killing a total of 346 people, were entirely avoidable. Why was nothing done after the first crash to remedy the situation? False assurances and bureaucratic inertia are part of the answer.

For the rest, you will have to watch the film. I may, in my next post, write about the ongoing fallout of the merger that now has the FAA threatening on-site oversight because of the latest symptom of laxity, the door-plug blowout much in the news these days.

A Failure Of Leadership

No matter where you stand on the Israeli war against Gazans, undeniable is the fact that many, many innocent lives are being lost. One report estimates that 100 children a day are killed, and that 70% of the casualties are women and children. And the war shows no sign of ending.

According to two respected journalists, there is little doubt that the responsibility for this ongoing carnage rests on the shoulders of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. 

Thie Star's Martin Regg Cohn sees personal self-preservation as the key to understanding Netanyahu's merciless war of retribution for the October Hamas attack on Israel. Speaking of the unseemly coalition of reprobates with which the leader has allied himself, he writes,

That he should consort with so dishonourable a cabal of cabinet ministers — renegades who violated the law, racists who breached human rights, radicals who scorned democratic norms — could only be explained by Netanyahu’s utter desperation. When I interviewed him as prime minister in the late 1990s, he was consumed by fear of losing political power; today, he worries about losing his personal freedom.

Netanyahu stands accused of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three ongoing cases. His best defence was to go on the offence, perpetrating a constitutional coup to perpetuate his grip on power and protect him from the judicial process. 

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? One only need look to the U.S. and Trump's attempt to subvert justice by getting re-elected. Before that eventuality, he is doing everything he can to get all charges against him dismissed. Netanyahu has followed similar tactics.

Emboldened and empowered, Netanyahu attempted to jury-rig the judicial process by directing his coalition of lawbreakers to undermine the legal system at its core. His government spearheaded the gutting of the Supreme Court’s traditional powers, curbing its authority to review the “reasonableness” of any legislation rammed through by his parliamentary majority while protecting him from being unseated by the attorney general.

Well-respected journalist Gwynne Dyer has a similarly withering assessment of the Israeli leader.

The people around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regularly describe the war in Gaza as "existential," but that’s nonsense. The "existence" of Israel is in no danger whatever. The only thing facing an existential risk is Netanyahu’s government, which would immediately collapse if the shooting stops.

The extreme right-wing and religious nationalist parties who made Netanyahu’s coalition possible are hoping that prolonged fighting will drive the Palestinians (22,000 dead so far) out of part or all of the Gaza Strip and/or the West Bank.

As national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir put it, the war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.”

They want that land for more Jewish settlements, and if Netanyahu made peace they would instantly abandon him.

Even worse than that, from Netanyahu’s point of view, is the fact that a return to "normal" would allow his trial on corruption charges to resume. That could ultimately send him to jail, and anything is better than that. Even endless war.

Is endless war what Netanyahu is counting on? Given that he has no strategy, Dyer offers this:

Why else would Netanyahu now be preparing for a backup war with Hezbollah in Lebanon? He and his ministers are constantly warning that such a war may be "necessary" — “the situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue,” one said — even though it is obvious that Hezbollah does not want a war now.

Hezbollah is a formidable organization that fought the Israeli army to a standstill in their last major confrontation in 2006. Deliberately going to war with it when Israel is already fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip makes no sense in terms of the country’s interests — but in terms of Netanyahu’s personal interest, it makes perfectly good sense.

Potentates of old were always willing to sacrifice thousands upon thousands of lives in pursuit of their reprehensible self-interest. In that, it would seem Benjamin Netanyahu has been a very apt student of history. 

 

 

"God Made Trump"

I 'm sorry to report that the American race to the bottom continues. The above is not a satire, but rather a post by Trump on his social media platform and will no doubt find an eager and receptive audience. 

Sadly, the deity does not come off well here. Perhaps a celestial defamation lawsuit is in order? I imagine the punitive damages would be severe.

A Personal Reflection

Regular readers may have noticed that I have not been posting very much in the last month or so. In addition to it having been a busy Christmas season, the other reason stems from my own outlook.

While there may be a measure of seasonal affective disorder influencing that outlook, I think the main cause is that I find it increasingly difficult to get excited, upset, outraged or flummoxed by the world's antics. For me, there is nothing new under the sun, which presents a problem for a blogger who writes about the world. One of the rules I have generally observed in my writing life, both on this platform and in my other communication endeavours, is not to write when I don't feel it. In other words, writing for the sake of writing, without even a modicum of passion, is an empty exercise with generally unsatisfying results.

Don't get me wrong - committing mu thoughts to metaphorical paper has been an integral part of my life since I was a young teenager, when I started submitting letters to the editor. Writing has always helped to focus and refine my thinking, and in these latter days of my life, I hope it helps to keep my cognitive functioning intact. I have no desire to "go gentle into that good night."

Nonetheless, and I hope my inertia will pass, I have no faith in the world anymore. Unlike when I was young, when everything seemed possible (even flying cars!), I now see only the ending of things, and the deep sense that as a species, we have passed our best before date, that we are participating in the long goodbye.

I shall close this mini-confessional with a clip by the late, great George Carlin who, in the latter part of his career, seemed to mirror my dour worldview.