Musing

Yesterday over breakfast, between raising the minimum wage in BC (It's the lowest in Canada.) and approving of our waiter's pension plans, we were conjecturing about the future of Gordon Campbell, the BC Liberals and the political landscape in general.

Our take went something like this.

Campbell will not run again.

He will want to quit "on top."

Kevin Falcon is chomping so hard at the bit to be the next leader that his teeth are being ground to dust as we speak.

No one will let that happen in this lifetime.

Rich Coleman would also like The Cape.

He won't get it either.

Carole Taylor can take the job any time she wants, and if she runs, she will win handily.

So what do you think happens?

This morning, Gary Mason muses over the same possibilities in his Globe column, and Carole Taylor announces publicly that the HST is bad economics and worse politics.

Mason figures that Campbell will not go gently into that good night.

Perhaps, fueled by morning coffee and OJ, we were being optimistic.

The next election is unbearably three years away.

Oy...

However, a lot of things can happen in three years.

Let's hope that nine of them are scandals that put an end to the current reign of Old Granite Heart.


By the way, on the subject of the HST, I am so completely fed up to the teeth with the Captains of Industry telling us that this usury is good for us.

These so-called leaders, these corporate ganiffs ares so unbelievably out of touch with ordinary struggling citizens.

If you're driving a couple of beemers and lunching at West and private jetting off to Madrid for a few rounds of golf, you can't possibly understand for a moment people trying to but their first house or seniors trying to pay bills or young parents trying to pay for school supplies.

Retrogressive Politics

Whatever your convictions about the subject of abortion, Stephen Harper's refusal to fund abortions in our international aid programs is simply stupid.

Canada is refusing to fund abortion services as part of a G8 initiative to improve the health of mothers in poor countries.

This shows a clear lack of good street smarts.

The question of whether family planning would be part of the G8 maternal-health initiative is deemed important by most experts because many of the estimated 500,000 childbirth deaths in developing countries each year are caused by complications from women becoming pregnant too young and too often in quick succession.

Saul Alinsky, the legendary American community organizer (and author of the great, great, great biography of labour leader, John L. Lewis) loved to tell the following story.

Paul sends his emissaries and disciples out across the Mediterranean to sign up non-believers to the new religion of Christianity.

Months later, a weary preacher returns with his report.

"Oh Paul, the Phoenicians are really liking our message. They can see the divinity of Our Lord and so forth, but there is one problem."

"Yes?"

"They are really balking at the circumcision."

"Fine! To hell with the circumcision! Sing 'em up anyway, Good Soldier!!"

The inclusion of safe abortion services, where they are legal, is also promoted by many experts, because so many deaths are caused by complications from botched abortions.

Choking on the fine print is exactly why nothing ever gets accomplished in the real world once politicians get in the mix.

World Vision Canada has the appropriate take on this nonsense.

The political debate about whether Ottawa should fund safe abortion services overseas is a distraction, and should not be allowed to derail a new Canadian-led campaign to save the lives of new mothers and children the world's poorest countries.

They are right.

Drop the posturing, fund the programs and move on.

Eighth or Ninth Wonder

By the way, YouTube is five years old, yesterday, I think.

Five years.

By now, we take it for granted and assume it's been around since just after George I.

How amazing it all is.

I search "Pablo Casals."

Without even asking for it, up comes the Bach Suites, which is what I wanted in the first place.

Not only that, but rare film footage.

I copy the code onto this blog.

You click and watch and hear.

It's amazing, isn't it?

Turn Up the Volume - A Rare Beauty