David Talks/The Berner Monologues

HARM PRODUCTION ALTERNATIVE

2012-01-30T17:34:00.001-08:00

UPDATE

2012-01-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

Snow in Vancouver!

Chilled Vancouver commuters faced their second day of winter hell today, as an additional ¼ centimetre of the peculiar white stuff fell, bringing the lower mainland to its knees and causing millions of dollars worth of damage to the marijuana crops. Scientists suspect that the substance is some form of frozen water particles and experts from Saskatchewan are being flown in. With temperatures dipping to the almost but not quite near zero mark, Vancouverites were warned to double insulate their lattes before venturing out.

Vancouver police recommended that people stay inside except for emergencies, such as running out of espresso or biscotti to see them through Vancouver 's most terrible storm to date. The local Canadian Tire reported that they had completely sold out of fur-lined sandals.

Drivers were cautioned to put their convertible tops up, and several have been shocked to learn that their SUV's actually have four wheel drive, although most have no idea how to use it.

Weary commuters faced soggy sushi, and the threat of frozen breast implants. Although Dr. John Blatherwick, of the Coastal Health Authority reassured everyone that most breast implants were perfectly safe to 25 below, down-filled bras are flying off the shelves at Mountain Equipment Co-op.

"The government has to do something," snarled an angry Trevor Warburton. "I didn't pay $850,000 for my one bedroom condo so I could sit around and be treated like someone from Toronto.

SUPERB COMMENTARY

2012-01-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "DRUNK PSYCHIATRY":

Most people don't understand that psychiatry is not based on science but on theories that are never proven in any accepted scientific manner. Their theories cannot be proven in any literal way. It's all just in their heads. Seriously.

And in our twisted system of law (it's a 'lawyer system', not a legal system), psychiatrists are paid obscene sums to opine on anything without a single shred of evidence except "their opinion". They are hired guns for the law courts, and for the pharmaceutical companies, virtually all of them.

Stay far away from these pretenders and parasites, and before you take "grandma" to the shrink because she's "losing her marbles", check to see what drugs her doctor has been pushing... ahh, I mean prescribing, for her. It might just be that the drugs are responsible for memory loss, confusion, dulled thinking, hallucinations, and a whole lot of other very undesirable things, including death.

These days psychiatrists are making out like bandits declaring seniors incapable and helping the government to take over their assets. These can be, and often are, the very same doctors who are prescribing these meds. They'll never even consider (or admit) that a drug's side effects could be causing the mental meltdown of a person. Beware.

Information is power they say. So before anyone of any age takes any drug that a doctor prescribes (or gives you from the samples from his/her desk drawer left by drug salespeople), educate yourself. Don't buy the pap being shoved at the public by govts or by the mainstream media, do some research yourself and use your noggin.

The best source of pharmaceutical drug side effects and warnings was established by Ralph Nader in the 1990s when Big Pharma began to swamp the marketplace with a plethora of new products:

www.worstpills.org

There is no better source of credible information about the risks of specific pharmaceutical drugs. This website has a gigantic database of every pharmaceutical drug. They also have an exemplary track record in calling for warnings and bans of dangerous drugs well in advance of FDA action.

They ask for a whopping $15 per year to subscribe for full services, the best investment I ever made, that dollar a month.

But even without being a subscriber, you can get a whole lot of very important, even life-saving information from www.worstpills.org Protect yourself from doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and Big Pharma. We're all at risk, in their hands.

DRUNK PSYCHIATRY

2012-01-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

The only people left on earth who think that drinking is still a good excuse for killing other human beings with a vehicle are called psychiatrists.

They are paid to enter courts of law and convince stupid and irresponsible judges that Mr. Drunk Killer has a sovereign right to remain at large amongst us.

How else are we to understand this latest local example of this endlessly repeated tragic and sickening scenario?

Chronic alcoholic nitwit drives his truck into a restaurant and kills two women.

Not one BUT TWO shrinks testify in court that the fool was not criminally responsible.

Why?

Cause the poor baby was suffering from alcoholic withdrawal, so he didn't really know which was was up.

Uh-huh.

He was put in custody for a short period and then released into the community.

I have said this before and I will say it again.

When this sick mother kills someone else, I want to see those two shrinks and the judge charged with criminal negligence and put in prison.

Of course, I am delusional and that will never happen and just because I even entertain such thoughts the court can clearly see that I am not responsible for my actions.

AS GOOD AS IT GETS

2012-01-21T10:14:00.000-08:00

The following was sent to me by a friend who knows the DTES better than most.. This is just about one of the best pieces on the subject I`ve ever read.

Think back about 10 years when Vancouver's injection drug users all got together and created a lobby group - VANDU ….and people thought they were nuts. They lobbied for drug users rights and eventually they got it from the local politicians. Guys like quiet uneventful Philp Owen woke up and thought they could be viewed as a visionary if they got on board. The druggies were able to convince the locals that instead of being called DRUG ABUSERS they should be called DRUG USERS and eventually their lifestyle was accepted and they were called THE DRUG COMMMUNITY. All the while without having any desire to kick the habit, pay their share of the taxes, and contribute to society like the rest of us. They were able to convince some of the locals that DRUG INTERVENTION and DRUG ABSTINENCE were mean, nasty, and unrealistic goals. They could now continue to live off the rest of society without any guilt.

And many left leaning people got good paying jobs in Vancouver to service the drug community's every need. Millions and millions of tax dollars poured into the area without anyone monitoring the results. Politicians pretended to base their entire political direction on helping the poor addicted people but never really did anything significant to change the situation. That way their political careers flourished. (Libby Davies, Jenny Kwan, Jim Green, Mayor Larry Campbell, Philip Owen, etc.etc.)

As long as there were plenty of drug addicts kept around they could all keep their jobs. So any time there is a hint of changing the status quo they all get back together and get up in arms.

The majority of the public cannot relate to someone who is addicted to drugs such as heroin, pot, and cocaine because they don't have addicted family members or friends on the stuff. They don't understand that a heroin or cocaine addiction which is an illegal substance is similar to a tobacco, prescription drug or alcohol addiction which is a legal substance. After all they are all similar drugs with similar effects. Some are injected. Some are smoked. Some are inhaled. And some are consumed. In order to kick the habit, on ANY OF THESE DRUGS, one does not have to be strapped down to a hospital bed for days on end monitored by medical staff like an Intensive Care Unit.

Drug treatment centres aren't fancy hospitals built like prisons watching the patients every move 24/7. Instead most drug treatment facilties are simply supportive housing where patients are free to come and go and where abstinence is preached along with group counselling. Nothing fancy. Nothing highly technical that requires a lengthy hospital visit. People can kick drug addictions in their own home.

The public can't really relate to a person addicted to illegal drugs but they can relate to someone with a tobacco, prescription drugs, or alcohol addiction because they are more likely to have family members or friends with these problems. They may even have this problem themselves.

Getting back to the story of the Free booze lounge in the skids…. Vancouver Alcoholics, with help from the poverty pimps, are trying to do what the drug users did a decade ago. They are organizing themselves and are demanding a steady stream of free booze everyday of the week. This is another new industry where many jobs could be created.

This time they are not getting the same look from the public. Many of us personally know people that have a problem with alcohol. We think that it is ridiculous to think that we would reward people like Uncle Harold and Cousin Fred with free booze when we know they are just lazy slobs that want to party all night and sleep all day.

If we do give free booze to these people what is going to guarentee they are not going to continue to supplement their drinking with the mouthwash, shaving cream etc. at night?

Also if we start feeding people free booze is the public legally responsible once they leave the facilty and begin to cross the street while intoxicated. What if they leave the facililty go lie down in the alley and freeze to death? Are we now going to have to hire personal escorts or chauffeurs to make sure they return to their one room apartment?

Instead of Community GARDENS Vancouver could have Community U-BREW sites all over the city to feed the alcoholics.

If this keeps up… instead of having to go to work everyday to pay the taxes… some of us could spend the time fermenting alcohol and growing pot for their own personal consumption while living off the public teet.

As it is right now each year our TAX FREEDOM DATE is in June or July. That means that half of all the money we make goes to paying taxes so that the rest of society can live.

Let's get realistic….We all can't sit around and wait for the welfare cheque to roll in each month.

FAMILIES FIRST?

2012-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

MARRIED IS MARRIED

2012-01-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

When one of my closest friends married his same-sex partner of many years, I gave a little speech.

Among other things, I praised the extraordinary country I live in. It's still called Canada.

Now I don't like to be made a liar or a fool.

Least of all by some government legal mandarin bone-head with WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS.

This clown belongs to that special class of bureaucrats we lovingly call The Meddlers.

When anything progressive or reasonable or simply good is running along just fine, thank you, one of these dingbats crawls out of the slime to raise some obscure objection found deep within article 11064-B rezi22M.

Put these men in little rooms out of harms way. Give them Lego sets and the Encyclopedia Britannica and send in food on occasion.

As for my gay married friends, fear not. This little tempest will soon crawl back into its tea pot and go to sleep until the next accidental outrage.

ANOTHER COMMENT THAT CALLS FOR ITS OWN POST

2012-01-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

The writer, Gerry Verrier, is the Program Director of Manitoba's Behavioural Health Foundation. Now in its 41st year, BHF, has 136 beds for men, women, children and families and turns out clean and sober citizens every day of the week.

David,

Where are the safe cigarette smoking sites?? You would think that if there was an addiction, and nicotine addiction is one of the if not the most debilitating addictions, that required interventions and programs for people to stop so as to save health dollars and protect children and others from dangerous second hand smoke, it would be nicotine addiction.

What really kicks me in the crotch over this issue is the tax dollars most cigarette smokers pay. In 2007, 63-79% of what smokers paid for a package of cigarettes went towards provincial and federal taxes. 63-79%, for pete's sakes! (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/smoking/cost.html)

And what do smokers get for their tax dollars? They are ostracized, they are forced to look at disgusting photos on their cigarette packages, they must hide in alleyways and laws have been created that prevent smokers from even smoking in their own cars should the cars contain minors. People complain about cigarette butts on the streets, but what about the chewing gum that literally coats sidewalks? I've seen the steam machines the city of Vancouver has out and about with the sole job of cleaning gum off sidewalks.

Smoking cigarettes is not illegal. Buying cigarettes is not illegal. Selling cigarettes is not illegal with the proper licenses (another form of taxation). But somehow smokers are stigmatized and there is a national taxpayer-funded campaign to stop people from smoking.

But hey if you use heroin, our society will provide you with nurses and doctors and places where you can freely use those illegal drugs. You will even get free drug injecting/smoking paraphernalia. If you're a drunk, they want to provide you with free booze. If you smoke crack cocaine, the most destructive drug to hit our communities, there are taxpayer-funded vans and nurses that will bring you free kits that will make it easier for you to smoke crack.

What taxes do crackheads and junkies pay? Why are tax-paying cigarette smokers treated like shit while thieving junkies are provided with everything to continue with their sorry existence?? Why not employ the same techniques used with cigarette smokers with junkies? Where's the national campaign to stomp out heroin and cocaine addiction?

It Gets Bettery Every Day

2012-01-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

This just leaked by my friend, Victor.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Iconic Canadian company, Tim Hortons, has announced a program geared to fighting the obesity epidemic in Canada.

The company will establish "Safe Fat Rooms (SFRs)" at selective locations in Vancouver. At these SFRs, morbidly obese Canadians will be welcome to enter, pull up two or three chairs, depending on their condition, and indulge in an assortment of donuts from a perfectly clean plate.

Advisors will be on site (ONSITE) to refer SFR attendees to Steve Nash Fitness Centres. Proponents of this gut-wrenching initiative are confident that many users will actually wrench their guts from a chair and waddle over to see what a Steve Nash Centre looks like.

In a related announcement, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robinson has announced that "ultra-wide" bike lanes will be installed on Vancouver bridges to accommodate the "hugely"popular 3-wheel mammoth tricycles gaining favour among Vancouver's bulging population.

"Province" Coverage of the Free Booze story

2012-01-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

‘Illicit Drinkers’ seek free alcohol lounge in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

By SAM COOPER, The Province January 10, 2012

Rob Morgan says when you wake up after getting blasted on hand sanitizer it feels like your kidney is bulging out of your body.

The longer you drink it, the more you see sparkling light at the edge of your eyes. That’s the first step in going blind from guzzling cheap illicit booze, the doctor tells him.

Morgan, a First Nations man from a reserve near Terrace, hopes to reduce the harmful impact of addicts ingesting cheap, illicit alcohol by landing funding for a peer-run drinker’s lounge.

The envisioned lounge would offer free legal alcohol in the Downtown Eastside.

Morgan and about 40 members of the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education see this as the next step in Vancouver’s harm reduction movement, like a supervised injection site, for illicit drinkers who typically ingest Listerine, hand sanitizer or rubbing alcohol.

Illicit drinkers can squeeze about 30 standard drinks from a 250 ml bottle of 95 per cent rubbing alcohol by diluting servings with water, experts say, for the cost of about $3.

Morgan says addicts will turn over their welfare cheques to illicit booze brokers, adding he sees “dealers” in the Downtown Eastside carrying large vats of hand sanitizer stolen from hospitals.

He says the damage done is easy to see in the Downtown Eastside and in cities in norther B.C. He knows a number of peers that have died from alcohol poisoning, freezing to death outside, or “getting shanked” in an argument stemming from the fast and powerful buzz that comes from illicit booze.

“I myself am one of the one’s that suffers,” Morgan said Tuesday in an interview. “Each one of us wakes up with those demons staring at us in our face, and that’s why we drink it.”

Started in July, Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education has landed $52,000 in a research grant, with aims to gather clinical evidence across B.C. on the benefits of alcohol maintenance programs.

Within the next year they hope to produce research in order to help land a partner in the health care sector to fund a Downtown Eastside drinker’s lounge stocked with vodka, sherry and high-alcohol beer.

Advocates say at a cost of about $350 per month per drinker, alcohol maintenance programs can reduce policing costs and medical fees associated to frequent emergency room visits for illicit booze drinkers.

Morgan says there would be counselling, health and detox referral services provided at the drinker’s lounge, and the group would maintain a database to monitor outcomes.

“It would be members only because once word gets out it is free alcohol everyone that just wants a free drink would show up,” he said.

scooper@theprovince.com

UnBelievable, but True

2012-01-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

You may find the following article from the Vancouver Courier a mad flight of fancy.

But it is not.

It is copied directly from the paper.

The story is simple enough.

But try to get your head around it.

Group touts Insite-style lounge for 'illicit' drinkers

Plan includes free alcohol for the addicted

By Cheryl Rossi, Vancouver Courier January 4, 2012

Some addicts in the Downtown Eastside drink hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol.

Photograph by: Jason Lang, Vancouver Courier

Those who imbibe Listerine, hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol want a peer-run illicit alcohol drinker's lounge established in the Downtown Eastside.

"It's like an Insite [supervised injection site] for illicit drinkers," said Nicole Latham, community developer with the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education, or E.I.D.G.E., that was formed in late July through the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, or VANDU.

The more than 20 members of E.I.D.G.E. envision a program that would provide free legal alcohol to those addicted to using substances with low prices and high alcohol content that aren't meant to be ingested. They want the lounge to be peer-run and to provide referrals to other health services.

Alcohol maintenance programs have run in other jurisdictions for years. A medical student and PhD candidate from the University of B.C. is working with the E.I.D.G.E. group that meets once a week except following welfare Wednesday when few participants show up after receiving their monthly cheque.

Vancouver Coastal Health is running a pilot alcohol maintenance program for illicit alcohol drinkers that started in August. The Managed Alcohol Program operates at PHS Community Services' subsidized housing on Station Street.

Eight of 80 residents who are chronic drinkers that have relapsed after detox are given vodka, beer or wine every hour for 12 hours. They also received counselling.

MAP aims to reduce emergency room visits, encounters with police and the number of drinks each participant consumes.

Mark Townsend of PHS says the program costs roughly $350 per person per month.

"What that means if they're not going to the hospital once, we've saved the money instantaneously," he said.

Dr. Ronald Joe, medical manager of Inner City Addictions for Vancouver Coastal Health, said the program's most troubled client visited the emergency room every three days.

Some favour rubbing alcohol because it provides the highest alcohol content for the buck. Joe said clients can buy a 250 ml bottle of 95 per cent rubbing alcohol for $3, dilute and drink it for an equivalent of 30 standard drinks, say 30 beer or 30 servings of wine.

"Our worst clients are drinking two or three or four of these [bottles] a day, so we're talking about 120 drinks a day," he said.

PHS has operated alcohol maintenance programs in the past, but this is the first time a program has been run in a more scientific way that's based on clinical evidence with Vancouver Coastal Health and researchers from the University of Victoria.

Joe says participants appear, on average, to have reduced the number of drinks they consume by half and they've shifted from illicit to beverage alcohol. Their health seems to be improving and they are causing fewer disturbances for other residents at Station Street.

"The public- wants a quick fix," Joe said. "-We need to think of it in a completely different paradigm. It's a chronic disease, it's a relapsing condition and we need to better help people recover where they're at."

crossi@vancourier.com Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi

ALERT

2012-01-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

If you are between the ages of 96 and 112, we have THE BEST INSURANCE PROGRAM FOR YOU!!!

YOU CANNOT BE TURNED DOWN BECAUSE OF PREVIOUS HEALTH ISSUES!

premiums as low as $45,000/day!

CALL NOW THERE ARE OPERATORS STANDING BY

(Actually they are sitting because they get tired, but you can understand that.)

1-800-HEALTHS-CAM that's 1-800-HEALTHS-CAM

HARM REDUCTION Uber alles

2012-01-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

Safe handguns

By Paul Schober, The Province January 8, 2012

Kudos to whoever came up with the recent plan to distribute safe crack pipes to the needy. But it got me to thinking - couldn't we as a society be doing even more to help?

Not the drug users. I'm talking about the deplorable and hazardous state of many of the handguns used by some of our most desperate citizens when they feel it's necessary to shoot someone.

Cheaply made and improperly maintained handguns can back-fire and explode, seriously injuring or even killing their victim (I mean the shooter here, not the tar-get of the gun).

I suggest we initiate a government program to replace dangerous pistols with well-made and properly maintained Canadian-made guns. After all, these people are going to shoot anyway, regardless of our personal disapproval of the activity and their choice of lifestyle.

Each government-issued pistol would be hermetically sealed and come with a warning label, as well as a pamphlet encouraging alter-natives to gun violence like yoga or vegetarianism.

Paul Schober, Vancouver

DESERVES A POST OF ITS OWN

2012-01-05T07:54:00.000-08:00

The following comment was sent in response to our postings of yesterday and the day before about harm reduction and abstinence-based prevention & treatment.

David, I grew up with an alcoholic father then an alcoholic step father. Then I was an alcoholic. I quit drinking 22 years ago. I have raised 3 sons one who was addicted to cocaine. If the do-gooders that want to enable drug users could have lived the hell my family endured with drugs and alcohol they might not be as keen to enable. My sympathy goes out to the eye and his infirm mother. My mom also just gets by. Because she isnt dead broke and because she is able to get about in a power chair she gets little or no help from the do gooders. When we sought treatment for our son it was available but it wasn't in our area. It took time and money for him to get treatment. If the do-gooders only knew the harm that they cause by enabling addicts and drunks they would stop.

To those that believe in abstinence keep up the good work. We live in a strange time. We allow governments to waste our money on so many crazy ideas that people with clear vision for recovery and treatment need to be heard.

THE "PROVINCE" GETS IT RIGHT

2012-01-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

Here in La la Land, there are only two journalists who "get it." Jon Ferry, columnist and editor at the Province newspaper and Mark Hasiuk columnist at the Vancouver Courier, regularly decry harm reduction strategies and write in strong support of abstinence-based prevention & treatment.

This is Jon's column from today:

When it comes to giving drug addicts taxpayer-funded services, there's a fine line between providing them with health care and enabling them to continue their destructive and unhealthy lifestyles.

Many Province readers clearly feel that the Vancouver Coast-al Health Authority has crossed that line with its decision to hand out free crack pipes in the Downtown Eastside.

As Province reporter Cassidy Olivier has noted, it's part of a trial program to reduce injuries to addicts' lips and mouths that can make them more susceptible to hepatitis B and C and even HIV.

The pipes will be included in 60,000 drug kits that are expected to be distributed over eight months. The health authority says this will help steer the crack smokers toward detox services.

Let's hope it does. Crack cocaine is a scourge on society and a major cause of crime and other human misery.

However, we're inclined to agree with the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, a national anti-drug group, that the public authority should focus much less on "harm reduction" and far more on drug treatment and prevention.

This, of course, is not a clear-cut issue. And we sympathize fully with health professionals who are anxious to save lives and curb the spread of disease in the notorious skid-row district.

Our view, though, is that one of the reasons why the Down-town Eastside has such deep-seated social problems is that well-intentioned but naive community leaders have not only allowed drug use to flourish, but even encouraged it.

Indeed, some go so far as to argue that our tolerant attitude toward drugs is one reason why Vancouver is such a great city.

But if it's so great, why do so many people seem to need to use them? That's the question we should all be asking.

You can write Jon a THANK YOU at jferry@theprovince.com

BLATANT PITCH

2012-01-02T12:20:00.000-08:00

This morning I received no less than eight phone calls from the Mystic East.

Sun News Media, which has a TV viewership smaller than Langley township, is headquartered in Toronto.

Thus, several of these calls arrived to my thankfully silent phones long before eight a.m.

Each call represented one of several producers for various Sun talk TV shows.

'Sup?

Vancouver Coastal Health is giving out clean crack pipe kits to users, and that includes 12 year old girls.

You don't say?

Getting news from the shaggy West Coast to the Centre of the Universe must be more difficult in these winter months what with all the snowy passes and such.

I've got better news than that.

In my spare time, besides being a retired old goof who likes to walk to cafes and drink cappuccinos and read old fashioned books with paper pages and doing a weekly cable TV show (with more viewers here in the Forsaken Territories than all of Sun Media) and doing therapy with addicts and alcoholics and swimming and hanging with friends and family, besides all that stuff...I have a part time gig.

I'm the executive director (or Executive Director) of the DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK of CANADA.

We are a curious lot.

We cling to a quaint value system.

I know this will break you up, but we actually believe that, when it comes to drugs and alcohol, abstinence-based Prevention & Treatment work.

We believe this so much that we have been making ourselves into the voice for abstinence-based Prevention & Treatment in communities, in the media and in Parliament.

In the last six months, we hosted two terrific small conferences bringing front-line workers together for common cause.

Here's what makes us different.

The honorable men and women who are spending your tax dollars are giving out free crack pipe kits, free needles, free heroin to 322 addicts for three years ($8Million) and free booze to downtown rubbies. Not to mention running (at tax-payer expense) clean well-lit places where addicts can shoot up before they go back in the alley and shoot up a little later in the same old way.

At the DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK of CANADA, we have the audacity to want to see drunks and drug addicts go into treatment and come out clean and sober citizens. Imagine. We also want to see children encouraged to avoid the indignities and misery of a life in addiction. Crazy us.

Here's what I wrote to our colleagues and members organizations and individual supporters this morning:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We head into this New Year with fresh energy and determination to promote in all possible ways our shared beliefs in abstinence-based Prevention and Treatment.

Our hearts and minds may be full, but our pockets are nearing empty.

The DRUG PREVENTION NETWORK OF CANADA operates on a comically modest budget - what my mother would have called "windy pies and airy puddings."

We have no secretaries, no fax machines, cell phones, frequent flyer miles or the like.

So we ask you once again to become a full-fledged member. That's $200 a year for like-minded organizations and $50 a year for individuals.

Now it is easier than ever to JOIN US . We have added PAY PAL and or CREDIT CARD subscriptions to both our website and our blog. Strength is in numbers. We need you to be added to our growing list of groups and people who know that Prevention and Treatment work.

Please JOIN US today.

Perhaps you agree with us.

If you do, please JOIN US today.

NEWMAKER OF THE YEAR

2011-12-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

The clear and offensive dereliction of duty by our mayor and our police chief make the Stanley Cup Riot the hat-trick winner as the Vancouver Newsmaker 2011.

First shot: The riot was predictable. This is a young and sophomoric town. We are not a world-class city, not by several blue lines. We are scrappy adolescents proud of our grubby denims and hoodies. Too many bicycles and chickens will make you miss this important point.

Second shot: Total bewilderment from our leaders.

The clincher: The Great Stall. Just as Gordon Campbell did with Basi-Virk and Jean Chrétien did with the sponsorships, Mayor Gregor Robertson and VPD Chief Jim Chu continue to drag out the charges or arrests or punishments for this detestable mayhem.

The riot was not an aberration and it said way more about our culture than we care to face.

—David Berner, a journalist and executive director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

2011-12-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

LET ME SEE YOU - THIS IS CANADA

2011-12-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

When was the last time I praised or even mildly agreed with a politician? I honestly can't remember.

But today I go all out in saluting Canadian Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney.

He has banned the wearing of niqabs and burkas at citizenship ceremonies.

This is not a guy who has come out of some frozen right wing nowhere to make this declaration.

Kenney has over the years been building trust and communications with Indian and Chinese voters across the country.

Can you imagine a Liberal or an NDP politician having the balls to get off the politically correct wagon to stand up in public and do what Kenney has done?

I have written in the past in these spaces about my feelings about women covered head to foot in cotton.

I hate it.

This is the age of terrorism.

I don`t want anyone around me who is concealed in almost every possible way.

A Muslim woman declares in a separate article "WE ARE NOT A THREAT."

Well, I have news for Minna Ella.

She may be a wonderful mother and wife and person.

But if she moves through my vision as a floating tent, she is a threat. She is a bank robber or a bomber or at the very least a part of culture that see women as chattel and cattle.

Sorry, not acceptable in Canada.

Bravo Mr. Kenney.

Twists and Turns

2011-12-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

People think that the best sports in B.C. are hockey, fishing, skiing and playing games on their iPhones.

But no.

The very best gamer, bar none, is watching bureaucrats, mandarins, elected officilas and all the other agents of the devil play with words.

It's called The Spin Cycle.

The name of the game is to take the obvious and verbally twist it into something unrecognizable, although usually risible.

Prime example from yesterday's headlines:

Doctor on leave after scans reviewed

Sechelt hospital retests nearly 200 people since last year

Pretty straight forward, yes?

Just hold onto your bowler, Bunky.

We've only just begun.

This medical wizard has been performing colonoscopies of late. Over 600 little visits up the backsides of local patients in recent years. Only problem is Doc doesn't really know how to do this little bit of plumbing and the intruding equipment is not really getting to the final resting place it should. Result - confusion and a sore butt for nothing.

Now, here's the spokesperson for VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH (I put that in caps and bold font because around these parts, this body is akin to the emperor or the ayatollah... as in, what we say, goes, Brother!):

"There was never any evidence that anything was done wrong but possibly it wasn't done thoroughly," Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D'Angelo said,

Now, here s my problem, Kids.

I'm a bit of a language freak.

And from the little log cabin in the woods that I was a-larnin', doing something wrong and not doing it thoroughly ARE THE SAME THING!

But it's OK.

Our Angel of Public Deception says that sticking tubes and camera and stuff up the public's ass for four years and getting no useful information is just a minor glitch.

And if she had to suffer this indignity and come away none the wiser, would she still be spouting this drivel?

Probably.

She's well compensated for the bull.

CARING ABOUT FAMILIES...but not if it costs us too much

2011-12-10T09:48:00.000-08:00

Why would WorkSafeBC, whose mandate and mission are explained in its monicker, go out of its way to make life more dangerous for late night and over night workers?

As always, follow the money.

The BC Federation of Labour and others petitioned long and hard to have the government pass "Grant's Law," in honor of the young man who was dragged to his death when he tried to stop a punk pulling a "gas & dash" at an all-night gas station.

Now, two years later, the government is bowing to the whining from business owners who claim that keeping their employees safe is too costly. Now WorkSafeBC is pulling a vanilla on the rules.

Where is the "Families First" premier?

Hello?

THROUGH A STUDENT'S EYES

2011-12-10T09:47:00.001-08:00

MURDER

2011-12-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

On the weekend, the Sun published a review of a new non-fiction book about a woman who married a murderer.

The woman knew that this man had murdered a woman who refused his sexual advances. She knew that the man she fell in love with and married was on life parole.

Shortly after she married this man, he kidnapped and raped two women at knife point. He is back in jail.

The book is about the woman's experience and it holds little interest for me.

What does interest me is the complete failure of what passes for a criminal justice system in this country.

The murderer had been out in the community for five years, living in a half-way house and holding down a job when this lady met him.

He was given these opportunities after murdering a woman 20 years his senior because she wouldn't fuck him.

A whole bunch of well-meaning, totally naive and ignorant social workers, psychiatrists, prison and parole officials then conspired to have two other women viciously attacked and almost murdered as well.

Why aren't these women suing all of these fools and the corrupt and blind system that employs them?

Men who murder women and kidnap women and rape women are not the same as your average Sunday dope fiend, bank robber, bunko artist or car thief.

Men who murder women and kidnap women and rape women are nonredeemable.

They cannot be rehabilitated. I know of no such case.

These men are hard-wired to perform and perform again and then again these hideous melodramas of rage and revenge.

Would it be a terrible thing for us to face this fact?

A few days before this book review was published, the Sun printed a debate about psychopaths.

The argument went something like this.

If it's true that psychopaths can't help themselves, maybe we shouldn't be so hard on them when it comes to punishment.

OMG!

Could we please remove psychiatry from the court room and the parole hearing? Please?

The criminal laws are not about Personality.

They are about BEHAVIOUR.

It is not a sin or a crime or against any of the known commandments to be a not nice person. Or even to think funny.

But killing and raping are on the books.

An 18 year old who kills a 38 year old woman because she refuses his dopey advances should, once caught, remain in prison for life. To return this time bomb to the community is the height of social irresponsibility. It doesn't matter how charming the s.o.b. appears to be. He is an out-of-control lunatic and a danger to your children.

All of the people who let this particular nut free to strike again went to University.

What did they learn?

What did we?

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

2011-12-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

EDUCATION AGENDA

2011-11-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

Hello, There

2011-11-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

I saw a dog today with a certain familiar look.

He must have been an adorable puppy and a strapping young stud.

Today, he is heavy, square-faced and jowly.

Still, he must be harboring some wonderful old stories.

ORCHARD RECOVERY NEWSLETTER

2011-11-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

NEWSLETTER

Honour a Life - November 24, 2011

Join us for a beautiful ceremony on Thursday November 24th, 2011

From 1:30pm onward -including Kim's traditional roast beef dinner. We honour our alumni and others who have lost their lives to the disease of addiction. We will share their stories and light candles to their memory.

If you cannot join us, please light a candle wherever you are.

Reel Recovery Film Festival - A Huge Success!

The Orchard Recovery Center and Writers in Treatment presented the Canadian debut of the Reel Recovery Film Festival October 21-23 at Vancouver's District 319.

This exciting three-day festival showcased realistic, honest and inspiring films about addiction and recovery, screening both groundbreaking new films and classic features. Interactive discussions followed each screening. Movie admission proceeds helped non-profit Intersections Media for at risk-youth.

Our opening night gala featured an evening of gourmet cuisine, comedy and cinema. Mayor Gregor Robertson was in attendance for the screening of 2010 documentary, "I Am Comic", which revealed the serious side of hilarity, followed by a performance by our special guest, comic Pat Dixon.

Thank you to all who contributed and made this night a huge success!

Intervention Canada

Friday September 23rd The Orchard made its first television debut on Intervention Canada.

Check out www.slice.ca/watch/ and click episode 6 to see Conrad's journey through recovery at The Orchard.

Dr. Patrick Fay: 'Addiction is a disease, it can be treated...and treatment works'

Last month's edition of The Celtic Connection featured the Orchard's own addictionologist Dr. Patrick Fay. The article describes Dr. Fay's experience treating addiction in the private as well as the public sector. His experience has taught him that addiction does not discriminate career, wealth or achievement.

The article also captures how Dr. Fay came to work with the addicted population in Vancouver.

For the full article click here: www.celtic-connection.com/features/feat2011_09_02.html

Evolution of Addiction Conference in Los Angeles, California

Orchard counselor Carrie De Jong has been given the opportunity to present some of her expertise at the upcoming Evolution of Addiction Conference in L.A. in December, 2011.
She will be discussing the many sources of trauma over the lifespan of an individual that impact emotional, behavioral, relational, and cognitive functioning. The goal of her seminar is to bring greater awareness to the experience of trauma and its impact on addiction for those who work in the field of addiction treatment.

David Berner

Thursday, October 27th The Orchard welcomed guest speaker David Berner. David Berner is a semi-retired therapist making his contribution to the addictions and recovery field -other than his current assignment as Executive Director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada.
He began his work in the field 45 years ago ( as the founder and E.D. of the X-Kalay Foundation in 1967 in Vancouver and Salt Spring Island, now the Behavioural Health Foundation in Manitoba) and has run and participated in thousands of hours of individual and group therapy.

An Official Welcome to the Orchard's Clinical Dietician!

Ellie Mackay, M.Sc, RD
Ellie is a Clinical Dietitian registered with the College of Dietitians of British Columbia. She specializes in helping individuals develop a healthy relationship with food. She has over 20 years experience in a wide range of nutrition areas including diabetes management, heart disease, weight control and eating disorders. Ellie received her Masters degree in Human Nutrition from the University of British Columbia examining the role of dieting in the development of eating disorders. She works one-on-one and in group education settings to help clients attain their nutrition goals and guide them to lead a healthful, nourishing lifestyle.

The Orchard One Year Club

Congratulations to our latest one year club members! The following alumni have achieved one year clean and sober:

Caren R, Corrie S, Les F, Aman S, Jamie Q, Ron G, Ryan L, Derek C, Laura F, Colleen M, Susan P, Andrea H, Carlotta R, Pauline M, Sue O, Ryan G, Mete S, David D, Carolyn S

Drop by the administration building next alumni day to see your name posted on the one year club board.

Please click on the link below to read alumni thoughts on being at the Orchard at Christmas:

Programs - Admissions - Why Us - Testimonials - Special Events - Tour
Intervention and Pre-Admission - Visitor Info - Extended Care - Contact Us - Home

"DEMOCRACY" in action

2011-11-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

THE INTERPRETERS

2011-11-20T08:51:00.000-08:00

The public statements of men and women and parties who win elections are always the same - "The people have spoken!"

That's understandable.

They are giddy with triumph. Our team scored all the touchdowns and I am a winner. Yeah!

But what can we say about the media who are supposed to have some perception outside the ring of battle?

This morning's Sun and Province writers seem as intoxicated as the Vision supporters in Vancouver.

"Clearly," the tell us, as if we haven't just heard this from the re-elected Mayor, "the people have spoken!"

Good grief. Is there a brain left there at the foot of Granville Street?

Look.

The "people spoke" and they elected Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brian Mulroney, and Silvio Berlusconi, among others.

Today, the pundits and political "reporters" are telling us that the people of Vancouver are solidly and completely behind the fabulous vision and programs of the incumbent party.

The people of Vancouver by and large don't vote.

And 90% of those people who do vote think His Honor is cute and wouldn't know a public strategy if they fell in a bog full of them.

What this election result tells us is not what the press is telling us.

It tells us that the elected party was tremendously organized and well-heeled and that they did all the phone calling, polling and door knocking that was necessary and that money could buy to get re-elected.

Good for them.

Now lower your head, square your shoulders and thrust yourself sharp into the wind and try not to notice the irrelevant silliness that will emanate from 12th and Cambie for another three years.

Post script: Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight has shared with me his very similar reaction to the municipal elections. To my knowledge, his is the only piece not covered in bunting.

THE MINISTRY OF CALLOUSNESS

2011-11-17T08:53:00.000-08:00

"The only agency in Vancouver dedicated to helping women leave prostitution will be forced to close its doors this spring as a result of the “Wal-Martization” of the B.C. government’s employment programs, says the executive director of PEERS Vancouver."

There's your first paragraph from a Globe and Mail story by Robert Matas published on Tuesday morning.

The hideous gist is this.

The provincial government has created a template for how social service projects and agencies should operate.

This, of course, is madness, an impossibility. Maybe it looks good on a flow chart to some office-bound geeks, but it has no connection whatsoever to the real world.

PEERS gets women and men out of prostitution.

They've been doing this work successfully for ten years now.

Everyone else is trying to make "sex work" safe and acceptable. Everyone else wants to give sex trade workers legal brothels, brochures, and in the case, of former Mayor of Vancouver Sam Sullivan, drugs and pills to keep them happy. That flash of genius would have made Sam the city's biggest pimp. Lucky for him and us and the prositutes nothing came of his inspiration.

PEERS, for all its good work and low cost, is now toast.

But listen to the Minister of Callousness:

Stephanie Cadieux, B.C. Minister of Social Development, said she was not concerned about PEERS decision to close. If PEERS does not want to participate, another group will provide the services, she said.

“The focus of the [employment] program is to help people, and provide the support and services they need, including specialized needs, to get back into the workforce, and to do that as quickly as possible,” Ms. Cadieux said.

“For women who want to change what they are doing and get assistance from the government in doing that, that service will be provided,” she said, adding that the ministry will monitor the changes to ensure those who need the services will receive them.

This is the Minister of Social development???

She has no idea. Not one lonely clue.

Social service programs like PEERS do not spring full blown from the sand. They crawl out of the grass-roots where they are spawned and they grow and fall back, grow and fall back and then grow inch by labored inch through blood, sweat and tears. They take work and talk and community and heartbreak and joy.

This insistence from governments that social programs all fit the same tunic is idiocy and out of touch with reality. The further insistence that social service programs all have balanced budgets is an ironic farce. There is no government jurisdiction on earth that has a balanced budget. Every hamlet and mega-city in the USA and Canada is running massive annual deficits, forget Greece, Italy and Ottawa. So the Little Hen Day Care and Women's' Shelter should be running perfect books on a beggar's budget? Get serious.

Ms. Cadieux needs to get out more...or just get out.

Meanwhile, will some titan of industry please step up to the plate and fund PEERS.

I've worked over the years with hundreds of women who were renting out their body parts by the half-hour. Not one of them wanted this life. Not one wanted to stay in it. Most left.

If PEERS is doing that for our communities, they deserve a medal, not an order to conform or quit to satisfy some poo-bah's dream of getting all her pencils lined up in a row on her glass-covered mahogany desk.

And you thought the Occupy Movement was about tents...

ON TURNING 69

2011-11-16T07:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the several readers who have asked where the blog has gone. What happened is that I moved. I sold my house and bought a beautiful apartment and moved from A to B at the end of October. That took a major concentration of physical and mental energy, so the blog writing ended up with the packing boxes. Aside from loving my new home (as much as I loved the old one as well), I am now freed from ever having the slightest interest in the Vancouver obsession called Real Estate. I will never again care about who is selling what and for how much above asking.

Friday is my sixty-ninth birthday. My son is taking me out for brunch and my dear friend, Yan Min, is taking me out for dinner. Life is pretty good.

I have never been so happy and so miserable.

Every single day for some months now, I experience moments of great clarity and bounce and self-satisfaction and good cheer. I feel myself striding, youthful and energetic, tall, fit and overflowing with narcissism and ego, certain that I look great. Who could resist me? Why would they?

On the same day, the sheer relentless idiocy, stupidity, greed, profligacy and rudeness of the human pool engulfs me. I feel I am drowning in a sludge pond of ignorance and unkindness.

Crossing the street is a terror. Trying to read in a cafe one might as well be sentenced to life in a Boeing hangar. Everyone on the street is texting or talking or both. The bumptious noise is piteous and unceasing. I don’t need to hear your most private thoughts. I don’t want to.

Sartre said, “L’enfer, c’est les autres.” But it’s not just them; it’s also me.

I have been cruel and self-regarding, often in the cheapest ways. Today, I am more impatient and intolerant than ever and that is saying something. I am generous one moment and leap to self-righteous indignation the next.

With my son, I was demanding and unforgiving, angry and overbearing, with the result that today he is thoughtful and kind and loyal.

To my daughter, I was the doting serving placating Jewish father. Today, thanks to all my attentions, she is largely absent from my life.

I have left some friends behind, closing doors on them. Others have done the same with me. Yet, I make new friends almost every day. They will stay in the corral as long as they stay.

My interest in the schemes of politics is waning. I believe very little of what comes from the mouths of the elected or the want-to-be-elected. The fictive lives of “celebrities” shriek past me at the supermarket line leaving no imprint whatsoever. Who are these people? Look, they are having babies or not, conjoinings or not, charities or projects or not.

I still like information. Tell me about history or birds or oceans or where the mothers and children of Africa are hiding tonight. Show me the latest, greatest, biggest, fastest air transport. Clarify for me what prompted Haydn to write that symphony, Joyce to choose Trieste of all cities in which to roost or George Blanda to play football for Al Davis for all those years. My encyclopaedic knowledge of The Movies drops right off the cliff around the turn of this last century. There are some great movies being made here and there, but I see fewer and fewer of them, and rarely in large dark rooms with hundreds of other people. “Moneyball” was amusing, the main kick being the opportunity to watch Brad Pitt, who is that rare gem – both a genuine movie star and a fine actor. “J. Edgar” was fascinating, if badly told. So talky, a peculiar choice for director Clint Eastwood, who, as an actor, was almost mute. Nevertheless, the tale is saved by terrific actors, not the least of whom is Leonardo DiCaprio, dazzling in the title role.

Little children are still a delight, as are dogs - somebody else’s children or dogs. And for a few moments at best. I cannot be a pooper scooper at this age, if ever I could.

My energy has changed.

Of course, I cannot play tennis for two hours or more, not without hurting myself, which I have managed to do nicely twice in the last two years. Both my doctor and I are hoping these lessons might register and take hold.

I cherish many ancient pleasures, music topping the list. Gershwin to this day makes me weak at the knees, joyful, teary. The Rhapsody is still a rhapsody. But so are Rogers & Hart, Ella, Tony, the Bach fugues, Mahler symphonies, the Beatles, Pete Seeger and The Weavers, Carousel (The waltz and the soliloquy), and a library of concerti, arias, folk tunes, and most of the American Songbook.

Swimming, cycling and eating are high on the same list. Not too many days after my last heart “episode,” I was frogging along the bottom of the Vancouver Aquatic Centre pool on a quiet summer morning. There may have been all of eight people in the whole building, only half in the gigantic Olympic pool. The light was streaming through the roof windows and bending into the deepest reaches of the water. For a brief ecstatic moment, I felt I was in an earthly watery heaven. I marvelled at the astonishing efficiencies and modernisms of our local medical wizards and then simply reverted to that old familiar tadpole sense of squirming joyously through this other medium so scantily understood. When will we be fish again?

I don’t bicycle as much as I once did, and now only on designated paths that will not, do not intersect with the lunatics of car traffic. And I don’t career down craggy paths on nearby mountains. I cycle, and pause always at the turn-around point for a well-drawn cappuccino. Nevertheless, I cannot get on my fabulous bike (Hey, Dave. Your bike is like BMW!) without thinking I am again 6 years old. The way the sun catches the pavement in intermittent flashes!

I eat less and often can`t believe how delicious every bite is. One raspberry can make me crazy with happiness. This is one of my ``comfort foods,`` because my grandfather grew these tiny treasures in our back yard on St. John`s Avenue in Winnipeg when I was a boy. Every second year, he set fire to the entire scrub to add carbon to the soil – then watch out the next summer.

I had a Caesar salad at a restaurant the other night and except for the glass of cold water I am drinking right now, I thought it was just about the best thing I ever experienced. Jack Benny used to play cards with his celebrated friends at the Hillcrest Golf and Country Club in Los Angeles and when he would have a cool drink, he would exclaim, `This water is wonderful!``

I have been a dedicated Astaire man my whole life, believing as did Balanchine, that Astaire was the greatest dancer of the 20^th Century. The man could do anything and he could do it twice. I never much cared for the Other Guy, but you have to admit that Kelly`s Singing in the Rain number is one of the single sweetest things ever put on film.

Of course, I am not rich, and, given the state of things, I not really poor either. My basic needs and comforts are pretty much accounted for. I can`t claim to want much.

Other than kindness and affection and another hundred years or so of good health. Failing that, a reasonably quick exit, sans hospital and tubes and Nurse Ratched.

I was saying my energy has changed.

I do one or two things of a day and I`ve had the biscuit. I just don`t want to do anything else. A couple of phone calls, tape a half hour TV show, maybe a therapy session, something resembling work and then I just really don`t want to do anything besides drink an espresso, read a book, talk to friends, check out the news on my android, see if there`s a fun new app.

Friends are going, crossing over, leaving the mortal coil, dying.

My three favourite people in Venice, Evania, Meg and Susan, are now on the other side, Susan last week. I read the Gmail on my android sitting in a room at the Harrison Hotel between meals, cribbage and the hot springs pools. I, the most emotional person you know, haven`t even cried yet. Am I in shock? Have I become inured or accepting of the inevitable?

While I continue to carp pointlessly about every minor annoyance, the two heart shocks in the last six years have brought about a kind of calm, a going with the moment. It is what it is.

I hate modern life and, like my mother before me, I love every tiny bump and grind along the way.

I do everything slower and I won`t understand why anybody is rushing anywhere, except that little girl or boy over there who skips along the street to some internal tune.

A Thing of Beauty

2011-11-13T11:15:00.001-08:00

Important Piece of Jourrnalism found, NOT in your local press, but in a Comment to our Blog

2011-10-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

This came in today as a comment, which I have published, to our post of Monday, called "The Polite Pushers." I am posting it here as a stand alone piece because I think it is important and revealing and because I feel a number of personal connections with the material. I have more than a passing interest in places that are ironically called "care homes," and while there are some good people doing some good work, the systemic abuses to the elderly continue to be horrifying. As for the Sharon Home in Winnipeg, my mother - may she rest in peace - had the last word on that fine institution. When she was encouraged to move in to the Sharon Home and wisely refused, I asked her what she thought of the place. Here is her unforgettable reply (I am but a pale imitation of an original.): "The Sharon Home, David? It's a coffin with a kitchen."

The following is from Stan W.

Do people know that Allan Seckel (former head of the BC Public Service, and former deputy Attorney General) was just appointed as CEO of the BC Medical Association?

Seckel comes from the same law firm as Geoff Plant and Bill Bernardino (Russell & Dumoulin, later known as Fasken Martineau). Seckel worked with Bernardino on the Basi-Virk/BC Rail scandal, to decide what documents could be revealed. Old boys club indeed.

Seckel is also "noted" for having denied Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the BC Children's & Youth Commissioner, access to documents in 2010 which Ms. Turpel-Lafond successfully fought in the courts. Nice going BCMA, you sure know how to pick the guy to head your organization.

If anyone mistakes the BCMA for anything but an industry lobby group, here's the blurb from the BCMA announcement in the Globe and Mail from Oct 12th:

"The mission of the BCMA is to promote a social, economic and political climate in which members can provide the citizens of British Columbia with the highest standard of health care while achieving maximum professional satisfaction and fair economic reward."

That BCMA mission statement sure is revealing, and now we can anticipate even closer ties between the medical-legal dominions -- to the public's detriment.

By the way, hands up, how many people know that doctors' medical malpractice insurance in BC is heavily subsidized by taxpayers? That would be the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA). Yes indeed, we pay for the lawyers hired by the CMPA that doctors and health authorities use to pummel ordinary citizens, patients and families, into submission and silence whenever the health care system screws up, accidentally or deliberately, even in criminal matters. Yup, that's ensuring the "highest standard of health care" alright.

Meanwhile have a look at these two stories where the health “care” system and the justice (sic) system intersect:

From Victoria, BC:

http://www.focusonline.ca/?q=node/249
and
http://ctwatchdog.com/2011/03/30/granny-snatching-narcotic-poisoning-a-bitter-prescription

From Winnipeg, Manitoba:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Charges-laid-against-Sharon-Home-over-residents-death-132267883.html?device=mobile&c=y
and
http://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/article_detail.cfm?id=1639&sec=2&title=EDITOR’S_SPECIAL_

REPORT:WHAT_IS_HARVEY_BERKAL’S_STRATEGY_IN_INITIATING_PRIVATE_CRIMINAL_CHARGES_AGAINST_THE_SIMKIN_CENTRE__ANALYSIS

This is the highest standard of health care??? This is a justice system???

What has Canada become? Especially BC, jailing and drugging elderly people on a whim - for fun? for profit? Because they can?

Meanwhile Harper's ordering fighter jets, battle ships and armoured vehicles???

WHERE HAS ALL THE MUSIC GONE?

2011-10-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

"OCCUPY" our own back yards

2011-10-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Some still don't get the message of the"Occupy" phenomenon. The movement may or may not ever bring any real solutions or actions to the table, but the story line is clear and it is important. Justice and equality is missing in societies in which the disparities between rich and poor are obscene and ever increasing. We need go no further than our own backyard for a glaring, familiar and infuriating example - Susan Heyes versus the Big Guys and the Supreme Court of Canada. Here is Susan's latest dispatch. Read it and weep for your own country.
Please also note that if this story appeared in our local press, I could not find it. Apparently, our rights are not news worthy.

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed my application for leave to appeal (see attached)

This is a dark day for democracy in Canada. By refusing to hear this case, Canada’s highest court has decided that corporations have more rights than small businesses and citizens.

Small businesses are the economic backbone of our country and are the heart of our communities. The Supreme Court of Canada has decided that we don’t matter.

With this ruling, the Supreme Court has given corporations a blank cheque. It has ruled that corporations undertaking megaprojects in Canada are not legally compelled to tell the truth, even when the consequences for citizens and small businesses are as severe as they were with the Canada Line project.

This decision allows corporations to profit at the expense of citizens and small businesses.

The ruling calls into question the integrity of our judicial system including the ruling of the BC Appeals Court. Cut and cover construction for the Canada Line had been ruled out in the Cambie Village in all the materials made available to the public. Yet the case was overturned, with the project claiming that even though they caused a nuisance, they were authorized by statute to do so.

Under the law, this defence of Statutory Authority can only be used when no other less disruptive option is available, and cost cannot be a factor.

We all know that not only was there a less disruptive option, that of a bored underground tunnel, but it was the project, until the secret switch to cut and cover. A bored underground tunnel was the only option presented to the public for the Cambie Village area.

Corporations should be compelled to tell the whole truth, but the Supreme Court of Canada has determined that small businesses and citizens have no legal right to expect truthful information that would allow them to take measures to protect themselves from harm.

For 6 years, rectifying this colossal injustice has been my priority, in the public domain and through the courts.

The legal system has let us down. This is not the Canada I know and love.

This case personifies the worldwide outrage at corporate greed, and abuse of government power.

We as citizens, must continue to demand that our rights are upheld, against all odds.

Susan Heyes

Email: hazelmay@shaw.ca

THE POLITE PUSHERS

2011-10-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Drug pushers are everywhere.

They don't all bare fangs or wear funny clothes.

Some are fine upstanding people and leaders of our community.

Take the American Academy of Pediatrics...please.

Now, you might think that folks who put the word "pediatrics" in front of their name would have as their primary interest the health and safety of children.

Wrong again, Bunkie.

Not when you have such a close working relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

You see, the American Academy of Pediatrics has just released its latest decree from on high (HA!) that you are now free to give Ritalin to children as young as 4.

This is for the ever--increasing population of (mostly) boys who have Attention Deficit Disorder.

Now, I went to school for far too many years and I cannot recall even one kid in any of our classes who might have had ADHD.

Of course, this "disease" is a modern construct - created almost simultaneously with the "discovery" of Ritalin, but even so, I don't remember one kid in our school who would have fit the description.

Only a few years ago, "science" announced that, lo, there were now adults who suffered from ADHD and they they too should be blessed with a steady supply of Ritalin.

But I carry on needlessly, because unless you yourself are suffering from some peculiar form of attention disorder, I am sure you are getting the picture.

Drug pushers push drugs.

More and more of them these days wear striped shirts and bow-ties.

"Occupy" explained in plain English

2011-10-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

In case the "Occupy" movement is somehow escaping either your attention or understanding, this piece from Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times should help clarify the issues.

It was sent to us from our friend Susan Heyes who knows a thing or two about inequalities. Susan successfully sued the eco-criminals who dug up Cambie Street, only to have that decision reversed.

BRUNO MARS RULES! This kid can do anything...Thanks MO!

2011-10-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

This Kid is some kind of GENIUS

2011-10-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

IMPORTANT SPEECH

2011-10-15T09:28:00.001-07:00

ideacity on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Or This Version

2011-10-15T09:23:00.001-07:00

Only 100,000, 000 hits so far

2011-10-15T09:21:00.001-07:00

The City - Take Another Look

2011-10-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

HAPPENING

2011-10-13T10:21:00.001-07:00

Occupy Vancouver.

Occupy Seattle.

Wall Street protests.

HST.

Smart Meters.

Something's happening over here.

Everybody in the western world could readily understand the riots and revolutions in Cairo and Tehran, but many of the same people are mystified by the wave of discontent spreading across North American communities.

I am not an anti-capitalist or anti-materialist. I appreciate the crucial role of business and I love my stupid toys as much as the next sucker. (These days I am obsessive about my Android phone. I love it. I can't live without it. I want to marry it and have its children.)

But.

The unemployment rate in the USA is not 9.7% - which would be alarming enough.

The true unemployment rate in the country self-announced to be the greatest in the world is 20%.

Productivity and jobs are the urgent priorities in both America and Canada, and except for Obama, who is getting nowhere fast on these issues, no known political leaders on ether sides of the border is even talking about these essentials, let alone doing anything remotely useful or encouraging.

Meanwhile, back at the 500,000 acre ranch and the Park Avenue penthouse, hedge fund managers, whose products are losing 45% of their value, are stealing billions in personal bonuses yearly.

The iniquities have always been here before our eyes. But rarely before have these economic divides been so stark, so disparate and so ugly.

Bank foreclosures on private dwelling places called HOMES are practically sinful. Where was the oversight? Where were the rules?

When people are simply walking out the front door and heading into the scrub, you know something is terribly wrong with the status quo.

The protestors are making an important point, whether you like it or not.

They cannot be easily dismissed. The message is significant.

Government and business that turns away, orders another drink and laughs does so not only at its own peril, but at mine and yours.

Attention must be paid.

PLAIN TALK

2011-10-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Cameron Ward may or may not be your favorite Vancouver lawyer, but he certainly got it right in his comments at the dreadful Opaque Inquiry into the Missing Women.

Representing the families of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton, Ward blasted police Tuesday for their failures to catch the killer sooner.

Here are a just a few of his clear bald statements:

Ward suggested the Vancouver police gave families the "brush off" when they tried to report their loved ones missing.

He said the VPD, and later the RCMP, treated the missing-women case with indifference and incompetence by failing to assign enough resources.

That was because the missing women were poverty-stricken, poorly educated and largely were drug-addicted sex-trade workers, with a large proportion being first-nations women, Ward said.

Police "couldn't have cared less what happened to these women," Ward told the inquiry.

"The pervasive problem was the Vancouver police department and the RCMP simply had a bad attitude," said the lawyer.

Ward pointed out that the RCMP, tipped that Pickton was a possible suspect, failed to conduct surveillance on the serial killer before he was caught in 2002.

And the Mounties failed to act on Pickton's offer to police in 2000 that they could search his farm.

"Mr. Commissioner, the facts in the public domain are shocking, and led our clients to the conclusion that both the Vancouver police department and the RCMP completely botched the handling of the missing-women investigation," Ward said during his opening address at the start of the inquiry Tuesday.

"The conduct of both police forces was inexcusable and egregious," the lawyer added.

"They [the families of Pickton's victims] believe that the authorities are culpable in the deaths of over a dozen women because the authorities enabled Pickton to literally get away with murder for five more years," Ward said.

"Our clients believe the VPD, the RCMP and the Criminal Justice Branch have the blood of their loved ones on their hands," he said.

* * *

Add to these simple truths, the ongoing insult and outrage of the government's unwillingness to fund a number of important groups who have since walked away in disgust.

What a sorry mess.

REEL RECOVERY FILM FEST - A CANADIAN FIRST

2011-10-10T20:51:00.001-07:00

Doors 7pm, Friday October 21st @ District 319

Join us at stylish District 319 for an evening of gourmet cuisine, comedy and cinema,
as we kick-off an exciting three days of enlightening and entertaining films
about addiction and recovery. Opening the festival is the 2010 documentary
I Am Comic, a revealing look at the serious side of hilarity,
PLUS a performance by our special guest, comic Pat Dixon.

Tickets $75, call the Orchard at 604-947-0420 or purchase online at orchardrecovery.com/filmfest

Gala Location: District 319 319 Main Street, Vancouver, BC
filmfest@orchardrecovery.com

Please note: venue's regulations require minimum age of 19. Dress is semi-formal.

One of the two or three greatest songs ever written played by a Master

2011-10-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

Overheated, perhaps, but Important and Real, Nevertheless

2011-10-08T16:42:00.001-07:00

Warning Signs

2011-10-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Don Cayo has written a compelling piece in today's Sun.

Social and environmental ills worry world's CEOs

Book by Harvard professors sheds light on what the top business leaders of the world think are our biggest concerns

By Don Cayo, Vancouver SunOctober 8, 2011

Mike Segar-Reut Growing inequality can breed discontent and threaten our financial system and trade, a new book warns. In New York City, people are taking to the streets during the Occupy Wall Street series of protests.

Photograph by: Mike Segar, Reuters, Vancouver Sun

Leaders of some of the world's most successful companies say the whole system of capitalism is at risk and only capitalists themselves can save it, according to a new book by three faculty members at Harvard Business School.

And many of the threats on their list - fast-growing global inequality looming large among them - could be copied straight from a social activists' handbook.

Inequality breeds discontent, as any CEO with a window overlooking Wall Street might notice these days. It invites a backlash from those who don't share in capitalism's benefits. Sooner or later, some politicians will come on board with policies aimed at short-term popularity, though not necessarily coherence or effectiveness.

Other kinds of threats like global pandemics or natural disasters, can decimate the human capital needed to make the system run, and/or disrupt both markets and the institutional checks and balances that capitalism relies on.

The book, Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business, is written by Harvard profs Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. Leonard and Lynn S. Paine. It draws on discussions by major business leaders at forums that, using the clout of Harvard Business School, they were able to convene in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. This format gives the book added depth and substance - as well as, at times, diversity, as the participants don't always agree. Yet it can also be an irritation for readers as the authors keep the speakers' names confidential, so we never know who's saying what.

But there does seem to be consensus on what the big problems are. In addition to the broad threat of growing inequality and the populist - and often business-hostile - political movements it leads to, threats to the financial system and to healthy global trade include:

. Unrestrained migration - whether within developing countries or from the poor world to the rich - in numbers that overwhelm capacity to productively absorb the newcomers.

. Environmental degradation of food and water supplies, and many other aspects of quality of life.

. Failure of the rule of law, which is an essential underpinning for a successful market economy.

. Low levels of education, which limit worker productivity.

. The rise of state capitalism in response to free market shortcomings, real or perceived.

. Radical movements, terrorism and war which destroy the stability that markets need.

. Pandemics that disrupt trade and decimate labour.

. Inadequacy of existing institutions - just a matter of resources and competence, but also jurisdictions as nation-based institutions face global issues.

Some of these concerns sound as if they have less to do with North Americans and are of more concern in the parts of the world affected by movements like the Arab Spring or the class warfare burgeoning in Latin America. And this may well be true.

But it's hard to look at this year's riots in the U.K., the growing desperation of people falling out of the middle class in the U.S., or rising child poverty in B.C., and then say, "It can never happen here."

Still, the business leaders are less united on what they should do about these threats.

A significant minority - the authors don't tell us the number, but I take it to be well under a third - worry, yet are still content to be bystanders. They say finding solutions is "beyond their pay grade" and should be left to government.

A smaller group think they can also stand by and wait it out - that existing institutions and practices will work things out over time.

The rest are either activists who want to shape and promote solutions, or innovators who want to address the challenges directly.

This article appears on the same day as an item about a Wall Street-type protest on its way to Vancouver.

IMMIGRATION, DIVERSITY & LANGUAGE

2011-10-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

GUEST EDITORIAL - INSITE

2011-10-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Gerry Verrier is a friend. He is former addict, who for 25 years now has been involved with the Behavioural Health Foundation in Manitoba. He is currently the Program Director.

This piece is also posted as a comment on my blog item of several days ago, called "Stranger in a Strange Land," but it is so darn good and so important, I wanted you to read it as a stand-alone editorial.

I am a former addict that will stand up and say that I do not support Insite or needle exchange programs. If there had been safe injection sites back in the 70s, I would be dead. All the brick walls I ran into that said "Gerry, you need to stop using drugs or you will kill yourself, Gerry you need to stop committing crimes to feed your addiction because you are hurting a lot of people and you will rot in jail, Gerry you contribute nothing to your own community and are a free loader" made me think about who I was, what I was doing and where I was heading in life. It caused cognitive dissonance for me. It made me consider whether my mother brought me into this world to shame her and become a drug-addled train wreck. It made me consider that my new condo would in fact be a prison cell in Stony Mountain Penitentiary and that my "better half" was probably going to be called Bubba. I was judged and I was deemed to be deficient in appropriate and anti-addiction social and coping skills by a group of former addicts. I was expected to change and I was expected to contribute to this beautiful country in a meaningful way. I was also consequenced for my bad behaviour. I actually welcomed the criticism. I welcomed the idea that I could stop using life destroying drugs. I needed to hear that so badly. I welcomed the idea that people thought enough of me to expect me to start to be a positive member of society. I felt good and I felt accepted. I felt like I could accomplish something meaningful and could enjoy some success in my life.
Had Insite existed, I would have heard something like "Here, Gerry, now now, it's okay that you're addicted to morphine, here let me help you stick that needle in your vein and don't worry about overdosing because I won't let you. Don't you worry about me telling you to quit IV drugs, because you can quit whenever you want. I don't expect you to though, because you have a sickness just like cancer and diabetes and you're an addict for life, you poor hapless misunderstood defenseless creature. And don't worry about the big bad police, they can't come in here and they can't bother you outside either while you go on the nod on the sidewalk. In fact, we have doctors who want to give you free heroin. Isn't that wonderful news? You see, the people who want you to quit don't understand you like we do. We know that if we give you a free rig and a place to shoot up and make sure you don't overdose, you won't go out and have unsafe sex and we know for sure that you won't use or share dirty needles."
I would have moved into that clinic. I would have laughed all the way to my dealer's corner and back. No consequences for bad, harmful and antisocial behaviour? No consequence for spreading fatal and life threatening disease? Drug injecting paraphernalia that I don't have to pay for? No expectation to contribute to my community to balance out my constant freeloading? No consideration given to the fact that I stole 15 purses and robbed an old lady for her grocery money so I could score on the way to Insite? An addicts heaven. I would have happily cranked so much junk, my eyes would have bulged. Malnutrition? No biggie. I'll get free and expensive Boost supplements from my doctor. Organ failure after a dozen years of injecting poison into my body? No problem in our free medicare system. Heck, I bet I could get a nurse to come inject my heroin while I wait for an organ transplant. Work for a living and pay taxes? I have a disease, I can't work. In fact, I'll take some disability cash over and above my regular welfare payments. I'll also need some taxi chits so I can get to Insite. I have a disease, don't you know. And be quick about it, or else I will sic the harm reduction people on you.

And with all that, do you really think I'm going to start wearing condoms? Do you really think that at 3 in the morning, when I need a fix, I'm going to wait until the clinic opens at 10 am so I can shoot up with a clean rig? I AM going to have sex with this person and I am not going to wear a condom and we are going to share this rig because we don't give a fuck about nothing but getting off. I don't need to care because, really no one else does. No one expects any better of me, no one believes in my potential ability to contribute in a meaningful way and no one seems to care that I'm slowly killing myself. After all, I have a disease and I will always be an addict so I might as well be a really good addict. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go steal so I can buy more heroin. I sure wish they would hurry up with that free heroin program....

I know some addicts and homeless people are struggling with mental health issues. I know some addicts are messed up because of trauma in their life. They need medical treatment. They need support. They need the right kind of medication. Heroin is a painkiller, and a mind number. It and other addictive illicit drugs exasperate mental health issues and certainly does nothing for trauma victims. Addiction does not promote self esteem or self confidence. There is no success or accomplishment or education in a needle filled with junk. Addiction does not provide hope. Addiction kills, Addiction sucks the life out of our communities. Addiction shortchanges our children. Addiction enslaves our brothers and our sisters and our grandchildren. Addiction adds costs to our already expensive health care system that need not be.

Providing for addicts to continue to be addicted is anti-social. Not expecting our addicted brothers and sisters to contribute to the betterment of our society and community is anti-social. Helping an addict stick a needle in his or her arm is anti social. Harm Reduction as it is applied to addiction is anti social.

I had to laugh but felt like crying when I read on the International Harm Reduction Association website how the Reductionists were upset that abstention-based treatment programs were using the term "Harm Reduction" and that expecting addicts to quit using is not Harm Reduction. The Reductionists wanted to reiterate that Harm Reduction means working with people who do not want to change. How twisted is that?

GUEST EDITORIAL - BC POLICE FORCE

2011-10-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

Doug Mac-Kay Dunn is a retired Vancouver Police Inspector. He is currently a District of North Vancouver Councillor

During my career with the Vancouver Police Department, I was in charge of the Internal Audit Unit. Under the direction of the Attorney-General, I also worked with multi-force audit teams to conduct INDEPENDENT Value for Money audits of police departments.

Although subject to their own internal review, RCMP detachments were and are not subject to such independent, external examinations. Without those audits, how can taxpayers know if they’re receiving value for money?

Even more important is the issue of accountability and transparency. Remember the handling of the Dziekanski tragedy. Remember the first press release. Remember the investigators sent to Poland to dig up dirt on their victim. Remember the attempt to control the video. Remember the senior management emails and the “Spin Doctoring".

Contrast that with how the VPD handled the “Stanley Park Six.” Chief Constable Jamie Graham not only answered the media’s questions, he released all of the files and held nothing back – no spinning, just the truth.

So here is my point: in the unlikely event the RCMP opened their books and savings were achieved through improved cost controls, if the Force remains accountable to Ottawa first and the community second, then our police taxes are wasted - because without direct community accountability, we have nothing more than private security.

Sir Robert Peel said it best: "Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence”.

A British Columbia Provincial Police force should meet that standard.

If the RCMP refuses to be subordinate to the Solicitor General as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the province, and be accountable through that office to the community it serves, then it’s time for a change.

President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs: "He changed the way each of us sees the world." | The White House

2011-10-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs: "He changed the way each of us sees the world." | The White House

You think LADY GAGA is a fake? Can't sing? You think Tony is finished at 85? Check out this glorious take from his new DUETS2 Album

2011-10-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND - The Pod People are mulifplying and they are winning...

2011-10-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 6 am on Friday to visit the little room not far from where I sleep. My land line phones at home have a wonderful feature. There is a pre-set that turns off the ringers from 11:30 at night until 8 in the morning. I noticed in the dark, the phone light blinking. Oh, a message. No, two messages.

I knew what they would be.

The Supreme Court decision had come down delivering Insite unto the masses, Whooppee.

Sho ‘nuff, two media giants from the Mystic East had called at 5:45 and 5:49 requesting my extremely important reactions to this news. The 11-year old girl producer for one of these broadcasters ended her voice mail with “I hope you’re having a nice day.”

I yelled at the towels, “I AM having a nice day, thanks. I’m FUCKING SLEEPING!”

At 8:30, when I was already hunkering before the computer and reading about the pro-Insite decision, Nice Day Lady called again.

I asked her if, anywhere in her school life, she had been taught time zones. After a pause long enough for me to think of calling 911 to revive her, she said that she thought this was a business number.

“Besides the need to grow alfalfa, why would I be at work at 5:45 in the morning?” I asked ever so pleasantly.

Well, you get the picture.

The nice kid from local CBC-TV came over with his cameraman.

We filmed about 12 minutes in my dining room and then went upstairs to my study to film “B Roll” of me looking at the CBCTV website on this computer.

I watched the piece on the supper hour cast.

The Embalmed One was anchoring, but someone else was fronting this story.

They showed 3-5 minutes of raucous overjoyed crowds of believers cheering in triumph in front of the “safe” injection place. Then 8 seconds of my miserable out-of-step-with-the-times disagreement.

This is how the “journalists” at the Mother Corp operate. Five minutes of Hooray and 8 seconds of Just You Wait a Minute, Now.

At 8:30 that evening, the phone operator for a Radio talk show host in Alberta called and informed me that his host would be speaking to me soon. The host came on line and asked for my thoughts; then he argued vehemently with me. I asked him why he had invited me on the program. I asked him if he would ever knowingly cross the street to give a drunk a clean shot glass, or, if he knew that his daughter was self-mutilating, he might sharpen her razor blades for her.

He reckoned that he would do neither of those things, but felt it necessary to point out that I was in the minority. Translation – you are wrong, David. I asked him if he understood democracy.

He kept yelling at me, so I thanked him for calling and told him this wasn’t the kind of conversation I wanted to have with anyone, let alone him.

Later that evening, I caught about half an hour of a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The movie is called “The Invasion,” and it’s about the fourth remake of the great 1950’s black and white sci-fi flick, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” It’s about human beings being overtaken and replaced by the Pod People who look just like them but who are robotic and without humanity.

(The only true oddity in this version is that Daniel Craig is such a good actor and so charismatic that when he has to convey that he has gone over to the Pod People, he is not convincing because his eyes continue to shine with some mysterious Star’s inner light.)

In the penultimate scene, Kidman and her son, pursued by the crazies, dash madly out of a building, but when they get onto the street, they must slow down and walk like zombies to fit in with the creeps around them.

I couldn’t watch because this all played perfectly into the disassociation I was experiencing all day.

There have now been at least four distinct times in my life when I felt that perhaps I had entered an alien universe or perhaps all the creatures around me where of a different and peculiar species.

The first time was watching hundreds of thousands of lunatics cheering on that creepy self-evident crook, Richard Nixon, at the Republican national Convention. They were wearing pants and dresses and they certainly looked like examples of the human species, but one could only wonder.

The second time was when the clock radio came on next to my bed in 1974/5 in Edmonton with the news that Bill Hawrelak had been re-elected Mayor of that fine Northern city. Bill had been found guilty of crimes on three occasions, but that didn’t stop the good people of Edmonton from choosing him to be mayor one last time. In 1992, I went cross-country skiing in Hawrelak Park. But that morning when the happy Hawrelak news broke, I felt like my shoulders had been pinned to the mattress by some extra-terrestrial force.

The third time was much like the first time, only instead of the true believers raising their banners on high for the oily Nixon, we had The Dumbest Person of Earth, George Bush.

But nothing in my experience prepared me for the sight of that crowd crowing with happiness for the brilliant decision of the Supreme Court, supporting the shooting gallery.

There were dope fiends and party hacks and pseudo-scientists and elected officials and doctors and so many people of holy good will cheering.

One friend of mine, a retired DTES police man, said he wanted to leave the province, leave the country. I was thinking gallactically. Maybe on Mars or Uranus there are creatures with clearer minds.

Last week, I had the joyful experience of attending the 40^th anniversary of the Manitoba chapter of the abstinence based therapeutic community treatment centre that I started here in Vancouver in 1967.

There are 136 people in residence at any given moment and a 6-month waiting list to get in. Every day, clients are getting their matriculation and University degrees and reuniting with their families and moving to transition houses and back into the world as clean and sober citizens.

Support your local prevention and treatment programs. Unlike the other nightmares-posing-as-social policy, these real places are about hope and human dignity. Anything less is unworthy of our attention.

Pardon me while I toot my own horn shamelessly, but this may be the best show we've done this year - thanks entirely to our guest, Mark Hasiuk

2011-10-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

SWEET CANDY

2011-09-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

"I have no doubt she'll be a success in adapting to community life as an adult."

This is the mark of brilliance from Justice Scott Brooker in Alberta.

Mmmmm.

Let's have a look-see, shall we?

"She," now 18, was 12 when she and her 23-year old boyfriend stabbed to death her parents and her eight-year old brother and then went partying.

They were both found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder.

Boyfriend got life with no parole for 25 years.

Now, this girl, whose identity may never be divulged, has a phalanx of shrinks and social workers working on her rehab and they are all very jolly and optimistic.

The headline alone is a heartwarmer.

Rehab successful for girl who killed family, says judge

Convict, now 18, prepares for re-integration

Enough.

Let's get down, kids.

This young woman is a psychopath. She is not redeemable. She has crossed a break boundary. "People with problems" do not murder their families and then get better and go back into communities posing no danger to others. People who murder their families are crazed deranged lunatic nut jobs who are wired differently than most of us. They do not change or get better. They must be kept away from the rest of us.

Psychopaths are often very smart and charming and high verbal and highly skilled at manipulating the world around them.

And they are completely and totally integrated personalities. They are who they are.

Why do we watch Hannibal Lecter over and over again?

Of course, it's a great movie and run by great actors and director.

But it is the essential unapologetic madness of the good Doctor that draws us back in morbid fascination.

In the case of this adorable little murderer, all the king's horses and all the king's men have been duped once again.

They are paid to help.

So they must believe in their hearts that they are helping or why get up in the morning?

And then they announce to the judge that they have done fine work and their star pupil is now a good girl.

And the judge wants also to believe in the goodness of people and the power of good work.

That's fine.

But he also has to have a hold on reality, doesn't he? Wouldn't that be helpful to us all?

The girl has played them all like a three dollar fiddle.

My House or Yours?

2011-09-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Last night at 6 o'clock I was flicking between NBC News with Brian Williams and the BBC.

"Two different worlds, we live in two different worlds..."

The BBC News was appropriately giving major and thorough coverage to the Euro and debt crisis in Greece, Spain and Italy.

A few nights ago, BBC staged a fantastic panel on this matter in the atrium of one of their main buildings. The speakers and guests in the front row of the audience were all highly placed and knowledgeable (and often brilliant) people from government and finance at the highest levels.

Make no mistake, this is a dire situation. If leadership in the Euro Zone stumbles, we will all suffer mightily.

But, hey, let that not be an impediment to American inward turned sensibilities.

NBC News would have none of this.

Never mentioned.

If their news coverage is an indicator of how the country pretends to think or what they think is thinking, they and we are in deep doo.

PUBLIC ENEMY

2011-09-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

It gave me great cheer last night to see protesters creating healthy civil disobedience in front of the Vancouver Club.

Their issue?

Some other Vancouverites had paid $500 each to hear Dick Cheney promote his new book.

Why would anyone do that?

Ghouls and suck holes with no moral compass.

Cheney is one of the most detestable thugs to ever work the corridors of power. He was always about money and power and Dick Cheney.

The protesters rightly called him a War Criminal.

He is that and more.

His favorite company - Halliburton - made billions of dollars on buttons, shoes, tanks, bullets, coffee, gas and oil and most of the other physical products one requires to operate a war theatre in say...Iraq.

Manthorpe's scathing review of Cheney's entirely self-serving book is worth the read.

Daphne Bramham's Best Column Ever

2011-09-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

Opinion: City plan does little to support those put at risk by prostitution

If nine out of 10 fishermen got hurt at work, policy-makers would likely question whether the job isn’t so inherently dangerous that even regulating the industry might never keep them safe. If four of every 10 nurses were violently attacked every year, regulation alone might not be the solution either.

Yet those are the statistics for street and indoor prostitution respectively, and still most policy-makers simply shrug.

In 2005, 90 per cent of street prostitutes in Vancouver had been physically assaulted, 78 per cent had been raped and 72 per cent met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a report in the peer-reviewed journal Transcultural Psychiatry.

Those working from home, in massage parlours or escort agencies fare better. Still, 37 per cent of them experienced some sort of violence, according to research done in 2007 by a graduate student at Simon Fraser University.

Citing municipalities’ limited powers over the Criminal Code, education, health and social services, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and all of the city’s councillors are the latest to shrug.

They passed a plan based on a 30-page staff report, which gave only a cursory nod to the 12-year-old Nordic model pioneered in Sweden, which outlaws all aspects of the sex trade but provides generous social supports to at-risk youth and women exiting prostitution.

They didn’t ask for more information about that model or anything else, even though the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network and others among the 50 speakers at a public hearing urged them to at least consider that prostitution is a form of violence against women that ought to be stopped, not regulated.

In the end, Robertson and the others (including Suzanne Anton, the NPA’s mayoral candidate in the November election) bought into the excuse given in the staff report. Municipalities can do nothing about criminal law and little about education, health and social services, it said.

Of course, council didn’t use that excuse when it came to endorsing safe-injection sites for illegal drugs.

They didn’t balk last year from endorsing Will to Intervene, an international report that recommended Canada and the United States take leadership roles in preventing mass atrocities.

Which is odd since some people consider that 720 missing or murdered aboriginal women in Canada or that more than 100 women missing and murdered from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are slow-moving forms of genocide.

This council approved the report’s sanitized language (sex work, not prostitution) and never asked why the report neglected to describe just what such work entails.

They didn’t want to hear it. When 19-year-old Rachelle Rovner tried to read a graphic and disturbing description of the services that a Vancouver man bragged online about having purchased, she was told to stop.

Children might be watching the proceedings on TV, Coun. Andrea Reimer told her.

Rovner shot back. “If it’s not appropriate for our city council, then maybe it’s not appropriate for our city.”

Nothing in the city’s plan even hints at trying to lessen demand for prostitution in any of its guises.

Educational programs aren’t aimed at the men who harm prostituted persons. The only recommended educational programs would be aimed at teaching children, vulnerable youth and women how to better identify pimps and predators.

“Stop putting the responsibility on us to survive,” Trisha Baptie, a former prostitute, urged council. “Instead of abandoning us in the name of safety, health and verbal nonsense, you need to identify the problem: Men can pay for access to women’s and children’s bodies.”

Council paid no attention.

Child prostitution was deliberately omitted from the report and recommendations. It’s “strictly prohibited,” the report’s author Mary Clare Zak said at the meeting.

Yet, she also referenced a report that found 37 per cent of youth living on Vancouver’s streets say they have exchanged sex for food or shelter.

Regulating where sexual services are delivered is part of the plan. The city’s licensing department is urged to contact other cities to see how their bylaws differentiate registered massage therapists from massage and health-enhancement businesses that front for prostitution

Renfrew-Collingwood will get improved street lighting under council’s plan. But whether it’s in a car or alley, brothel or home, prostitution will never be safe.

There are hopes for housing, detox and rehab for at-risk youth, prostitutes and those exiting prostitution. But there’s no money.

There’s also no direction to end the long-standing practice of concentrating those services in the Downtown Eastside.

Bureaucratic not brave, it’s hard to see how this plan will prevent anyone from entering prostitution or make it safer for anyone regardless of whether they’re providing sexual services by choice, coercion, or out of desperation.

dbramham@vancouversun.com

THE COST OF GREEN?

2011-09-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

UNKINDEST CUT

2011-09-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

A felon with a considerable history of public and private violence (and very little jail time) is swearing at two young women.

Another man intervenes and suggests to the offender that he cool his heels.

Maniac walks away, retrieves his box-cutters, and slashes the throat ear-to-ear of the man who asked him to calm down.

Punch line?

In our ever-vigilant injustice system?

Two years.

Thank you Provincial Court judge Frances Howard.

The criminal is deeply imbedded in his criminal life-style and his drug-dealing business.

But hey?

Why consider the community?

Let's continue to be nice to the crazies in the ignorant and desparate hope that they might one day by nice back.

Judge Howard should be removed from the bench for flagrant disregard of the citizens who pay her salary and expect some measure of protection and reasonableness from her decisions.

COLD LIGHT OF DAY

2011-09-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

City Council is studying the sex trade.

Lord help us.

Thankfully, people who actually know what they are talking about have appeared and made valiant efforts to cut through the muck.

Rachelle Rovner was one of several speakers who took issue with some of the language in the report, pointing out the term "sex workers" implies prostitution is a legitimate form of work, when it is not at all.

Jonathan Livingston, a front line worker who deals with vulnerable youth in the Downtown Eastside, said there is an inherent flaw in aiming to make sex work "safer."

"I don't think you can make it safe," he said, adding that both prostitution and the procuring of sex need to be wholly condemned.

MacDougall said the trade is "inherently unsafe."

MacDougall also noted she hears from countless women who are abused by men while "supplementing their income in some form of sale of sex for money through inside work," but would never identify as being in the sex trade.

"They would never say, 'I am a sex worker' because they don't want to identify with that label," she said.

"This is not a career path for them; this is a survival mechanism."

Many speakers, including 19-year-old Sharlene Petigara, pointed out the report failed to adequately address the demand from johns.

"Prostitution is violence against women and there are people inflicting this violence," she said. "So why are they not addressed in this report?" Janessa Greening, director of resource development at Union Gospel Mission, called on staff to rewrite the report to include more emphasis on the issue.

"The most notable gap is the lack of reference to who is abusing the power imbalance - those who are violating these women, those whose actions are initiating and exacerbating the long-term, devastating impact these women will experience."

This is a classic example of a local authority working from the failed and morally reprehensible platform of Harm Seduction.

It is also an example of people who truly understand the issues stepping forward and casting some real light.

Officials everywhere are tragically obsessed with making self-destructive and harmful behaviour "safe" or "safer," while front line workers and ordinary citizens know that shooting heroin, smoking crack or renting out your body parts by the half hour can never be safe.

WHO DOESN'T LOVE A GOOD TUNE?

2011-09-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything so beautiful as this. It had me in tears of happiness in just a few moments...

2011-09-18T09:17:00.001-07:00

The most outrageous of all time

2011-09-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

You must read Courier columnist Mark Hasiuk's piece posted yesterday.

He explains in chilling detail how the Vancouver Coastal Health will give children crack pipe kits, because "health is health, regardless of age."

The world has gone completely mad.

RICH!

2011-09-12T20:40:00.001-07:00

OPAQUE, AGAIN

2011-08-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

We all knew that Wally was the worst possible choice to oversee an investigation into why it took the police so long to begin looking for the killer(s) of missing women in the DTES.

And he has proven us right again.

He phones the AG - who has since had the good sense to resign - and leaves a blathering chatty message full of personal opinions and random brain farts.

Now he takes to his favorite resource - open mikes and sound bites, the always available tools for the true public drama queen in us all - to seize the front pages.

Please, Wally.

Leave the deaths of women to the grown-ups.

Go quietly into this good night.

I am sure that there is a fishing lodge or ceramics shop on Saturna or Gabriola that needs a nice friendly new landlord.

BEANS, AND THEIR COUNTERS

2011-08-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

Bogie said it best in a certain movie set in North Africa.

"What happens with the HST doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this world."

Killing this offensive tax may or may not be fiscally imprudent. What do I am know? I am poor and stupid.

But, when all the accountants have gone back to the front nine and the snickering, chortling and gagging have drifted off into the fog, here is what we will remember.

An arrogant, out-of-touch Premier - his name was Gordon Campbell - made a colossal balls-up of introducing a new piece of legislation. You'd think he would have learned something after all those years in public life. But no. Like Napoleon driving into the snows of Russia, Campbell simply threw this affront to the masses. A pox on their ignorant houses. Take this, ye specks of dust!

Christy, who thinks she is so clever by a half, ran head first right into the oldest trap in the book: Be the next guy after the big mess. Get covered in someone else's goo.

Yes, the old tax may not be the greatest thing since the cell phone.

But for the suffering crowds, it is a huge and laughable pie in the face for those untouchable captains of government and industry.

WHY HE'S LEAVING

2011-08-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Barry Penner announced yesterday that he is resigning his post as BC Attorney General.

He wants to spend more time with his wife and daughter.

Fair enough.

He is heading to the women in his life. This is understandable.

But it is hardly the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Ask the other women in his life - his sister and his cousin and his aunt. (I don't rightly know if Mr. Penner has a sister, but if he did, I'd ask her and she'd tell me more than this public performance.)

What is much closer to the whole story and much more interesting is that Penner is running away from one woman inparticular.

Her name is Christy Clark and, at least for the next little while, she is the Premier of the province.

No doubt Mr. Penner is now officially part of the swelling legions of citizens who have come to see Premier Cark with a bit more clarity.

Delightful, charming, a fighter, an enthusiastic campaigner - yes, all that and more.

But she is not a policy maker or governor.

She hasn't a single idea with heft or depth or the possibility of living past the moment after it pops forth from her mouth.

One wonders if she even has or had at the outset a vision for what she wanted to accomplish in office or what she wanted the province to become under her tutelage.

No. She really just relished the race to the office and the trumphal moment of sitting in the big chair.

As a result, folks all around Ms. Clark are heading back to the sheep farms and goat teas.

At least the livestock don't pretend to offer anything more than wool and sour milk.

She will be gone from office within the year.

THE ROUNDUP

2011-08-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

1. To see announcements in the press that health authorities are giving out crack pipe kits to addicts is merely sad and predictable.

This idiocy is, after all, just another part of the harm seductionist strategy to encourage the legalization of practically everything.

So, biz as usual.

But to see the Vancouver Sun editorial writers endorse this destructive sham is very discouraging indeed.

Distribution of crack kits is good policy

Their worst argument comes late in the piece:

"As we have seen with Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, the project could ultimately result in more users seeking treatment."

This is the most spurious, devious and untrue spin by the quasi-scientists who support Insite.

The bald faced truth is that the little shooting gallery has turned over very few addicts to treatment, as anyone in the real treatment business will testify.

A friend of mine says that Vancouver Health is now helping hm with a personal problem.

He has been beating his wife regularly for years.

Now, in the interests of harm reduction, he is being given soft leather boxing gloves to wear at home so as to leave no marks.

2. Should public servants be held to a higher standard of behavior than the rest of us?

Should those who work in the areas of public safety be cognizant of behavior that help or hinders public safety?

The assistant fire chief in Esquimalt is a drunk driver.

Nice.

So he gets banned from driving for a while.

So his boss gives him a vacation.

Ze mind boggles.

3. The "Families First" Premier misses the Pride Parade and doesn't ensure that someone from the government or the party is there to represent either the government or the party.

This is not tragic or a slight or anything evil.

It is just flat stupid.

No planning. No thought.

If it doesn't spin, it's not our kin.

Une Belle Chanson

2011-07-31T16:32:00.001-07:00

VANCOUVER OPERA - THE BIGGEST SHOW IN TOWN

2011-07-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

LEGALIZE PROSTITUTION?

2011-07-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2011-07-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

COMPASSION

2011-07-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I wrote in this space about the BC Human Rights Tribunal.

It is an annoying and vexatious hybrid, a kangaroo court that operates outside any known laws and awards taxpayers monies in the most subjective ways unimaginable.

Now, in yet another case with findings that seem again inappropriate, a frightening little anomaly has emerged.

Turns out that employers have "a duty to accommodate people with any disabilities."

Oh?

Any disabilities?

The meddling mandarins who determine such things not too long ago declared that drug addiction is a disability. There are many social workers, psychologists and other professional cry-babies who subscribe to this idiocy.

So.

If drug addiction is mistakenly considered by society to be a disability, then according to the law, employers have a civic duty to accommodate their dope fiend employees.

OK.

So there will be a ten-minute time out on on the floor while Bert takes his methadone and Maddy stops by the nurse's station for her safe H injection.

And don't you worry your pretty little head about that whirring press with all those troublesome little gears and teeth and things. They are pretty well auto-piloted and even if Bert or Maddy fall smack-gob right into them, they'll just seize up for a moment or two and then we'll be right back on schedule.

We are a Caring Company and we know we are because we say we are and because the BC Human Rights Tribunal wrote our employee manual.

(Article 45BM-11 of the manual, by the way, clearly states that if a disabled addict employee has to miss a day or two to straighten out his or her last deal with their supplier or is too hung over or sick to poop or cut bait, NO PROBLEMO. We care. We really, really do.)

THE GNUS

2011-07-16T09:41:00.000-07:00

I read the Vancouver Sun and the Globe & Mail this morning.

Blah, blah, blah.

The single most important story stands alone - the US debt crisis.

I am not smart enough to know what has brought us to this brink.

Greed? The credit card life? Laziness? Entitlement? Poor productivity? Cheap Asian labour?

I don't know.

But I know this.

If the US falters, so do the rest of us. The European Union is in a almost mirror image of near panic.

What makes this all so scary, truly frightening, is that so much of the possible short term solution lies in the Bible-thumping, slogan-bearing, gun-toting, simple-minded, clever, always politically motivated hands of Republicans, in and out of office.

Mercy.

* * *

One the local scene, where we are insulated from real problems by bike lanes and the profusion of good Italian coffee shops, only a small letter to the editor in the Sun caught my eye.

Here it is in its entirety:

A plea to delay funding cuts to mental health group

By John Johnston, Vancouver Sun July 16, 2011

Survivors of mental illness are often stigmatized and ostracized by society. They often must struggle to recover on their own with little help from the community.

But Burnaby Mental Wealth Society has provided psycho-social rehabilitation services to 300 members for 17 years. Our supportive social community has been a second family to our members. We encourage members to stay healthy, out of hospital and involved in society.

But due to a recent draconian decision by Fraser Health, our funding has been terminated as of Aug. 31.

We are asking Fraser Health to sustain our funding until March 31, 2012 to give us time to find another source. We ask the public to support us by writing to their members of the legislature to ask that Fraser Health sustain our funding. Please help us help the poor and mentally ill.

John Johnston President, Burnaby Mental Wealth Society

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

As we used to say in Motown, "I second that emotion."

If people only had the faintest idea had badly Fraser Health and the other regional Heath boards execute their mandates, how much money they waste and how many people they harm while pretending to help...

SHOULD ALL STUDENTS GO TO UNIVERSITY?

2011-07-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WITH A BULLET

2011-07-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is quickly becoming an enormous and costly embarrassment.

A while back it awarded money and damages to a lesbian couple because a not-very-skilled comedian in a not-very-classy joint hurled insults a them. HELLO?

Now, the Tribunal has awarded $5,000 to a B.C. man who was denied aboriginal spiritual services while in custody in the Fraser Valley.

The man was separated numerous times in various local jails into segregated or protective custody.

This usually happens when a guy is violent and out of control.

So maybe a spiritual adviser would have been helpful. That's very possible.

But why award a violent felon $5,000 of taxpayers' money for hurt feelings?

You break the law, you fight with the guards, shitty bad things are probably going to happen.

HELLO?

PASTAFARIAN TRIUMPHS

2011-07-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's the kind of story that should only happen in Vancouver.

But no, it took place in that hot bed of indigenous comedy, Austria.

Niko Alm had his driver's license issued with a photo of him wearing pasta stainer on his head.

A self-confessed atheist, Mr Alm says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Read and believe.

Wonder only if his name can really be "Alm?" Of it he had it shortened from the more traditional "Alms?" Or the more rigorous Austrian spelling "Almsforzepoor"

GENDER

2011-07-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've always believed that dogs are boys and cats are girls.

I believed this when I was a child.

In spite of knowledge since acquired, I still believe this.

Dogs are boys and cats are girls.

Don't bug me.

PRODUCTIVITY

2011-07-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

Oil, illegal drugs and Big Pharma.

These are three of the four biggest businesses in the world.

But the fourth is also the largest and most profitable.

It is also the one least discussed in public.

Armaments.

You know, guns, bullets, bombs, planes, drones, Humvees...

These little enterprises, which prop up the economies of most producing countries in the world, are almost a secret.

How refreshing - if gruesome - then to see a major report in today's morning Sun:

Canada doing brisk business in arms: data

Military hardware exports rise

Of course, you can't sell a few killing machines without helping out the odd despot or mass murderer or two.

Just turn the page and read about the half-million people huddled together in refugee camps in Kenya. Dadaab is hell on earth. And after the famine and the drought, came the war.

But hey, our exports are up.

THE PAPER TRAIL

2011-07-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

Did you vote yet on the HST?

I did.

I voted "Yes," which, of curse, means No.

Life in La-La Land is like that.

But that's not the story.

The real issue is whose cousin had the paper contract?

First you mark your ballot.

Then you put it in envelope A.

Then like, Ukranian dolls, you put envelope A into envelope B.

Then you put envelope B - which already hides away envelope A - into envelope C.

I am not making this up.

Then you put the whole happy package into a Canada Post mail box and hope that nobody is on strike this week.

Other question:

Whose cousin gets the contract for the 100,000 Haida-carved letter openers?

Democracy! Inclusion! Consultation!

Who cares if we never get a real summer!

We've got Christy Crispy Crunchy World - The Magical Forest of Envelopes.

Would you like no tea in your sugar?

NIMBY? OR NOT?

2011-07-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

DOPES ABOUND

2011-07-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Methadone is six times more addictive than heroin.

In spite of this fact, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers and others have been giving this poison to addicts for more than 50 years now as an alleged "replacement therapy."

Of course, this is, always has been and always will be a failing strategy.

How are addicts provided this poison?

Some come to a clinic window, but most are provided prescxriptions which they fill at their neighb ourhood pharmacy. The pharmacists are given a fee by the government for this deadly undignified "service." They are happily paid by us to keep drug addicts stoned.

Human nature being what it is, pharmacists and addicts develop a bit of a relationship, which includes colusion to steal again from the public.

Sometimes they get caught.

Witness today's Vancouver Sun headline:

City seeks investigation into methadone kickback charges

City Councillor, Kerry Jang, is "outraged."

Does the good Councillor also know that...wait for it...drug addicts sell their pills daily on the street?

Yes. Imagine!

Unfortunately, council's favorite drama queen is outraged at the wrong thing, as he often is.

It hasn't yet occurred to Jang - or many other people in charge - that the whole business of providing addicts with an addictive substitute drug is outrageous and should be stopped at once if not sooner.

These cozy arrangements between users and providers have been going on for at least the 45 years that I've been involved in addiction and recovery issues.

What's new, Bub?

Huff and puff all you want.

There's only one useful and human and dignified change available to us in this sorry mess.

Stop it.

READ THIS

2011-07-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

If you read no other editorial column this week, do yourself a favor and read today's piece in the Vancouver Sun. It is one of the best and most important items I've read in a long, long time.

Education of aboriginal children must be top priority

Issue has been acknowledged -but not addressed -since the 1960s

Tomorrow, the paper promises solutions, and I will eagerly await this follow-up.

But I can tell you right now what two elements must be.

1. Recruit, hire and deploy a kind of "navy seals" cadre of dedicated teachers who are prepared to start tomorrow and work very hard and very closely, one-on-one when necessary, to inspire aboriginal children to the joys and rewards of learning.

No studies or commissions please. Just do it.

2. Gather the parents and families and shake them from their liassez-faire approach to fostering and encouraging their kids to succeed in school. Do whatever it takes to bring families into that sense of pride and accomplishment that is essential for kids to revel in learning.

Passing Strange

2011-07-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

Something bizarre has happened.

In the days past when I used to post new items on this blog site every day, I would average about 300 hits a day.

Recently, because I only post once or twice a week, I rarely get more than 200 hits.

But yesterday, a first.

1568 page loads

Wow!

What the heck was that all about?

I can't know for sure, but I have an idea.

Yesterdays post (PLUTO? URANUS?) was all about the BC Teachers federation.

Hm...

Could it be that one union member emailed or texted another union member and that person contacted three of her friends and so on?

Most mysterious.

That, and the 12 comments this morning suggests that I seem to have struck a noive.

Ouch!

UNBELIEVABLE!

2011-07-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

This comment came from a regular contributor. I thought it deserved a post of its own. Read it and weep.

My son is a student at Lord Byng -- his French teacher (I won't name her) likes to check her Facebook account during class (which she leaves open on the computer, with no concern that a) the kids can see it; b) that it might be considered inappropriate; and c) that it sends a message that she is less than interested in her little charges and that it's really NOT all about the students). Did I mention that she also is in the habit of texting during class?

Toward the end of the first and second terms (although I understand that is going to be cut back to once per year) we are given the opportunity to set up 5 minute interviews with our childrens' teachers -- for the first term interviews we were unfortunately unable to get even one interview (and we weren't the only ones). Did they schedule another evening (I mean, we are talking 5 bloody minutes per student!)? Of course they didn't. I contacted each of my son's teachers by e-mail asking for some feedback in the form of a meeting or, at the very least, a phone call. Only one teacher met with me, the rest (with the exception of the aforementioned French teacher) replied that everything was fine and a meeting wasn't necessary. In order to get a basic (and I do mean basic) reply from the French teacher, I had to send two e-mail messages and leave two 'phone messages (the later a complaint to the counsellor) before a response was received. Perhaps I should have texted or Facebooked her!

Professional would be the last word I would use to describe this lot.

PLUTO? URANUS?

2011-07-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

The BC Teachers Federation continues to reach out from somewhere on that hitherto unknown planet they inhabit.

Their most recent kvetch includes demands for 10 days bereavement leave for the death of a friend, 26 weeks of paid compassionate leave and two sick days a month that can be saved up.

Oh, did we mention the 22% increase in wages?

They are completely mad, totally irresponsible and, at core, very much like the entitled children entrusted in their care most week days - about whom, by the way, they care not a whit.

I am in general sympathetic to and often downright supportive of unions.

But these thoughtless folks are the game-changers.

I have learned first hand over the years that large numbers of their own membership are embarrassed and horrified by this union and further, that they are sufficiently cowed by the activists at the top to remain ever silent.

Pity.

And pity all of us the adversarial atmosphere that has held strong these many, many years between teachers and government.

Who knows? Maybe someday in our wildest dreams, the BCTF will grow out of its jumpers and diapers and sun-flowered shirts and make the occasional real deal.

Union Prez, Susan Lambert, is pictured above.

NO PROBLEM, PART ONE

2011-07-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK ON TEACHERS.

Most teachers are dedicated professionals trying every day to teach entitled little brats whose thumbs are permanently welded to their iPhones.

This is a comment on the two august bodies who tell us that they represent teachers.

The first is the famous BCTF, the local union whose membership often cringes at the relentless political animus spewing from its offices. We speak of this organization often in these pages, almost always with disgust.

Today, our focus is on the BC College of Teachers.

B.C. College of Teachers keeps some bad records spotless

Incidents of a sexual nature, violence, wiped from histories

Now, we don't know in which cases accusations proved to be false or harmless or pointless. No doubt there were some.

But Janet Steffenhagen's excellent feature in the morning Sun suggests that dangerous truths are being buried as well.

That's OK.

The BC College of Physicians and the Law Society are equally adept at truth-smothering, all in the interest of polishing the old image.

Circle the wagons, Pilgrim!

NO PROBLEM, PART TWO

2011-07-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

Health care is our single biggest expense.

What punishment is appropriate for officials who steal from this pool?

The new electronic health monitoring system is running at $222 million to date.

A few months ago, a local doctor billed large amounts to this system and then pleaded to two counts of influence-peddling with government officials.

Dr. Jonathan Burns was sentenced to three years' probation and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. Six other charges against Burns, including fraud and breach of trust, were stayed.

Now, the former assistant deputy minister of health, Ron Danderfer, has pleaded guilty to fraud for accepting "considerations" for himself and his wife in the course of his duties.

His lawyer, of course, says that this kind of thing is the standard in private business. Nice.

The lawyer also whines that Danderfer has already suffered greatly from the attention the case has received in the media.

"It has been extremely trying for him. He's lost his job, he's lost the respect he had in the community, this has taken an amazing toll on him."

Boo effing hoo.

No doubt this thief will be asked to write an essay entitled, "My Bad."

Welcome to the peach-colored Land of No Consequences.

Jules Verne originally wrote about this place over a hundred years ago, but his publishers rejected the manuscript out of hand as being "too fantastical - not a soul on earth would believe that such a place exists."

LET GO!

2011-06-30T15:10:00.001-07:00

Until yesterday, the great Roger Federer has been 178-0 when leading two sets to none in a five-set major tennis match.

Yesterday at Wimbledon, the six-time champion blew that 2 set lead and lost in five to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Full credit to Tsonga who never faltered for a moment and drove through like a determined mad man to push Federer off the court.

But for those of us who have follwed Fed from the beginning and marvelled over and over again at his sublime athleticism and mind-boggling shot-making, Fed' s performance was more than disappointing.

It was downright annoying and frustrating.

How can you fault a guy who has experienced such success for his methodology?

Well, you can.

Federer has the most wonderful belief in himself, and that's understandable. He has 16 major singles titles, more than any other player.

But sometimes that belief gets in his way.

Yesterday, the commentators during the first two sets kept saying, "Federer's on cruise control."

And they were right.

Unfortunately, he stayed on cruise control for the next hour or so and lost the match.

He did that because he seems always to believe that he will pull this out of the hat.

What he had to do instead was let go of his stoic exterior and FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.

He settled back on his heels into a largely defensive game exactly when he needed to fire out on all cylinders.

Easy enough for me to say, I realize.

Many of us are looking forward to witnessing more history when Roger Federer collects his 17th and 18th and maybe more Grand Slam trophy.

But it won't happen with the current game plan.

I had the extraordinary pleasure of watching Boris Becker in person at the Italian Open turn around a losing proposition by sheer will and determination. You could see on his face the thought that went something like this, "Who are you kidding? I am Boris Becker! Get out of my way, Buddy!"

Like millions of tennis fans, I am waiting to see Roger turn on the same kind of juice when he needs to...and against the quality of players now in his path, he will need to many times.

THE BEAT GOES ON

2011-06-30T11:24:00.001-07:00

Recently, I posted a monologue that began, "All governments are corrupt."

Soon I received the following note from my friend and colleague of many years, Mike Harcourt:

Jeez David what the hell did you put in your 10 th Ave cappuccino to write such a bitter and twisted diatribe!
Mike H

So I replied:

Hi Mike,

I am sorry that you found this monologue bitter and twisted or that you may have taken personal offense.

There are good people doing good work with the best motivations in every walk of life, including elected officials and public servants.

But the systems themselves, I believe, are by nature, corrupting.

The evidence is before us every day.

This is simply a call to remain ever vigilant.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that 50% of all government employment and activities are useless, senseless sops. The cost of government is and has been for a long time completely out of any reasonable control.

If you'd like to characterize these observations as “bitter and twisted,” you are free to do that.

But I am a happy guy. I enjoy life.

And I enjoy the freedom to laugh at the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Cheers,

Then Mike closed the discussion with:

David,Vancouver's budget goes to Police,Fire and Engineering services-75 %. Most of the rest is for our fabulous parks and recreation system,culture. The rest is to manage planning and development,and collect taxes and fees to pay for these basic services to citizens.
If you examine the provincial budget 75 % goes to health,education and social services. Most of the rest-20% goes to transportation and the administration of justice.
The national government's $200 billion budget almost 1/2 flows back to individuals as OAP,CCP and other direct income transfers;or equalization payments to poorer provinces;or health,education or social service cost sharing. A huge chunk of the remaining budget is for defence,prisons and other basic functions.
Now agreed there is some waste,dubious programs,incompetence,and some lying self serving politicians and civil servants(a very small number in my experience).
Compared to the sub prime mortgage,real estate scammers,bankers,bond rating agencies who trashed the world economy in 2008,who should you be venting your wrath at?
Just trying to bring a little perspective to these issues old pal. Not to take it too personally. To be continued.
Mike H

I have posted this lively debate with Mike's permission.

Soon, we will meet at a White Spot for our quarterly breakfast and the arguments and laughs and camaraderie will continue.

Mike Harcourt is a former Mayor of Vancouver and Premier of the Province of British Columbia and not a bad Sunday tennis player. Neither of us got to Wimbledon.

PERSPECTIVE from SUSAN HEYES

2011-06-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Where is the relief fund from multi-billion dollar SNC Lavalin, and their “ DEAR CAMBIE MERCHANTS: I LOVE YOU ” tee shirts”?

Where is any accountability for the many years of unmitigated relentless losses caused by the built-for-profit Canada Line project?

The healing needs to begin for merchants who have had their life’s work torched by all the Canada Line partners.

Susan

Riot relief fund for small businesses launched in Vancouver

VIVIAN LUK

Vancouver— Globe and Mail Update

Published Tuesday, Jun. 28, 2011 3:02PM EDT

Last updated Tuesday, Jun. 28, 2011 3:06PM EDT

Small businesses that are struggling to cover insurance premiums or other repair costs resulting from riot damages can now apply for up to $7000 from a relief fund co-ordinated by the Vancouver Economic Development Commission.

Contributors to the fund, called the Vancouver Restoration Fund, aim to raise $150,000 to help about 55 downtown Vancouver businesses that suffered damages to windows, doors, furniture, fixtures and equipment during the Stanley Cup riot on June 15.

Both Vancity and Telus have contributed $50,000 each, while sports merchandise store The Fan Zoo is hoping to raise the same amount from selling #DEARVANCOUVER: I LOVE YOU T-shirts. To The Point Tattoo will be donating a percentage of its revenues to the fund.

“Vancouverites were in need of a way to come together and show their pride and appreciation for their city,” said Bobby Atwal, president of The Fan Zoo in a statement. “This is about supporting the businesses that serve all of us in the downtown core and in many cases they missed watching playoff games themselves while they served us.”

Businesses can go to vancouvereconomic.com for details about applications and donations.

STATE OF THE ONION

2011-06-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

All governments are corrupt.

Some are just more tainted than others.

There can be no other way.

Whether elected by ballot or propelled by sticks and stones, the inhabitants of the castle are always playing with the coin of the realm.

That is, your money.

The kings, prime ministers, presidents, despots-for-life, kleptogenerals or whatever title they may wrap about their shoulders have not been tending the fields or the flock, re-soling the shoes or sailing the rugged waters to bring back bounty from distant lands.

They have been taxing or stealing or muscling funds from the people who work - you.

Not all government actions are dreadful.

Just most.

Occasionally, a man nor woman in government will do a good deed. They will treat some poor local sufferer with kindness. They will act reasonably.

This is the exception, not the rule.

The official story is always suspect.

If not an outright lie, it is at the least a marvelous thigh-slapping whopper.

Take the Canadian Senate...please.

You work.

Larry Campbell plays.

He has air fares, secretaries, lunches and a life-time sinecure.

Triple E senate is a three-Monte scam. The only reasonable senate is no senate. We don't need one. We need to spend our billions of dollars on other things.

The police are in disarray. Not just at Georgia and Homer, but across the country. Demoralized, understaffed, without leadership and clarity.

Every day, some school trustee or Member of Parliament or other elected or appointed official is found criminally responsible for some felony or other - theft, fraud, sexual misconduct, addictions, madness, lack of humour.

The teachers' union doesn't want their members to be scrutinized too closely for job performance. No tests, no evaluations. And that's just for the students. No matter. The kids are taking the tests anyway and doing just fine.

How are we to impress upon those who run for office and then how are we to remind them that this is public money with which they are playing their childish games.

You have your own personal fortunes? Good. Go ahead. Build bike lanes that no one uses.

Tear up main streets and destroy small businesses.

Open places for drug addicts to be drug addicts and for prostitutes to be prostitutes and call this progress.

On your own dollar, please.

All governments are corrupt.

In 2001, friends picked me up at Inchon airport and drove me into Seoul over the cleanest, firmest, straightest piece of highway I have ever seen. I asked from the back seat, "Who's cousin got the cement contract?" My hosts thankfully didn't get my impolite joke.

The next morning I came downstairs to the breakfast room in the hotel (Korean, American and Japanese breakfasts on tap), chose my fare and opened up the English language newspaper.

What was the headline story?

The Highway Cement Scandal.

Somebody's cousin was at the center of the story.

All governments are corrupt.

If you even knew how many people are working, for example, for the Canadian federal government in this city doing obscure, unnecessary, largely political backroom jobs that add nothing to the common weal, you would throw up. These faceless bastards have six-figure jobs. They are plotters and plodders. They are deemed necessary to the smooth working of your government. They all have i Phones.

All governments are corrupt.

Some are just more corrupt than others.

They are playing with your money.

They are naughty, irresponsible children.

We mustn't take them too seriously.

They are good targets for fun and ridicule.

ARAB SPRING

2011-06-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

Low Productivity? Pish Tosh!

2011-06-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

Who says Canada is a real slug in the productivity department?

No longer!

Canada is a leading source of synthetic drugs: report

So there, ye of little faith.

Turns out we have much about which we can crow.

The entire glorious tale is here in today's Globe.

I'M, LIKE, SO BETTER NOW

2011-06-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Two wonderful new entries in The Riot Stakes had me in stitches this morning.

Gawd! I love a morning laugh!

Here's the first:

NO TALK OF POSSIBLE TROUBLE ON GAME DAY.

Apparently, the secret words of the day - "trouble" and "riot" crossed nobody's happy lips at the Police Board meeting.

The Police Chief and the Mayor were both in attendance.

Hahahahahahaha...

OK. That was pretty good.

But the second Class in Public Mythology 304 was even funnier.

Bike Lane Chicken Coop Puppet Mayor has assembled a Spin Group called 'THE VANCOUVER BRAND TEAM."

Hahahahahahahahahahaha...

Ain't life here in Oz just swell, Dorothy?

The Team's job?

Glad you asked.

Sitting down?

Here it comes...

"Community Healing."

Isn't that nice?

I have a question.

When did this spittle borrowed from the lexicon of "grief counseling," enter the public realm and find spurious legitimacy?

If I hear from the mouth of another anchor desk newscaster the word "healing," I am going to hurl all over my tiny retro-TV.

The official story managers are all hard at work. The consultants are all on board. Full steamed latte ahead!

Fun Exchange

2011-06-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

Jeff Taylor said...

David, if you want to see the real reason our society is in so much trouble, please take a moment to read this blog written by a young woman whom recently came out from behind the riot's shadows. I couldn't believe what I was reading !

http://camillecacnioapology.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/dear-vancouver-i-am-sorry/#comment-436

June 20, 2011 12:13 PM

David Berner said...

Dear Jeff Taylor,

I have read with interest the blog post you quoted above and I have watched the video of her running out of the store with STOLEN GOODS, and I must say that I don't buy one word of it.

There is something essentially wrong with this young woman's character.

After her apology, she might try paying for the window and the STOLEN GOODS and cleaning up the city streets every night for a month or two.

She is like so many people sitting on the bus next to us.

She wears the easy veneer of civility, while not far below the surface she is a savage.

The worst thing about global warming is the loss of ice flows.