The Police Reunion - Roxanne

They rehearsed for days in an empty sound stage at Lion's Gate's North Van Studios. They'll be at GM PLace soon. And here they are at the Grammy's last month. Check out Sting looking and sounding like a 20 year old. This is one amazing guy and fab performer. Check out, as well, Sting on Tony Bennett's CD, "Duets," joining the master saloon singer on "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Berries Buried

It's been some time now since the mainstream media has reported anything more than what the government and corporations have given them.

A shame, really, because there are so many "little" stories worthy of more serious attention.

Like this tiny gem lodged among the dust balls in Richmond.

A man is appointed by the Provincial Liberal government to the land commission in 2002. His name is Peter Dhillon. He is a cranberry grower and formerly the head of the Agricultural land Commission's south coast panel. Some might want to stop the tale right there and cry, "Conflict of interest!" But, forebear.

Mr. Dhillon manages to get Richmond Council to remove 2.5 hectares of his own land from the agricultural reserve and have it rezoned as industrial, a small fortune thus made. This decision by Richmond Council flew in the face of their own staff recommendations against the rezoning.

Hang on.

He's doing it again.

New application for an adjacent 2.5 hectares.

Now, let's be clear.

The Daily Rag has reported all this, and The Rag is my source for this rant. Many thanks.

But we will never hear more of this. We will never find out the how and why and who of this story of corruption and ill-will and disobedience to public service. Will some good reporter follow the money? Will some shoddy truth be exposed?

Don't hold your breath.

John Denver - Sunshine

That old secret cure - SUNSHINE! - has returned this morning.

Here's a guy I didn't really like so much until I interviewed him for CTV, appropriately enough on a hilltop in California. He was delightful - warm and smart and forthcoming.

Ici on Parle Francais

I've been ranting and raving here and on the radio and in print for years now about our reluctance to bring immigrants fully into the mainstream of our economies. Why not qualify doctors, nurses and teachers from other countries as soon as possible and let them contribute and earn as equals to any other Canadian, and so on?

Today, I have a picture from the opposite side of the fence.

On Friday, I phoned a downtown hotel to speak to a friend of mine, who is visiting from New York.

When the young lady at the hotel answered, she said something like, "Foogglarmishtot, Hody, qualpu?"

And I said, "I am sorry. I didn't understand one word you just said."

She repeated, and repeated, and repeated. Eventually I divined that she was, in fact, welcoming me to a downtown hotel and asking how she could help me.

My first unkind thought was to say, "Well, you could start by getting me someone who speaks English!!!"

But as I am now in my new and recent and beatific head space of "Take Life as it comes," I simply asked for the woman to whom I wanted to speak.

Imagine how many times I had to say that woman's name - uh, names, last, first, first, last, both together.

When the hotel operator (if in fact that is what she was) put me on hold, I moved on.

Yes, let's get new Canadians working as soon as possible. Let's allow them the dignity of supporting themselves and their families, let's give them the competitive wage, let's recognize their qualifications from Universities on other continents.

Let's do all that, and let's do it soon.

But could we not ask in exchange that some form of Understandable English be spoken if you have to deal with the public? If you want to live in a ghetto of your own making and speak the language of your Motherland here in Canada, that's your unfortunate choice. But if you are going to answer telephones for a big downtown hotel, shouldn't you speak in the local currency?

And why would a hotel put as their first contact with the public such a handicapped person? Putting me on the front desk at a hotel in Bucharest, Botswana or Bologna is not a great idea.

As we say in the hospitality industry, "Have a nice day."

Or, better yet, "Have a good one." To which I am always tempted to say, "Thanks, but I already do have a good one."

Hunters, Gatherers

Less than a week ago, I wrote here about how oil companies have consistently plundered the territories that make them rich.

This morning, the New York Times has an excellent article on the diamond trade in Sierra Leone.

This is of particular interest because it was only 2 nights ago that I watched "Blood Diamond." The subject and the setting are exactly the stuff of today's NYTimes piece.

Leonardo DiCaprio's character, the adventurer-mercenary, Danny Archer, says it best (in a flawless Rhodesian accent, no less) in the film when he points out that the history of Africa is the history of foreign exploitation. Diamonds, oil, gold, name your holy grail. The world has always come to Africa, and Africa has always been the worse off for it. Last week I talked about the enormous bounty Shell Oil is currently reaping in and around and off the shores of Nigeria, all the while further impoverishing the local people.

Nigeria is but a shiny stone's throw from Sierra Leone.

Read the Times story and weep for the continuing inhumanity of the upright biped.

Singing in the Rain

Here is the original.

It's only one of the best four minutes ever put on film.

Who Elects These People?

I've been thinking this morning about politicians.

More specifically about politicians who do absolutely nothing measurable and yet keep getting elected and re-elected and then elected again.

Why is this?

Gary Lunn is the Federal Minister of Natural Resources for Saanich-The Gulf Islands.

Years ago, folks on Salt Spring island appealed to Mr. Lunn for his help in making good community use of an empty RCMP building. He was hopelessly ineffective.

He's in the news today because he has vigorously defended the federal budget in a presentation to the Board of Trade. That must have been an exciting lunch.

To my knowledge, there is not one thing to which Mr. Lunn, elected in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006, can point to with pride and say, "That's real and that's my contribution."

Hedy Fry has been sucking up the air in Parliament since 1993.

I'm a simple guy. Can someone explain these phenomena to me?

Is this all that politics offers? Don't even poltiicians want a personal sense of accomplishment and contribution? Is getting elected and waving your hot air about all they need in this life?

Can't we do better?

The Daily Number

350 billion.

That's the number of American Dollars spent in the past 4 years on the highly successful Iraq War.

100 billion.

That's the number of American Dollars more that the greatest President who ever lived wants to continue the Iraq War.

Sam's New Program

The Mayor has just announced a startling and exciting new initiative.

In his continuing bid for a "civil city" that will play well before the millions of Olympic visitors, Sam has revealed his new HRP - Homey Run Program.

How it works is this. The homeless will be trained to operate rickshaws. That way they will stay healthy and earn minimum wages and be able to afford rent on apartments. The rickshaws will be imported from India and Thailand. Councillor Peter Ladner is considering adding an RL - Rickshaw Lane to the Burrard Street and Granville Bridges.

HamNation: Better Living Through Activism

This is completely silly and completely anti-sanity and completely right wing in-total-denial madness...but it's still funny.

School Daze

The current flap over schools for foreigners is a)long overdue, and b)the tip of a much concealed iceberg.

Downtown Vancouver is replete with young Koreans who are bringing much to our local economy. They rent apartments, pay exorbitantly for English language studies, buy food and beer, CD's, DVD's, clothes and coffee.

The only problem is the schools that are claiming to teach these kids English are doing a terrible job.

Language is spoken.

Say, it again. Language is spoken.

You can write declensions until you're purple, but if you can't say "Buon Giorno," you're toast.

The main library downtown is filled with foreign students pouring over their workbooks and electronic translators. None of them talk to Canadians. None of them speak English. None of them make local friends. They huddle together in floating ghettos, smoking cigarettes and speaking Korean. All of which is understandable and their right.

But don't these schools have an obligation to get these kids connected to the English-speaking community? Doesn't the government have an obligation to assure that schools actually teach what they claim to?

Big Smoke

Provincial Minister of Tourism, Sport and Arts, Stan Hagen, is blowing smoke up yer ass, again.

He's released a little self-serving fiction about how TV production is way, way up here in B.C., and The Local Rag has soaked it all up. Numbers, stats, flag waving, trumpets.

The only problem is this alleged piece of news is as believable as an episode of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.

Every actor I know - and that includes actors who have been used to working regularly and buying homes and cars - has been crying the unemployment blues for about a year now. The pickings are slim and the pay is cheap.

Maybe Mr. Minister should try a few months of waiting on tables.

Michael Penn - Try

O.K. Here's another Michael Penn video, this one directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights."

The video also features Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Michael Penn - Walter Reed

New to me is Michael Penn. But isn't he darn good?

read before using

The biggest industries in the world are:

- armaments

- pharmaceuticals

- illegal drugs

- oil

These enterprises share at least two qualities: They are vigorously aggressive and almost psychotically secretive.

The biggest selling pharma pill in the world is Pfizer's Lipitor. It is a statin drug used to lower bad cholesterol levels for heart patients or anyone else who feels this is necessary or a good idea. Most cardiologists, for example, self-prescribe a statin, usually lipitor.

Aggression?

A tiny news release out of Dallas today advises that the American Heart Association has changed its take on how and what children should take to help with their cholesterol levels.

This is the most spurious and questionable reporting and science. Did Pfizer support this study?

A major study also just released from Norway looked at two large groups of heart patients. One group was put on a severe program of diet, exercise and statin drugs. The other was told to "just live your life normally." Result? The exact same number of people in each group died of heart disease.

This is not to say that statins are a sham or that they should be dismissed. I take an older formulation statin drug every night before bed. Next month, we'll have a look at my blood cholesterol levels.

But, to encourage more children to take more drugs on one study with no real details explained is downright evil.

Don't believe everything you read, and read the labels on everything you think you believe.

Black, Black, Black

The Trial of Conrad Black is the most fun in town, the town in this case being Chicago. If you're not following this melodrama, you're not really up and breathing. It's got everything: more money than you can shake a Todd Bertuzzi stick at, power, greed, theft, betrayal, sex, bad words, local color, and the best ingedient of all - the chance to lay a good wager. Will he or will he not do jail time? Is Radler taking the fall, allowing the Good Lord to walk?

Last night, at the Third City Salon, sponsored by Bob Ranfsord, Virginia Richards and me, the 15 or so guests could hardly get into their soups and salads or focus on the subject at hand (Global Warming - Do You care?) for all the chattering excitement about "the trial."

O.J., the Trial of the Century? Ha!

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow ((Hey Oh))

soft rock rules...

Nixon Re-Dux

Executive privilege is a dangerous piece of law in American life.

President Bush, sounding more and more like a batty Richard Nixon, is now calling on this cancerous legislation in his refusal to let the man who created him, Karl Rove, testify in a messy political story.

"We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honourable public servants."

Leave us not forget what Shakespeare's Marc Antony had to offer about "honourable men."

The Justice department fired eight U.S. Attorneys last December. Numerous documents, including e-mails, suggest that Mr. Rove, Bush's puppet-master, and Attorney-general Alberto Gonzales were both at the head of these firings and that the entire order was completely political. Friends and enemies stuff, as usual.

How can Congress hold a President accountable? How can parliament hold a Prime Minister accountable? These are not cavalier questions. They go to the heart of our democracies.

David Iglesias was one of the eight fired U.S. Attorneys. Read his comments in today's New York Times and then tell us again what a great president is Mr. Bush.

The Federal Budget

Huh?

MOVIE TIMES TWO

It's not often that we get to see two movies released in the same year, telling the same story, with the same real-life characters, and two entirely different casts of actors and producers.

Such was the case over the past 18 months with Capote and Infamous.

Both are excellent films telling and re-telling the tale of American writer Truman Capote's obsession with the murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas. Capote was already the toast of New York literary society for, among other things, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," when he found himself drawn to Holcomb to research the effect a gruesome murder might have on a small American town.

The result was "In Cold Blood."

That book was itself made into an extraordinary film in 1967, in which the part of Perry Smith, one of the 2 killers, was played to chilling and powerful and strangely sympathetic effect by Robert Blake, a movie actor for almost 70 years, who was himself recently charged (and acquitted) with murder.

"Capote" was nominated for 5 Academy Awards; "Infamous" for none. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Oscar for the title role, predictably and deservedly so. Toby Jones, an actor who looks curiously almost identical to Mr. Capote, and who was first-rate as a supporting player in "The Painted Veil, is also quite wonderful in "Infamous."

But, whether it is the direction or the whole tone of this second movie or that Mr. Jones, as good as he is, simply does not have the chops that Mr. Hoffman so obviously does, his portrayal doesn't have the weight that the Oscar-winner does.

In Capote, Catherine Keener plays Harper Lee, Capote's good friend and the author of the iconic "To Kill a Mockingbird," and she's terrific. But so is Sandra Bullock playing the exact same role in "Infamous." With no make-up and subdued speech and movements, Bullock gives one of her very best, and entirely unheralded, performances.

Then, you can compare and reach your own conclusions about Chris Cooper vs. Jeff Daniels as Alvin Dewey, the local cop. I think Jeff Daniel's is a superior actor with a much broader range than Mr. Cooper, and I'm often amazed at what he brings to the party. Remember that this is the guy who stood toe-to-toe with Jim Carrey in "Dumb & Dumber."

John Forsythe, who achieved household fame for "Charlie's Angels," may have been the best Alvin Dewey in "In Cold Blood," 40 years ago.

The most astonishing casting, however, is James Bond - Daniel Craig - as Perry Smith. This performance alone is worth the rental fee. You'll be surprised.

Most of you have seen "Capote." Take a night off and rent "Infamous," for the curious but rewarding experience of "deja...what-a-minute!"