Victor Discovers the real Meaning of a Sammy Christmas

Hi Mensche:

I am so deeply ashamed.

Like many, I heard about the coke addict who stole the Christmas presents from the room of a seriously ill girl in Children's' Hospital. I heard, from the Official On-duty Police Spokesperson (OOPs for short) that the thief was "known to police and had a rap sheet going back to 1987'.

Let's call him "The Grunge Who Mainlined Christmas"

At first, I was lulled into the media spin that this was some sort of Grinch story. You know. Bad guy and victim. A Christmas fable.

But then I looked in the heavens, to the Star of Sam and realized that the real victim was the coke-head.

Portraying the seriously ill girl as a victim was Holiday Season Hokey.

No. The Sam Star told me that Mr. 20-year Cokehead was a victim of all of us. In our greed, we soldiered on since 1987, ignoring his real cravings.

You see, what he really wants is a steady job, sensible shoes, membership in the Rotary Club, daily flossing, eating a balanced diet from all the major food groups.

He's simply been stealing and doing nose candy while working on his resume since Mulroney was Prime Monster.

But! There is hope for Mainline Grunge.

It is called the Sam Plan.

First, we give him a free apartment for two years. No rules.

During that time, we give him free substitute drugs.

This brings us to 2010.

Having lost his social skills, he may be lacking on pickup lines.

No Problem.

There will be Comfort Women in Vancouver in 2010. Sam is "open" to discussing the idea of legalized brothels for the Olympics.

Interesting.

In a city that has a 30 percent Chinese population, Parapathetic Sam thinks the invading hordes of tourists in 2010 should have the same options that the Japanese army had in Nanking.

Carole - Just Do It!

Of course, Carole Taylor would run - and win handily - as an independent candidate for City Mayor.

First, she would have to do that because of the incredible botch-up by the NPA. Almost every one of the NPA movers and shakers with whom I have spoken in recent months detest - yes, that's right, detest - Mr. Sullivan.

Like so many Vancouverites, they saw quickly through The Nutty One's sham presentation to his selfish core. They have found him to be an embarrassment and, as we say in Shakespeare, they wish him gone.

But being Back Room Boys, slithering amongst the shadows of the Mahogany Tables and Leather Divans, they lack the fibre to simply tell the poor fella to move on.

"Hey Sam, you've had fun and your day in the sun, now quietly go somewhere and make some money and let us find a real Mayor who actually knows how to work with people and accomplish real things for a real city."

No. That conversation is not going to happen, although this is the stuff the NPA Movers and Shakers dream of in their restless sleep.

Second, she will have no trouble distancing herself from His Pettiness and doing so gracefully.

Miro Cernetig tells us this morning that "For weeks, Taylor has avoided the mayor's entreaties for a meeting."

What's so surprising about that?

His own staff won't meet with him.

The mayor calls a meeting and key players refuse to show.

Why?

Because they know - and by now, you and I and all of Retro Vancouver knows - that the mayor is doctrinaire, frozen and incapable of communication and conciliation. He gets something passing for an idea in his head and there it sits, never to be lodged or even gently nudged to the right or left by any reasonable argument or consideration.

The wheelchair long ago lost its emotive power.

At a wedding last summer, a total stranger, a very, very, very successful realtor turned to me over dinner and said apropos of absolutely nothing, "I think Sam Sullivan is evil!" The table applauded.

At a fundraiser lunch at a swanky hotel last month, a total stranger, a very successful banker, turned to me as Sam was about to make another fatuous speech and said, "When this guy was first elected, I thought we could be proud as a city because we chose a guy in a wheelchair. But pretty soon I saw how self-involved he was and how it's All About Sam. He's useless."

The real tragedy here is that Sullivan is the head of the worst council in living memory.

If Carole Taylor were to mount a campaign called The New Slate and fill it with real candidates - people with some idea of how government works and what the city needs to get busy doing - she and they would win hands down and clean house entirely.

The NPA, Vision and Cope have all had their day and it is costing us mightily.

How much we ache for real councillors with smarts and knowledge and wit.

The Boob Show must go.

Brad's Not for Burning

Someday soon the tabs will get tired of Branjolina and move on to the next world-weary celebs.

In the meantime, we can marvel a bit at a Brad Pitt with a brain and a social conscience.

Mr. Pitt has long had a love affair with the city of New Orleans. He is now repaying that debt in smart fashion.

"Brad Pitt Commissions Designs for New Orleans"

Read this piece and you can't help but be impressed by what the man is doing and the way he is doing it.

We Are Not Alone

And all this time I thought Tranclunk was the only system in the world dumb enough to not have turnstiles, gates and ticket exits.

I was wrong.

Top of the We Trust You list has been Los Angeles, which, as it turns out, is not so angelic after all.

"The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted last week to take the first step toward installing 275 ticket gates on the entire 17.4-mile subway and at many light-rail stations."

The NY Times story is called "An End to the Free Ride on Trains in Los Angeles," and it can be read in its entirety here.

Retro Vancouver leaders take note.

Miles and 'Trane

AN INVITATION TO TAKE CARE OF OUR CHILDREN

THIS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT MESSAGE WAS SENT IN A COMMENT ON YESTERDAY'S POST "NUMBERING OUR ILLS, PART I."

PLEASE READ IT AND REGISTER YOUR SUPPORT.

The list of supporters for Jordans Principle has now grown to over 800.

A private members motion in support of Jordans Principle is expected to pass though the House of Commons on December 12, 2007 - this creates a MORAL duty on the federal government to implement it but not a legal one.

As the Canadian Paediatric Society reports -no province or territory has taken the step of adopting or implementing Jordans Principle meaning that First Nations children across the country are routinely denied government otherwise available to Canadian children.

You can help - register your personal or organizational support for Jordan's Principle at www.fncaringsociety.com and let your MP and MLA know that now is the time to fully implement Jordan's Principle and end this needless discrimination against First Nations children.

Your action is the best memorial to Jordan and his family.

ATTENTIONE, SI PREGA

I have slightly altered the front page of the blog so that you can now scroll through the most recent 20 posts without bothering to click "older posts," as the very phrase, "older posts," conjures up for many of us a sight more grizzly than ... well ... yes, that bad.

Some Good Signs

For so many years now, I felt that I was one of a handful of voices crying in the wilderness.

When would the Harm Seduction strategies be exposed for the muddle-headed, silver bullet dreaming, uncaring and ineffective mistakes that many of us knew them to be?

When would drug addiction treatment be recognized, funded and welcomed?

Well, perhaps I am suffering from a small and forgivable case of optimism these days, but I am seeing some signs of hope.

1. Susie and Robert Ruttan have worked tirelessly with their group, From Grief to Action, to bring a therapeutic community-styled residential treatment program to BC. Portage, which has been serving the cause for 30 years now in Quebec is on track to open a facility in Keremeos.

That's the good news. The bad news is much more money is needed to bring this important reality to life. Help them.

2. MLA Lorne Mayencourt has been working tirelessly to open a similar program near Prince George, this one modelled on the San Patrignano success.

3. Alex Tsakumis writes with great passion on a regular basis in 24 Hours about the dreadful misguided ideas flowing from City Hall and the office of The Nutty Mayor.

4. Justice Wallace Craig maintains a steady flow of informed and knowledgeable insight on these subjects in his column in the North Shore News.

5. More and more people from every walk of life, wherever I wander these days tell me that they are appalled at the drivel and lies and fake statistics and self-serving spin coming from the Harm Seduction, Free Needles, Free Drugs, Free Substitutes, Clean Shooting Galleries people who are causing immense public harm, growing the problems exponentially and personally profiting from the continuation and expansion of The Misery Biz.

More and more people everywhere in our communities are demanding Prevention, Enforcement and Treatment. Remember those? They were the other 3 pillars in the endlessly promoted - but hardly realized - Four Pillars approach.

The way the official voices speak of the Four Pillars you would think this is Torah handed directly down from God. Philip Owen is God? We're in deep trouble, kids.

Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly the tide is turning.

Do whatever you can as often as you can to convince your friends and neighbours and even those poor blighted souls who have been elected to office that Treatment is crucial, that Treatment is affordable, that Treatment is Now.

"I Only Shoot People To Kill Them"

Well, it's good to see that at least some people in this province take their work seriously.

On the other hand...

The author of this marvelous boast has just pleaded guilty to killing someone.

The Victoria judge sentenced this avowed career hitman (very young and ambitious for a contract killer, nevertheless...) to "the "maximum youth penalty of 10 years with no more than six to be served in custody. With time already spent in custody, his sentence was reduced to four years."

Am I following this correctly?

Hitman, who is also on charges of conspiracy to commit 2 more murders, pleads guilty to a planned murder, gets not more than 6 in custody, reduced to 4 because of time served????

And the judiciary wonder - if in fact they do wonder - why the public and the police are so frustrated with them.

And the cry-babies of the universe scream about Harper's Get Tough on Crime proposals.

True, we don't need little pot smokers crowing up the jails.

But we do need to sentence truly dangerous, antisocial criminal sociopaths to very long, long, long prison terms.

Is it that difficult to distinguish between silly people and dangerous people?

Taser Murder - Chapter 5

Examine the headline:

'MOUNTIES DELAYED CPR FOR DYING MAN."

"Delayed?????"

I didn't know they even considered for a nano-second CPR.

So now we learn that when the paramedics arrived and quickly determined (Have you ever had cause to call on paramedics? I have. Twice. They are the most amazing, efficient,competent and caring people I have ever met! If you or someone near you ever has am emergent health issue, do NOT drive or call a taxi...call 911 and call it right smart.) that Robert Dziekanski had no breath and no pulse.

The paramedics asked the cop/thugs to take off the handcuffs. At first they refused.

Why are these disgraces still in uniform?

Fail My Kid??? Oh no you don't...

What has Education Minister Shirley Bond been smoking?

Someone check her meds quick. Maybe it's too much chalk dust.

Bond has had the temerity to ask BC teachers to consider not actually passing some illiterate kid onto the next grade if he or she can't read.

Imagine!

Failing someone! Shocking. How wounding to the little dear's self esteem.

Only yesterday at work we were having this exact conversation. I was recalling that in high school I was in something called "the A class." Others, with less academic achievement were in the B class and C class and D class. How wounding, how permanently damaging.

Of course, you could always work a little harder and aspire to join the A class.

Oh...but then, you would have to write and pass tests, just like in the real world.

But the BCTF won't let you write and pass tests. You might feel bad about something.

Minister Bond is clearly out of step with the times.

And for that, in this rare instance, we can be mildly thankful.

Numbering Our Ills, Part I

Whether you believe in the current numbers being offered about child poverty in BC or not, there is is no qeustion that we are failing far too many in our province today.

There is also no question about where the buck stops.

Daphne Bramham's excellent editorial in today's Sun brings clear focus to the issue.

The piece also brought some new information and small enlightenment. I was not aware until this morning of what has been called "Jordan's Principle."

"Jordan's Principle is named for a first nations child with multiple medical needs who died while federal and provincial agencies debated over who should pay for his care. Jordan's Principle, which is advocated by more than 600 service agencies across the country, puts the onus on the government of first contact to provide help without delay."

This principle is, of course, observed more often in its avoidance than its fulfillment.

When the Premier returns from his latest Asia carpetbagging, perhaps someone might ask him to attend to the needs of local children.

Numbering Our Ills, Part II

It's all a numbers game.

Apparently.

First, there is the argument, raging in some circles, about whether the number of people with HIV/AIDS is 33 Million or 40 Million.

No doubt that will be important to the 7 Million human beings who may be unaccounted for.

But for the rest of us, this disaster remains an overwhelming shame and heartache.

Ignorance and selfishness hold the day.

In thousands of African villages, women have a "Sophie's Choice." Either take a beating or take a rape from an undoubtedly infected man.

Like the snail and the border collie, we are programmed to reproduce. Unlike invertebrates and others, we do have the power to reason and on occasion we actually employ this gift. Unfortunately, the occasions are not nearly frequent enough.

We also have the capability to provide antiretroviral drugs at affordable costs. Unfortunately, we are a greedy lot and we often lack the willingness to perform this small act of charity.

The problem is this - providing such medicines is NOT an act of charity. It is an act of necessity, not just for the women and men and children infected and at risk, but for all of us who dare to call ourselves human.

Write Your Own Dark Comedy

The BC Government is hiring more Child Protection Workers.

How do I know?

I saw their ad this morning in the Sun on page H4.

It's under the banner "Britsh Columbia/ BC Public Service: WHERE IDEAS WORK."

Hahahahaha...

Wait...I forgot.

The provincial logo tells me: "British Columbia: The Best Place on Earth."

Hahahahaha...

West Side Story - America

Rita Moreno, who almost committed suicide when Brando threw her aside, has won an Oscar (for this role as Anita in West Side Story), an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony. What an amazing performer.

Bing Crosby

Written by a Russian Jew from poorest neighbourhoods of New York City while playing amongst the palm trees of Los Angeles, this Irving Berlin classic plays havoc with the adage, "Write what you know." Ha!

Child Poverty - The Other Side of the Argument

Walter Schulz has a completely different take on the subect of Child Poverty in BC than I. He posted the following the day before I posted my item on the subject, which you can read here.

I don't agree with him, but I think his points are well made and that his opposing position is worth seeing. I thank him for letting me reproduce this from his blog.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Exaggerating child poverty.

The BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition is calling on the BC government to do something now to reduce child poverty, with almost 21 percent of kids in the province living in poverty. The national anti poverty group, Campaign 2000 set the poverty line at $21,000 for two people living in a city of 500,000 or more, and $32,000 for a family of four living in such a community. The Tyee has also commented suggesting that one in five B.C. children is poor, making the province’s child poverty rate the highest in Canada for the fourth consecutive year.Hold on for just one darn minute.One in five B.C. children living in poverty???$21,000 for two people or $32,000 for a family of four is poverty????What these three news items are trying to described isn't poverty; they're describing instead income inequality. When they use Stats Canada's low income cut off as the measurement for poverty what they are really doing is comparing how people are living relative to other Canadians. The low income cut off method has never been considered a poverty line by Statistics Canada. "Statistics Canada has clearly and consistently emphasized, since their publication began over 25 years ago, that the LICOs are quite different from measures of poverty". If a family doesn't have a colour television or a cell phone are they now considered poor?

These social activists need to give their heads a shake.To say that one in every five children is living in poverty in British Columbia, is quite frankly - bullshit!And what are they calling on the BC government to do to reduce this so called "child poverty"?They want the minimum wage raised to $10.50/hour, eliminate the $6.00/hour training wage and to increase BC's welfare rates.Well of course they do.

The BC Government in its 2007 budget already increased welfare rates for all those on assistance.

British Columbia already has the lowest income tax rates in Canada for low-income earners. In fact, those earning under $16,000 a year pay no provincial income tax.

Since 2001 the B.C. economy has created over new 370,000 jobs and we have the lowest unemployment rate in almost 40 years! (4.4% in BC and 4.1% in Vancouver)

British Columbia already has the highest general minimum wage rate of all the provinces.

BC's 2006 budget pledged $421 million over four years to strengthen supports for children.

For social activists to be constantly overstating the problem of poverty rates amongst children in British Columbia does a disservice to those who are most in need. Despite all the rhetoric and political posturing from these groups, (and when haven't these groups called on the BC liberal government to give more money to social causes?) - BC has done an excellent job of helping those who are most in need.

From 24 Hours - Alex Nails The Drug Charlatans

Get Ready, They're Coming: DRUGS!

Mayor Sullivan's drug initiative panned!

By A. G. Tsakumis
'Rebel With A Clause'

Of all the spin-doctored proposals Sam Sullivan has hatched, none is as ultimately off base as CAST, his drug replacement baby, which he has asked the federal Conservative government to fund.
CAST is, simply, part and parcel of His Worship's distorted effort to show heart through hubristic populism, and no less banal than any of his other numberless (non)triumphs.

The quest for enlightenment begins with a read of its website (www.castvancouver.org).
It is as stupefying as it is embarrassing.
The notion of replacing street drugs with a drug substitute - although somewhat new - is nothing more than placing addicts at the trough of the perpetual drug need, all in the name of (false) compassion.
These science fiction proponents hail studies as a case made. However, not one study shows with any supremacy that this hogwash works.

In fact, once past the outer layers of fluff, it is abundantly evident that not only the findings from such studies are massaged by CAST proponents, but further, that the mayor and his cadre are wanting of our tax dollars to study studies which are inconclusive at best, and, at least, utter failures in proving CAST or any related initiative worthy of being funded.

But the doctors and retired politicians backing these reports claim success, which begs the question: if the evidence proves that such lunacy is indeed effective, why further studies?

They argue that studies needn't be endlessly repeated to be valid.

Then why are they arguing for the CAST study? The contradiction is obscene.
When Mayor Sullivan, or the city's drug czar Don MacPherson, state that drug replacement is 'harm reduction', the cacophony is amplified.

It is hardly medical treatment to permanently burden an addict with yet another dependency. Instead, the studies expound the social good in all this. Rather than trumpet the recovery of addicts, which would support the mayor's misstatements, the hypothesis runs in the opposite direction. Fringe replacement efforts will make for much “social justice”, but all without saying how.

This CAST nonsense is not about anything else except sanitizing the streets of the DTES, so that Japanese and German tourists won't have to refocus their camera lenses in 2010.

This is about using a social construct, and not a very good one, to aid the mayor's re-election agenda.

Would you put a loved one suffering from skin cancer in a tanning bed as treatment? Would you offer lower tar cigarettes to a lung cancer patient? Highly questionable social good trumps individual recovery in Sam's world. This program will hurt people. Addicts will have no chance for a normal life.

Moreover, how ethical is it to start on a drug protocol with no chance of continuing?
The drug replacement must persist forever, notwithstanding that most addicts, particularly on the DTES, are not last-chance, no-hope candidates.

Why are we offering palliative care to people who are not terminal? Besides, which federal or provincial government wants to become the drug dealer? All the drug legalization obliviots aside, the street dealers would have a field day in competition.

Troubling still, that the scholarship purportedly in support of CAST having been misrepresented on the website, the Mayor has company, plump with controversy. Among Mr. Sullivan's CAST inner sanctum is Dr. David Marsh, the chief officiating guru at Vancouver Coastal Health, who is an expatriate of Toronto country, where he failed to convince his colleagues into putting the Taranah Corridor's first NAOMI heroin trial next to a methadone recovery clinic - a no-no of monumental proportions to any addiction Doc - since it's considered a 'trigger' to have a recovering addict anywhere near drugs or drug use.

Dr. Marsh has the ear of our Mayor. He often will advise Sobriety Sam on how to sell CAST.
Don't believe me?

Earlier this year, on the day our Mayor hinted that CAST might replace Insite/Four Pillars, Dr. Marsh raced down to the mayor's office and spent the Friday afternoon trying to undo the media firestorm that young Sammy had created.

To clean up the DTES we need: treatment beds, in the hundreds; adequate housing (but not necessarily just Downtown); and the re-opening of Riverview's full facilities with a state-of-the-art mental health/drug treatment facility - not Yaletown redux at Riverview.

And if the Four Pillars is finally going to really work, then fund all FOUR pillars. Enforcement, Treatment and Education are a must. We have to get into schools and talk to our children about what's killing us.

But alas, Mayor Sullivan won't listen to the Drug Prevention Network; Al Arsenault, Exec. Director of the Odd Squad Society; Vancouver addiction specialists Dr. Colin Mangham, Doug Coleman, Donald Hedges; David Berner, former addiction counselor and local pundit or former Justice Wally Craig and countless addictionologists, who know the DTES well.
He would rather beg, profusely, at failure's open door.

On the issue of dealing with drug issues in Vancouver, Sam Sullivan has created a culture ethical frivolity. He and his sycophants subvert any hope for genuine help for the addicted downtrodden, preferring, alternatively, to mid-wife extended tyranny on the DTES.
Unbelievably, through all of this, there are people who still believe that Sam Sullivan is entirely palatable as Mayor for 2008.

Equalities in The Military?

It may be startling to realize that the Warriors have a more comprehensive appreciation of Democracy than the Legislators.

A group of retired American Generals & Admirals - 28 in all - have joined forces to repeal the idiot "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise that Bill Clinton accepted on gays in the military.

“We respectfully urge Congress to repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” the letter says. “Those of us signing this letter have dedicated our lives to defending the rights of our citizens to believe whatever they wish.”

Read the full story from this morning's NY Times here.

BITS 'N BITES

For, and from, the man in a morning flurry:

- Carol Taylor's not running again provincially so that she can glide into the mayor's chair is the worst kept gossip of the last 8 months. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of people have sworn me to secrecy on this scoop.

Fine. Carol will make an excellent City Mayor. She won't bring any particularly enlightened policy to the table, but she won't have to. First, she will rid us of the That Pest, The Nutty One, and second, she is a first rate manager, former city councillor and the wife of a former mayor. She knows how the machine works.

The sooner, the better.

- I have avoided the Ian Bush story from the beginning, because I felt I just wasn't there to witness what really happened. However....the result of the commission investigating this death somehow doesn't quite feel right. Perhaps we are being influenced in our reactions to this conclusion by the YVR Taser Murder. It just seems so improbable.

- The Mulroney -Schreiber story is so sordid and unseemly. Insiders have told us that M's wife, Mila, was and is a "money pit," and that M was always worried about paying the bills. Nevertheless, how could a man this smart and this experienced on the world stage take $100,000 in cash from anyone under any circumstances? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

- Kudos to the Sun Editorial this morning for 2 pieces: 1)They remind us that the Premier, when Mayor of the City, launched a suit against the province for Expo Line insults and hardships to citizens. Now, on the other side of the Line, he sings a different cracked tune. 2) They add to our often expressed outrage at the total dysfunction of this administration with regard to Children & Families. To see this tepid little furry toys for the Olympics gathering all that misplaced adoration and press coverage, while Children at Risk are ignored is sickening and the best barometer of Campbell's focus.