Victor at the Hospital

Hi David:

As we've all heard by now, a cretin walked into a room on the 8th floor of Vancouver General, whispered into the ear of the occupant, a 91 year old lady who had just had her leg amputated, that her rings needed cleaning. She gave him the rings and he vanished.

The official response from the VPD spokesdork was puzzling. The VPD criticized VGH for its lax security.

Wrong answer spokesdork.

Here is what the Chief should have said.

"This crime is an example of the human waste that walks our streets stealing to support a habit they are too gutless to fight. They are not victims, in spite of what the Enablement industry would have you believe. Our compassion and resources should go to helping the defenseless and those who truly want to change their lives. But lower life forms like this should be made to pay in the harshest way permissible under our laws."

Of course, the Chief couldn't say that because he reports to Mayor Nutbar.

The Worst Bureaucratic Comedy of All Time

In case, you have been wondering why nothing ever gets done by governments and why our relationship with native Canadians is such an unholy mess...in case any of that...

You owe it to yourself, to read what our Victoria broadcaster friend, Sean Holman, has posted on his Public Eye Online blog.

It's all about the definition of the word "entanglement."

Read this and laugh and weep.

A Pox on Your House

The decision by the BC Supreme Court to dismiss the Canadian Bar Association's plea for legal aid for the poor is most disappointing.

Legal Aid may not be a right, but in a just society, legal services must be available to the least among us, otherwise justice has been bought.

"Integrated Approach" is a Euphemism for Business as Usual

"Change isn't going to happen by big government organizations. It's going to take millions of little organizations."- Pete Seeger

This is one of my new favorite quotes, which you can see in the right hand column.

I mention it this morning apropos of a Sun editorial headlined, "Integrated Approach to help chronic offenders is a positive step forward."

Let me assure you that any time you here this exalted phrase - "Integrated Approach" - you should run for cover.

Two years ago I attended a meeting of about 50 minds. Stockwell Day, The Nutty Mayor, Wally Opaque, Chuck Someone, Conservative Member from Somewhere, all The Usual Suspects.

We were sitting in leather armchairs in a board room on the top floor of an obscure building on Melville St. downtown. Security was tight. The media was there, but kept at bay.

Everyone spoke excitedly about how we were all working together in a new "integrated approach" to rid our communities of addictions, mental illness and homelessness.

We were all interfacing.

It was very exciting.

As you can see by the evidence, this group accomplished so much.

The truth is that human progress happens in tiny increments. A man over here does something. A group over there does something else.

Pete Seeger noticed that the Hudson River was a stink pot.

He built a boat called The Clearwater. He sang on the river banks. Soon, others joined him.

In a few years, they had cleaned up the Hudson River.

All the governments interfacing all the years did nothing.

And so it goes.

This new "integrated approach" touted by the paper this morning has one immense flaw in it, that even the editorial acknowledges.

THERE IS NO TREATMENT AND NO HOUSING AVAILABLE.

Black President? Lady President?

The Hillary Clinton - Barak Obama showdown arrives tonight.

Do not turn that dial.

The Duke

Billy Strayhorn

Bureaucracy Run Amok

There seems to have been a devilish theme to this morning's front page:

1. Parents at a school on the West Side of town want to donate some government grant money to a poorer East Side School. Sounds pretty good, right?

Not if you're a plank-up-your-ass official.

No, no, no...kindness not accepted here.

The good folks at Rich School were told spend the loot or give it back.

There are just some bureaucrats who have never met an obscure rule they didn't relish.

2. The BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2005 that the Education Ministry and the North Van school board - two organizations revered round the world for their enlightenment - discriminated against learning disabled students. Quite simply, they didn't give them the resources to succeed in their studies.

Well, why would the government sit back and accept their own Human Rights decisions?

Of course, they spent your tax money suing in BC Supreme Court, and of course, in its traditional wisdom, the much admired Court overturned the 2005 decision.

Meaning we just don't have to waste money helping challenged children with their education.

Why should we? We need that money for law suits.

3. And in a foto big enough to choke a horse, we see The Ultimate Bore.

There's Gordo the Great celebrating one chunk of mud meeting another chunk of mud in downtown Vancouver.

That would be your Canerder Line.

Let's see the foto of Our Esteemed Leader handing over cheques to the disabled businesses on Cambie Street.

Michael Clayton

It's a mystery.

This incomprehensible piece of slush was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture.

Perhaps someone who has managed to sit through it, even liked it, could take a moment and explain to us what it is about.

We have no idea.

We stopped watching it after about an hour.

I tried to finish watching it the next night. I managed about 20 minutes.

And George Clooney as Best Actor?

Is this someone's idea of a mass prank?

How about George Clooney as the Most Attractive Hat Rack in History?

Handsome, yes. Charming, yes. Actor - has the full range from A to A minus.

The movie is slick. It is beautifully filmed. It has many written words of dialogue.

But we don't even know the story, let alone the whole point. So Hollywood, such unrealistic characters living in a world inhabited only by script writers.

By the way, in case you're not getting the full thrust here... we really didn't like this movie.

Elizabeth Deports

3 March, 2008

Hi, David:


Another day; another deadline in the Best Place on Earth.

Will it be met or thwarted?

Word this morning is that "the federal government has spent $60,000" on attempts to deport Laibar Singh. To which my response is, "and the rest".

We also learn today, that a new ploy has been dreamed up in an attempt to get Canada to pay for another year of care for this man, because "supporters want his health to improve to the point where he can get out of the wheelchair." This has to end. I am sick and tired of Canada being jerked around by all and sundry - including criminals - who seem to think Canadian taxpayer pocket is the go-to place for their convenience.

The claim is that India cannot supply the same level of care. If that was the case, I'd be the first to say Singh should stay; it isn't. It's arrant nonsense; else why would Canadians go over to India and pay many thousands and thoussands of dollars for care they cannot get in their own country?

If Ottawa has $60,000 - and the rest - to spare, then let's spend it on BC patients who three-four times in a row have had to have their urgent surgery bumped. Or the elderly patients who are being abused while they are being housed in Okanagan "care" homes. Or the "children in care" for whom Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond cannot get the attention of the Campbell government.

In the meantime, if that deadline is not met - we'd like that $50,000 bond forfeited, please - every penny of it to go straight to one of three places: (1) Children's Hospital ICU; (2) to the care of abused patients in the Okanagan; or (3) to BC Heart and Stroke Foundation for the "direct" care care of BC's own stroke patients.

Elizabeth James

Jeff Healey - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

James Brown & Pavarotti

Province Column

We're not doing enough for the criminals who can be helped

David Berner

The Province
Sunday, March 02, 2008

Do you believe in evil? I've seen evil. I've smelled it, shaken hands with it.

A man was out on day parole from a federal prison. I was the moderator at a conference on justice issues. The man talked to me at coffee breaks and the lunch break.

Can you imagine what this man was doing time for? No, you cannot imagine.

One night, when he was drunk, the man slashed his infant daughter to pieces and then did some unspeakable things to the remains.

The social worker assigned to this lunatic's case told me he refused to work with the client after he had read the file. We all have limits.

Why was this convict out on a day pass?

Premier Gordon Campbell has said in one breath that he will review sentencing in the province. In the next, he admits that sentencing of major crimes is a federal responsibility and out of his hands. If Campbell or Prime Minister Stephen Harper would ever like to seriously examine the justice system, they might consider this.

There are two kinds of criminals serving time in Canadian prisons. We all too often do exactly the wrong things with both types.

The first kind is the maniac, the crossed-entirely-over-to-the-dark-side evil psycho. This person is a clear and present danger to the community and always will be.

Much too often, they are released. Why? Because they have served their time, or because the geniuses at the National Parole Board have read a report by a psychiatrist which states, "Subject
presents relatively low risk of re-offending."

Who's the crazy one here?

The second kind of prisoners are the "dumb goofs." They're in the majority.

Never the sharpest reed in the wind section, they consistently make lousy choices.
They might be an addict or a low-level thief, or both -- or a really, really bad bank robber.

But they could be helped. Yes, they could actually be turned around if we bothered to care and to work at it with him.

How do I know this? I have worked with hundreds of men and women who did exactly that.
They worked hard and turned their miserable lives around. They became reasonable human beings and citizens.

The "dumb goofs" deserve less time in jail and more reality-based counselling, direction, care and help.

Not, "How did you feel when you hit your wife, Lenny?" But, "What could you do with your Wednesday nights beside get smash-faced with your old buddies?"

We needn't hire shrinks to ask all the wrong questions. We already have custodial staff and parole officers who could be taught the methodologies that get results.

We could divert hundreds from the corrections cycle to legitimate integration into the law-abiding community.

The whack jobs, the truly dangerous crazies?

They should be locked up in maximum-security prisons and kept there for long periods of time.
Like, life.

That's what we used to call "protection of the community."

david@davidberner.com

Sightings

On Thursday, we saw an eagle on Kits Beach, lunching on some sea food.

We were only about 50 feet away.

It was a magnificent sight.

Ruining the Hood

Yesterday was bright and sunny.

The pols were out.

First I ran into the entire Vision team, campaigning for the fall civic elections. That was O.K. I like Gregor and Raymond and I'm always happy to stop and schmooze with them.

Later, I was taking an exercise walk and I saw a man and a woman. The man said, "Hi." I stuck out my mitt for the handshake, but he said, "I'm Ivor," and pointed his upturned palm to the woman. "This is Joyce Murray."

Murray wants to be your Liberal party MP for Vancouver Quadra.

Murray tried to hand me a brochure.

"Did you know that there is a Federal by-election in this neighbourhood?"

"Yes. I'm a journalist. I'm well aware of that, thanks."

"Well, are you going to vote Liberal?"

"Not a chance. Not in this lifetime."

"Oh."

"But, hey, it's democracy. Good luck."

It's nice to see people walking these days.

Drunk Drivers are Sick Puppies and Should be Removed from the Roads at Once

The Province is running a week-long series on drunk driving.

The issue is profound.

We live in a society that suffers from, among many others, at least these two major problems.

Everyone feels powerless.

Nobody listens. Our vote doesn't count. Officials make policy that is universally offensive and nonsensical. We don't know our neighbours. We don't want to know our neighbours.

I need to express my power somehow.

I can park under the NO PARKING sign. I can walk across the red light. I can drive drunk. I can drive drunk when I'm on vacation in Maui.

Second, we live in a juvenile society, a me society. If you're not in MY MOVIE, you don't really exist. I HAVE RIGHTS!!!

On Friday, I was driving home along South West Marine Drive.

A man in an enormous black SUV did something unbelievable. He drove very, very fast along the right hand inside shoulder for almost one block to pass me.

Dangerous and illegal, but, hey, he places to go, people to meet.

There is talk of taking peoples cars away when they drive drunk. I'm all for that. And any other punitive measure that may impress these criminals.

I don't care where you work and how bad the transit system is. Maybe after 5 years of living with that, you might figure out that driving sober is the only way to go.

Anybody found drunk driving should be compelled to alcoholism treatment at once.

We Said So First

Both the Sun and the Province have now siad in editorials exactly what we said here on Thursday, February 28th.

Spending $110 Million on a study of homelessness - instead of building homes - is a crime.

Glad to see that the press is monitoring the blog.

A-B-C-D

There is a baby-video industry and it is booming?

This is not a business of people watching videos of cute babies.

This is the business of getting babies to watch videos. Some mistaken hysterical so-called parents want their kids to get a fast leg up in learning their alphabet and numbers.

"The world had gone mad today, and it's sad today..." So goes an old Cole Porter chestnut.

Make War, Not Love

Let me see if I understand this.

The U.S. is selling nuclear capabilites to India.

The U.S. is helping Pakistan train their military.

India and Pakistan have rockets permanently aimed at one another.

I suppose that's a good way to ensure the votes of all those folks who make armaments in Tennessee.

The Amazing Race

For those who may think that Barak Obama's surge in the Democratic primaries is just some mysterious miracle, fueled entirely by his extraordinary rhetoric, read this piece in the today's NY Times.

The article chronicles the enormous amount of money raised and being spent by the Obama team, more, apparently, than that of Hillary Clinton.

Just looking at them, grabbing food on the run, and hop-scotching from one state high school auditorium to another, makes me sit back in wonder at their stamina and determination.

How do they do it?

Why do they do it?

To be President of the United States, I guess.

Clearly, I am suffering from an Ambition Deficiency.