The Food Wars

The Food Wars have begun.

But the local press has told us nothing.

Rice has doubled in cost in recent months and food riots have percolated in dozens of countries world-wide.

This is an alarming story and you should be aware if it.

Here is the NY Times coverage.

ELVIS - Watch this entire fascinating, strange piece...it's like a capsule comment on the glories and absurditites of Show Biz

The Folly of the CBC, Part II, From "Mo"

I've just had a 'phone conversation with my kids' violin teacher who has been a member of the CBC Orchestra for 30 years. She is devastated and somewhat in shock. She expressed what a real privilege it has been to be part of such an exciting, wonderful venue with world-class (really, and not just repeated as PR) musicians and conductors. And, with the stroke of a pen, 70 years has been erased by inept bureaucrats.

Their conductor was told about this decision before Christmas and was expected to inform the members two days prior to Christmas, which he wouldn't do. He has been living with this knowledge since that time. The concert master, in tears, spoke of the orchestra as a jewel.

Like telemarketers, the two people from CBC were completely "on message" yesterday and would not, or could not, directly answer questions that deviated from their script.

The money that these wonderful musicians are paid is a pittance and the money ($600K?) that will be "saved" is small potatoes compared to what the orchestra provides. This decision will have a domino effect -- the orchestra also plays with, for instance, the Vancouver Chamber Choir and the Vancouver Cantata Singers, etc. something which will no longer be possible once it is disbanded.

Many in the music community (Bramwell Tovy for instance) packed the lobby of the closed meeting last night to show their support for the orchestra. We can only hope that there will be a ground swell of support and this decision will be reversed, although this is probably unlikely.

CBC Knows Not What it Does

The CBC is a corrupt organization.

Worse is that is hidden within folds upon folds of unfathomable bureaucracy.

That doesn't mean that it should be disbanded and sold to corporate broadcasters.

Far from it.

The CBC, which still continues in small fits and starts, to provide first rate programming that will never be available in the profit model, has an important role to play.

Unfortunately, it is almost a secret cabal. It thrashes about from leadership to leadership, spending huge amounts of money recklessly and changing content at whim.

The shutting down of the CBC Orchestra is a loathsome act, and completely unnecessary. The costs are minimal and the rewards are immense.

We need MORE orchestras, not less. And the CBC Orchestra in particular has a deserved international reputation.

This latest act by CBC brass is as obscene as the March snow that is falling outside my window.

Do the Crime...

The judge, sentencing Iron Bar Man, to 5 1/5 years, must have read my blog the other day. He said it was a miracle that the fool didn't kill any of the 5 women he attacked.

Indeed. 5'll get ya 10...which is more like what this pathetic man deserved.

Silk Purses

$11 Million tax dollars for a spruced up Granville Maul, er...Mall?

Very nice.

And tell me, with wall to wall beer halls how is this "make-over" going to change the skiddy frontier town reality to something approaching civilization?

Sorry.

I'll believe it when I see it.

The foto, by the way, was apparently taken on the day when all the drunks and drug addicts were making their weekly court appearances.

Whose Sleeping in My Bed?

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT A PRESIDENT

How Enron Worked the PresidentAre You Ready?How Enron Worked the President!(This is an interesting bit of information that you don't hear much about.)

1. Enron's chairman did meet with the president and the vice president in the Oval Office.?

2. Enron gave $420,000 to the president's party over three years.

3. It donated $100,000 to the president's inauguration festivities.

4. The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times!

5. The corporation had access to the administration at its highest level a nd even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.

6. The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction.Scandalous!!

BUT...the president under whom all this happened?WASN'T?George W. Bush.SURPRISE!

It was President Bill Clinton! No surprise! And do you think Hillary didn't know? Pass this on so the whole Country will know. The Media Won't!ARE WE REALLY READY FOR MRS. CLINTON?

Sorry Won't Cut it, Baby

Gordon Campbell made me do it.

Or so the perp's wife would have us believe.

A man bashes women on the head with metal pipes and steals their purses. Curiously, most of his victims are Asian women. Most end up in hospital with serious injury, not to mention life-long trauma.

Now, he pleads that he is so sorry and that he was a poor crack addict.

O.K. We can listen to all that.

Then his wife gets up on the stand and tells the court that "He's an amazing father, an amazing husband," she testified, saying he was "absolutely devastated" when he lost his hospital job in 2004. She blamed Premier Gordon Campbell and his government for bringing in legislation allowing health employers to lay off union members.

"I've never seen a grown man cry in bed," she said. "He was very proud of that job."

So, let me see if I've got this right...

Gordon Campbell, undistracted from his job as Premier, came down to the Joyce Street Skytrain Station every week or so and put a crowbar in this asshole's hand and instructed, "You go, Boy, and crack some skull for us today!"

Probably not.

Ten years in prison will be a gift for this man.

And if one of these victim's had died?

Kudos to Dr. Larry

Congratulations to Dr. Larry Goldenberg, who for years now has been known for his pioneering work in prostate and cancer issues at VGH.

He is now set to create a mens' health centre, also at VGH, that will focus of the myriad gender-specific issues that challenge men, especially as we age.

Age and death are inevitable, but enlightened health care happens because one person makes the unusual effort to make things better.

McCain and Cheney target Iran

Excellent video discussion today about Iran, Israel and the US on The Real News.

Why is much of this not given serious coverage and examination by CNN, among others?

Watch this piece here.

Abraham Martin and John-Dion 1969

From a friend...

rod stewart - have i told you lately(unlugged)

Freedom's Just Another Word

We are a sleepy self-satisfied nation.

Democracy without vigilance is soon a memory.

Today we have three separate stories that remind us of these themes:

1. The National Post is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that demanded that the paper reveal its sources in a story. The rights of newspapers are enshrined in the famous and often annoying Charter. In this case, the Charter is bang on. We can only hope that the Supreme Court will hear this appeal and then reverse the previous dangerous conclusion.

2. The RCMP's information provided about its use of tasers is heavily edited. Why? To protect whom? I am first protected by knowledge and information. I don't want to learn that the police have secrets they need to hide. Transparency is everything in this case.

3. The Victoria police chief has been on payed suspension of duties for almost 6 months now. Why? No one will tell us.

When the Top Cop is under a cloud of suspicion, shouldn't I know what this is about? Where is the great Wally Opaque on this matter? Cutting more ribbons?

When these three stories are strung together, an unhappy scenario begins to emerge.

I ask my usual question:

What gulag are we living in exactly?

Headlines we can live without

"Cigarette Company Paid for Lung Cancer Study By GARDINER HARRISThe revelation that a researcher’s study was underwritten by a tobacco company has caused an appearance of bias."

You think?

But I was Just Gone for a Minute

To the commenter who asked, "Why didn't you call 911?"

Because last year when exactly the same thing happened on West 1oth Avenue (An infant in a van with the sliding door open and no sign anywhere of a parent...) and I immediately called the police, here's what happened.

Before the police arrived about 10 minutes later, the "mother" emerged from a tanning spa with a fashion mag in her hands. I asked her if this was her car and child. She said they were. I told her the police were on their way. She thought I was a public nuisance. She laughed at me.

When the police arrived, one officer stood by me. The other stood with the "mother," and the two of them - the "mother" and the police officer laughed a lot.

I asked them what was so impossibly funny.

A month before this incident, a friend who used to own a plant store down the street had precisely the identical experience - baby in car, no parent, police, much amusement...

Apparently there is something inherently hilarious about irresponsible senseless parents who are born to shop and tan and the crazy lunatic old men who accuse them of reckless child abandonment.

Watch for the new ABC reality show based on this growing trend called "Lose Your Kid, Find a Grumpy Old Man." The early returns from the focus groups say it's a smash run-away winner.

Grandma with Legs

From a Friend...

Alone

It happened again.

Yesterday, I parked the car in the Safeway lot.

As I was walking toward the store, I saw a baby, under 2 years, sitting in her car seat in the back of an expensive late model car - alone.

The front passenger side window was lowered. Lowered enough for me or anyone else to open the door.

I saw no parent.

I turned to a woman who was standing not far away and asked her opinion of this situation.

"Is it just me? Am I completely crazy?" Like that.

She agreed that this was not looking good.

The "mother" came out of the store.

Thirty-five-ish, attractive, beautifully dressed in casual sports clothes.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, do you think that leaving your child unattended in a car is really a good idea?"

She smiled benignly at me. Clearly I am a lunatic.

"I was about one second away from calling the police." Last year, in a similar situation, I did call the police.

She smiled again, even more warmly.

"Well, you do what you think you have to do."

She was so kind to me in my distress.

She got into the car and put it in reverse.

"Perhaps you could think about this today."

She smiled and drove off.

I ask what I asked several months ago when I wrote about the talking couple in the movie house.

Why is she happy?

Because, believe me, she is happy. Nothing I could have said or done would have upset her perfectly coiffed equilibrium.

I went across the street into a fruit and vegetable store, bought some broccoli and tomatoes, paid for them, and turned to leave, forgetting the vegetables.

Half an hour later, I was in a shop on Fourth Avenue. I paid for my purchase and asked the two young women the same question I asked the first lady in the Safeway parking lot.

"Is it just me, or...?"

They freaked. Thank G-d. They would never leave their child alone in a car for one second. No running in just for a minute bullshit.

I thought of that British couple who went for a quiet intimate dinner in Portugal (Spain?), leaving their daughters alone in a rented condo.

Has the "Me Society" peaked? Is it all about MY shopping needs and MY dinner needs?

And dare we speak up without being branded a public menace?

Rod Stewart

Ode to a Quiet Day

I've read three newspapers this morning and looked at several on-line sites as well, and you know what I found of interest?

Nothing, nyet, gournischt, zilch, bupkes, de nada, niente, goose eggs...

OK.

Let's just be grateful for a quiet day.

Spring has sprung,

Da grass is riz.

I wonder where da boidies is.

Da boid is on da wing.

Dat's absoid.

Da wing is on da boid.