Farm Workers Have Long Been Abandoned

Farm workers can get in line behind children, the elderly, addicts and the homeless when it comes to attention and cocern in this province.

This is a Power Province and our Premier has his own addiction - power. he is interested in powerful men, men who make the earth move with ther money. Builders and buyers.

Immigrant, elderly, women farm workers, up at 4, at work at 6, 17 to a rickety van with no seat belts, this is supposed to be os some interest to Mr. Raise-a-Reader, Mr. Children's Hospital Foundation?

Where is the foto-op?

In the Vaisakhi Parade, he can play Mr. Dress Up.

But for the farm workers, he would actually have to enact legislation that protects these poor souls and then spend public money on inspectors that police the laws.

Remember that 3 days after the highway "accident" (waiting to happen) last year, the same farm was sheparding the same workers in the same dangerous way into crowded vans.

Nothing changes when nobody cares.

And nobody cares when political advantage is the sole motivator.

I must Listen to this CD about once a Week - MIles

Evergreen for some...

To the Editor

Northwest Route for Evergreen Line - Province April 20/08

Dismissing the destruction of Small Businesses is short-sighted.

Before another penny of our tax money goes towards any other transportationmega-projects, or obscene pay raises, the small businesses that have beendemolished by the Canada Line Big Dig must be fully compensated for theirobvious losses.

There is a seemingly endless supply of tax dollars for projects that aredriven by this Provincial government, especially for anything that can belinked to the Olympics in 2010 - with no meaningful consultaion from thepublic, and controlled by a transportation board with no publicaccountability.

The Small Businesses all alnog the Canada Line route were the collateraldamage of the massive development plans for the Cambie Corridor. The'temporary disruption' to our livelihoods has been continuing for two yearsnow, and counting. We have suffered unprecedented hardship both personallyand financially while every level of government and all the project partnershave turned a blind eye, even now in the face of scores of bancruptcies.There is nothing temporary about losing your life's work.

What has happened to this community along the Canada Line is shocking. Thisabuse of power must be made right with immediate full financial relief. Ifpublic projects such as this cannot factor in adequate compensation, andtake care of citizens who are impacted; the projects should not proceed.

Susan HeyesHazel&Co3190 Cambie Street604 687-0721

Arms-Length Crown Corps are good for th Government

The ICBC stink gets better.

Managers drive in to have their cars painted for free.

And what else?

These daily revelations about the rot at the top are obviously the tips of the iceberg.

And will anyone ever expose the identical behaviours at Richmond City Hall and Richmond Wroks Yard?

Important New Law - Very Old-Fashioned Law-Maker

The good news is that Kathleen Walker, a lawyer and former prosecutor, will try to create a groundswell of public support for tougher, more wide-spread restraining orders when it comes to protecting kids.

The bad news is that to turn this excellent idea into law, she will have to meet with Wally Opaque, the Attorney-General, who has turned inaction into an art form.

In the new opera based on Wally's leadership style, the entire cast stands at the lip of the stage burping out every second note. It's a gas.

What goes elliptical...

The best headline of the week, hands down was today's RICHMOND OLYMPIC OVAL HAS MOULD IN ITS ROOF.

And the simple, scientific explanation is this:

The mould seeped through from the minds of the management and mayor and city council of Richmond.

This fiasco has been one long, expensive, un-asked-for, undemocratic ego trip from the word go.

Mould doesn't even begin to describe this travesty.

What is surprising and disappointing is that Canwest Global has not bothered to do an in depth analysis and exposure, in its papers or TV stations, of the boondoggle that has been the norm in Richmond for years.

I will hold my breath and float to the ceiling...and then I can fix the mould.

By the way, watch for the new John Cusack-Scarlett Johansson horror thriller coming to a multi-plex near you soon, "THE RICHMOND MOOOOUUUUUULLLLD."

The Real Jolson

The Global Food Crisis

"They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry."
SAINT LOUIS MERISKA, of Haiti, whose children went without food the day

That is the NY Times Quote of the day.

Now read this most important story about the Global Food Crisis.

Everywhere, people are running out of staples and they are rioting in many places.

They are Geniuses. That's all there is to it. Geniuses.

It has always been a requirement of reading the popular press - read between the lines.

Never more so than these days.

The headline in today's Sun is all about the terrible situation of Skytrain Posse tasering the innocent.

All of that may be so, but that is not the story.

The story, as I have been insisting for about 10 years now, is this:

THE HONOR SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK. EVERY GOOD SUBWAY SYSTEM IN THE WORLD MAKES YOU PAY GOING IN AND, IF YOU'VE CHEATED, PAY TO GET OUT.

You wouldn't have to taser fare-evaders if most people payed fares. Imagine such a concept.

Now, after all these years, and all these excuses that ADDING turnstiles will be prohibitively expensive, Skyclunk is finally looking at installing turnstiles and a pay system.

Mazel Tov.

I'm Publishing a Study on How many Studies We'll pay for before we ACT

Another egghead academic tax dollar drainer has published another astonishing front-page worthy study on homelessness. Yippee.

Apparently, people are dying. Worse, they are dying from disease and overdoses.

How could that happen when we are all working so hard and so cleverly to eradicate addictions and homelessness?

Thank goodness for another study.

Why waste that money on homes or...wait for it...dare I say it...treatment!?

This is a gub

Vancouver is the bank robbery capital of North America. No one is even close. Congrats.

This is because of drug addiction.

Therefore...?

The safe injection site has accomplished what? Three Million a year.

Great governance by Coty hall and The Nutty One, by the warm-hearted, deeply caring Preem and the ever-distant Federal Sleepyheads.

Treatment, anyone?

Have I mentioned treatment?

One of my all-time favorite scenes from the movies...1946, The Jolson Story with Oscar-nominated Larry Parks mouthing J',s late deeper tones

Children are NOT a Priority of this Government

Despite the protestations of Children & Family Minister Tom Christensen, it is clear that the Monumental Premier does not keep short people clearly in his sights.

No, he is busy with roads and bridges and ski runs and business-destroying transit lines.

Judge Thomas Gove made large and small and all-significant recommendations in his 1995 report.

Judge Ted Hughes did the same in 2006.

Both came to their similar conclusions after substantial expense of public monies; expenditures which would be welcomed if anyone bothered to listen or follow-up with that word so foreign to governments - "ACTION."

Now, May Ellen Turpel-Lafond. the province's new watchdog for children and youth, has issued an almost identical report calling for a new kind of attentiveness.

Of course, The Minister, who should have resigned last year when yet another child "in care" died, has said, "We welcome the report. It is consistent with the direction we are going in."

The Tom Christensens and Gordon Campbells of the world just never quite get it, do they?

Christensen rolls out all the numbers and dollars they are spending to improve matters. New bodies, new "systems."

But it's not about more money, more workers, more computer programs.

It's about getting the people on the front lines really, sharply tuned to the subtleties of working with families and children at risk.

What are the real issues? The real indicators of trouble? The real signposts of safety? Whom can be trusted? Whom cannot? When is the right time and where is the right place for intervention? Families or fosters?

Every situation is new, yet every situation holds some echo of the one before it.

This government continues to ignore children at risk. And when, in embarrassment and desperation in finally turns to the matter it hand, it inevitable responds with what it knows - throw more green at the problem, buy it off.

Maybe that works for ferry boats and lumber mills, but it doesn't work for the suffering child.

Charter This!

Will some Canadian government ever find the courage to rid us of Trudeau's most heinous legacy - The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Or, at the very least, amend it, so that it is no longer an instrument of avoidance for felons?

A career criminal - at the old age of 23! - pleads guilty to murder. His victim's shot up body is found in the murderer's trunk. He further admits to an undercover cop that he expects to get 25 years at least because he definitely killed this guy.

Result?

Court declares his Charter rights were somehow compromised and he serves two years for spitting on the sidewalk, or something.

Moments after his release from Kiddy Jail, he is found in his apartment with enough high powered weapons to begin a small revolution.

The Charter is a laughing stock.

Change it or chuck it.

CODA: The scoff's armament-filled apartment is in Yaletown on Homer Street.

I wonder if The Nutty Mayor has appealed to the Preem, "No shooting after 2 am, please!"

Give it Up

Not one of the people on the BC Ferry's board, all of whom voted themselves exorbitant pay raises, is skinny.

They are all managing quite well, thank you very much and they need another $50,000 and $1,500 per meeting like I need more polka music.

Jimmy Pattison is the role model here.

He ran Expo 86 day in and day out, counting which food stands did better and picking up candy wrappers, for $1. That's right, one dollar.

The already sufficiently comfortable heads of corporations who sit on public boards like the BC Ferry Corpulence should VOLUNTEER THEIR TIME.

End of story.

How Often is a Trombone?

Public Places

The morning news affords the usual opportunities - the unprecedented raid on Tory headquarters, Kevin Falcon's lame kvetch to the BC Ferry Board for their huge salary increases - but there is something else on my mind.

I've been thinking since yesterday afternoon about Public Spaces/Public Places.

Unlike every city and village in Italy (and France and so many countries in the world), we have have none here in Vancouver.

Every twenty paces or so, Venice offers if not a piazza, then at least a small neighbourhood campo, where children boot soccer balls, parents compare notes on the prices of real estate and groceries and grandparents sit on benches. I realize I am creating an idealized, romantic image of a society in harmony.

But of late this mud town has been carrying on from every direction at once the noise called "Civil Society."

The usual suspects were hauled in by the Sun to "edit" a special Saturday edition embracing this notion. I was spared these pronouncements from the Mike Harcourts among us by a timely visit to Winnipeg.

If there are no places to stop and chat, if discourse is unnatural and an interruption rather than a daily pursuit, how can we speak of a civility?

What would it take for us to build stopping places - public spaces, mini-parks, breathing places that might even include fruit and vegetable stands or stores and cafes - in this cold, unwelcoming community?

Is this a silly dream of transplantation?

Is this one old culture plopped will-nilly on a newer one?

I'd love to see us try.

Pharma Lack O' Care

One of my favorite targets for scorn rmeains the gigantic pharmaceutical industry.

Armaments, BigPharma, illegal drugs and oil - there are your Big Four World Industries.

One of the biggest and most immoral of the BigPharmas is Merck.

Today it was revealed in stories published in both the Vancouver Sun and the NY Times, among others, that Merck has been ghost-writing reports and studies on their products and paying doctors to sign their names to these "testimonials."

The case of Vioxx is particularly troubling as it resulted in many deaths, before the poison was removed from the shelves.

How innocent has Merck been in all of this?

Well, for some mysterious reason they have seen fit to pay out $4.5 BILLION in compensations to victims of their malfeasance. No doubt with non-disclosure clauses.

Read the NY Times coverage here.

Carter, the Clown or Carter, the Saviour

Is Jimmy Carter a Hero or a Fool?

Or does the truth lie somewhere in between?

He places a wreath on the grave of Yasser Arafat.

He visits Hamas leaders.

Watch this video report and tell me what this man is doing.

Human Rights vs. Hygiene

This is an astonishing story.

The BC Human Rights Commission has come down heavy on the MacDonald's restaurant on South West Marine Drive in Vancouver, because they insisted that one of their employees wash her hands.

Madness. Read the entire Ezra Levant piece here.