CUTTING OFF BOOZE IS AN EASY CALL

The entire staff and executive of a Muskoka golf club north of Toronto have been charged with criminal responsibility in the deaths of three young people.

As well they should.

Not only did they serve 31 drinks to one of the party in a few hours, but more importantly, the only way to get in and out of the golf club is by car.

How did these idiots expect these lovely patrons to get home?

Last summer, we were invited to a party on the Sunshine Coast. We were given detailed instructions on how to get to the obscure property. Finally, we were advised that we should bring our own booze. Pot wasn't mentioned, but given who the people were and the location, Mary Jane was a given.

We smiled warmly and promptly scratched that fun time off our calendar.

Everyone is responsible. Or should be.

None of us live in a glass bubble. We all know about the laws and about the dangers of drunk driving. We are no longer 17.

If you can't be in the business of serving booze with some vague civic sense, move to shoe repair.

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS

Tom Christensen will not be running again in the May provincial election.

This is good news for all of British Columbia, but especially for children.

Mr. Christensen has been for several years now the worst Minister of Children and Families we have ever seen. Which is saying a lot, since this file has been busier than an Olympic relay team.

We have asked him in these pages several times to resign. His incompetence and blindness in dealing with children at risk has been monumental.

He is also the seventh member of Gordon Campbell's cabinet to say, "Basta, baby! I've had enough."

The only sorry part of this news is that he plans to spend more time with his own children and family.

Perhpas he's better with children and families hands-on than from behind a big desk.

FASCINATING, AMAZING DEBATE

America, The Beautiful

One week from today, Barack Obama will, in an inauguration ceremony watched in person by more than a million and on TV and the Internet many, many millions, become the 44th President of the United States of America.

When we look even for a moment at the nation and the world which he will inherit, one might call him courageous or mad or egotistic or any of a hundred handles in between.

He will face three wars in the Middle East - Iraq, Afghanistan and the deadly, intractable, ages-old, religion-fueled Arab-Israeli conflict.

He will face a Pakistan and India, both nuclear-armed, staring at one another and rattling the silverware.

Almost 50 million men, women and especially children of his fellow country souls are without medical insurance. If that isn't a measure of poverty, what is?

The auto makers are bankrupt and stunned and wandering in circles unsure if their next loaf of bread comes from electric vehicles or better SUV's.

The banks, loan companies, investment firms and other money players are staggered and beaten and crying for help. (Here in Canada, both Canwest Global and Corus Entertainment, two media giants, are on the financial rocks. Canwest has shrunken to a penny stock in spite of earnings and profits and is in imminent danger of collapse. And Corus is devalued to half its trading value of a year ago.)

Unemployment is at its highest levels in America, and education in so many public schools at its lowest.

Equally challenging is the fact that speaking of American lustre isn't even remotely possible when so many people in so many countries around the world suspect America of the worst crimes and blame America first before anyone for what the Irish used to call "the troubles."

I grew up adoring America.

I loved and worshipped the USA.

Like many of you, the novels I read, the movies I watched and the music to which I danced and sang all came from New York and Los Angeles and the Deep South.

Many people still think that I am not only a Yankee, but a New Yorker. Not true, of course. I was born in Ottawa and grew up in Winnipeg. I have lived here in Vancouver for almost 45 years now.

But I still remember vividly almost every detail of the ONE DAY I spent in New York City when I was 19 and on my way to Europe on a huge Italian ocean liner.

Most of my travels in the US have been on the West Coast and to the usual Snow Bird sunshine hideouts. My last trip about a year and a half ago was to San Fransisco for a few days.

I no longer love the USA or worship it. Part of that comes with age. But much of it comes with seeing a world that I don't like as much and a world that I sometimes fear.

Make no mistake. I don't hate America or anything remotely close to it. I just don't want to visit as often as used to. Still...I must see Chicago and Boston soon...

So, Barack Obama will now preside, as much as any President does or can, over an enormous and enormously complicated sovereign state that is in upheaval, that is turning and twisting towards something new.

He seems to be a man of extraordinary optimism and good will.

He will not turn the Big Wheel to the Promised Land overnight. He will not be the Second Coming of the Messiah.

But, he may help and he may inspire and he may be judicious.

We cannot hope for much more.

In these hopes, we wish him all possible good fortune.

Another Comment that Warrants a Posting of its Own

I can't remember whether I made this comment on this blog before, but in case I haven't I will repeat it.

I was in a Palliative Care workshop where we were learning about the worldwide epidemic of HIV/AIDS. We were shown a map of the world and the incidence of HIV/AIDS shown, per capita, in varying colours, darker colours meaning higher reported cases.

I was curious as to why certain countries had higher incidents, even though they shared similar cultures, religions, behavioral morals, etc. I asked the facilitator.

She advised that this question had been asked a lot. All variables were considered and one thing remained constant...

The countries with the larger gap between the rich and the poor had higher incidences of HIV/AIDS.

The US has more cases than Canada. Canada has more cases than most North European countries.

Gordon Campbell's policies of keeping education in the realm of the wealthier members of society is not just a matter of education .... extrapolated, it becomes of matter of public health.

The same argument applied to his short sighted, cruel minimum wage of $8.00 per hour.

These laws and policies continue to widen the gap between rich and poor. The poor will continue to become more vulnerable - even to the point of their health.

These are sick, sick policies.

Linda Yuill

The High Cost of Exercise

John Young is a Victoria school trustee.

He has successfully sued his own school board and the Ministry of Education over the charging of extra fees in the public-school system.

Now Young is plotting a Charter of Rights challenge that he hopes will lead to a country-wide ban on supplemental school fees, from kindergarten through Grade 12.

"I can prove that the requirement of a fee to take a course is discriminatory against children who don't have the money to pay," said the 87-year-old former high-school principal, who began his crusade to abolish school fees more than a decade ago.

Twice in the past year, I have praised him lavishly in these pages. I think he is a great role model for citizenship. (I cannot seem to find a "search" function on my blog, so I cannot quickly reference these posts for you.) NOTE: One of our commenters has magically figured out that my previous postings on Mr. Young can be found here and here. Many thanks!

Let me praise Mr. Young again.

What he is saying repeatedly and successfully in these law suits is that children should not have to pay for art supplies,banjos, and soccer balls at public schools. And he is right.

The only problem is that the provincial government's reaction to Young's successful rulings is to change the law!

The province amended its legislation to allow for surcharges on things such as band instruments, trades programs and specialty sports and arts "academies."

"The result is fees of more than $100 a month are being charged for soccer and hockey programs," said Mr. Young, now in his sixth term as a school trustee.

"It's true these academies are permitted under the act, but they violate the principle that all educational programs must be provided free of charge."

Frustrated by the province's "end-around" response to the first two decisions, Mr. Young has decided to launch a third challenge based on non-discrimination provisions contained in Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"If it proves to be discrimination, this could apply all across Canada," he said.

Let's look at this struggle from another angle.

The Premier of the Province of British Columbia is Gordon Campbell.

Mr. Campbell is investing billions in roads, condos, security, advertising (Don't get me started on using Donald Sutherland for 2010 ads! They couldn't choose any one of thousands of great voices for one tenth the price?) and lord knows what else to celebrate athleticism. Or so the official, teary-eyed, patriotic story goes.

But the same Campbell who will move mountains to provide a place for 10 days of skiing, will change the law so that he doesn't have to pay for kids' sports equipment in schools.

Question: Are all young boys and girls who are gifted at sports also rich? Do they all come from families for whom extra fees are no hardship?

We are prepared, or we are getting prepared, as a society to invest in high octane training schools for tennis players and swimmers and skiers (provided of course that they fall in the politically significant jurisdictions and we can be there for the ribbon cutting foto op).

But we not only will not provide the $30 or $180 dollars for school kids to be involved in sports (and the arts and cooking), but we are so loathe to do so, that when the courts order us to, we change the law!

Aside from fitting snugly in to the category of penny-wise, pound-foolish, this shows us once again the cheesy priorities of the Premier.

Insight in Gaza

Several friends sent this along and I thought it deserved posting.

General Lewis MacKenzie on Gaza

I first served in the Gaza Strip in 1963, seven years after Lester Pearson's diplomatic stick-handling led to the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force, the UN's first peacekeeping force. I served there for two years, living with more than 1,000 other Canadian soldiers in Camp Rafah, just inside Gaza. I returned to the region eight years later, this time to Cairo and Ismailia as part of Canadian support for UN ceasefire protocols after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. I have returned to the region many times during the past decade.

In my opinion, the Israeli-Hamas conflict is the only one in the world where there is no hope whatsoever of the participants resolving the key issues on their own, by any means. Hamas makes no secret that, aided and abetted by Iran, it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Any idea of a ceasefire in the current fighting leading to a change in Hamas's dedication to Israel's elimination is naive to the extreme. Any cessation of hostilities, no matter how temporary, will be used by Hamas to enhance its weapons arsenal in preparation for the next round of terrorist attacks against its neighbour.

On their own, Israel and Hamas are doomed to a perpetual state of war no matter how much international diplomatic horsepower is applied to resolving the conflict. But there is a solution that the world has been adroitly avoiding for 40 years.

Israel deserves security. Its population is prepared to live in peace with its neighbours providing they aren't dedicated to its extermination. If Israel deals with the threat from Hamas on its own, the situation will not improve over the long term - Hamas will simply resuscitate itself and carry on with its terrorist actions against Israel. The UN Security Council needs to show some rare backbone and authorize a strong UN force under the UN Charter's Chapter 7, which authorizes the use of deadly force as necessary, and deploy it within the Gaza Strip, taking on the responsibility to provide the security to which Israel is entitled. The force would need to be strong enough to interdict weapons smuggling by sea, land (including by tunnel) and air from outside sources, to eliminate rocket attacks on Israel, to stop suicide bombers through use of border controls and, most important, to be strong enough militarily to take on Hamas if need be. The oft-expressed idea of putting international monitors into the Gaza Strip to control smuggling and the firing of rockets is ludicrous: Hamas would run rings around any unarmed outsiders whose only mandate was to "observe and report." Such monitors wouldn't even qualify as yet another Band-Aid solution.

Israel would not like this solution. It is extremely suspicious of the UN, which has all too often demonstrated anti-Semitic policies and statements thanks to the fact that most member states sympathize with such attitudes. Israel did not recognize the UNEF from 1956 to its withdrawal in 1967. In fact, when we had to drive through Israel to get some of our supplies in Lebanon, we were not allowed to get out of our vehicles while inside Israel.

The UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, has been accused by Israel - with some justification - of anti-Israel bias. Nevertheless, with a UN force deployed across the border from Israel and capable of providing the security desired by its citizens, the Israelis would soon see the benefits.

The UN has maintained a peacekeeping force in Cyprus since 1964. There has been no fighting between the Greek and Turk Cypriots for the past 34 years. The peacekeepers are now popular tourist attractions. When you arrive on the south coast of Cyprus, you can sign up for a bus tour of Nicosia, where you can observe the peacekeepers executing their boring duty in sentry boxes first manned by Canadian soldiers some 38 years ago. If you are polite, they will let you have your picture taken with them.

The UN Security Council and member states should be ashamed. While UN resources are providing peacekeepers in a country safer than most of our major cities, just across the Mediterranean, scores of innocent Palestinians are being killed because a terrorist organization with the stated aim of ridding the world of Jews is permitted to sacrifice its own people without protest or intervention by the international community.

Another Heart Warming City Works Story - Thanks, Gavin

Many years ago there was a garage at 4th and Blenheim....Blenheim Motors. They also had gas pumps which augmented their business. The service station was run by two very honest guys and I had my VW serviced there for a few years. One day I was there and the access to the pumps was blocked by City road crews...I asked Andy(one of the co-owners) what was happening. "They are re-paving and improving the access. We can deal with the revenue loss, it'll take about four days for them to finish." All was done and it looked great until a week after it was repaved and 'finished' the access was torn up by City water works. Andy was miffed when he was told that it would take about two weeks to finish. He called City Hall to complain and asked for a reduction of his business license fee and was shunted around so many different 'crats at City Hall that he gave up and bit the bullet. Now it was beginning to cost the garage money. Finally the city's job was done, and the street re-paved and all was normal for about a week and a half. OK.......no! A new crew arrived and began to tear up the access again. Andy blew his stack and asked, "what the hell is going on now?" The answer was City Electrical ops. Andy was on the phone to City Hall to tell them that he was not going to pay his business license fee due to significant loss of revenue from his pumps. When he finally reached the city mandarin, Andy was told in no uncertain terms that if he refused to pay, the City would shut him down.
All of this could have been avoided and everything could have been accomplished in three days had there been some co-ordination by the city works and Andy would have been a happy camper. This was the 70's.....have things changed that much at City Hall? I doubt it very much.

Bountiful, Indeed

Any guy who fathers more than 108 children (What does "more than" even mean? 2,009? 18 trillion) should have his little weenie put on ice and made a permanent exhibit at Science World.

NOTE: by the way that Mr. Blackmore is always smiling.

You'd be smiling too if you spent most of your day shtupping teenage girls.

Whether laws against polygamy are constitutional or not, whether the practice is repugnant or odd or not, there are laws against sexual exploitation and what has taken so long for those to be enforced?

And maybe someday the full story will be told about the young boys, seen as a sexual threat to the leaders, are basically enslaved at an early age as workers in the community's primary businesses like logging.

These sects are sick little enclaves and their hiding behind religious freedoms is an obscenity.

Priorities, Part 9,462

$365 Million for a new retractable roof for BC Place.

No problem. Do it. we pay for it. No problem.

$300,000 debt for Ballet B.C.

Get outta here! You're on your own, Fairy Princesses!

The good news is that the Ballet did in fact save themselves from bankruptcy by offering debtors a few cents on every dollar owed. Which is fine.

But Glad-handing Gord could have paid the full tilt iin the stroke of a pen if he had any vision of what this province is supposed to look like outside of highways and skating rinks.

Coming Home to Roost

OLYMPIC VILLAGE SHOCK

was the headline on the front page of yesterdays' Vancouver Sun.

Our response?

Shock? Not really.

Here's what I wrote on Tuesday.

"These public-private partnerships might even work on occasion if the rubes who are in public office and who have never run so much as a Bingo game weren't creaming their jeans with the excitement of playing with the Big Boys.

The suits in the towers must be bending over in hysterics every time the phone rings from one of these municipal offices with yet another grand scheme to build a highway or a subway line or a bunch of hospitals."

Now, we are told that the tab could run close to One Billion Dollars.

Understand that any shortfall will have to be made up by raising taxes and that I and you will pay for the clownish country-bumpkin mistakes of these elected clods and that and you will pay for some idiot's right to pay $1,200/square foot to live in a concrete box and call it home.

This Comment Deserves Posting All of its Own

Not about snow removal but a true story about Vancouver's Engineering Dept.

Some years ago, my (commercial) landlord had a problem, the sewer was backing up in the newly rented store the new tenant, who was a florist.

The stores were located near Richards & Hastings St's. in the downtown core.

The local 'Mr. Rooter' came and rooted and for his troubles got nothing but gravel. He told my landlord; "The sewer line is not connected to the main sewer line and that the past tenant's 'waste' just leached into the gravel under the lane way."

When my landlord phoned city hall and complained, the head of the 'sewer dept.' came out and looked over the situation. His reply was "no-way that happened and the fault was in the building."

The florist soon left has he could not practice his trade because the sewer did not work and the store remained vacant for months.

Again my landlord contacted the 'Engineering Dept.' and complained and again they said "Not their fault."

In desperation he got his lawyer to contact city hall and the City Engineer came to view the problem. "Not our fault" was all he said. Later my landlord struck a deal with the city's Engineering Dept. - they would dig up the alley to check the connection and would pay if it was the city's fault, if not, my landlord must pay th full shot.

Well two days prior to the excavation, a massive digger was dropped, two large construction huts were left. On the day of the excavation there were no less than 15 engineering types around, not including flaggers who made sure Richards St. was closed and BC Hydro types, who were hired - 'just in case.'.

Estimated cost so far - $40,000

But wait, the massive digger finally uncovered the problem - the last time the city worked on the sewer, they failed to reconnect the line to store.

Their excuse - well it wasn't supposed to be connected to that sewer line at all, even though it was before!!

No dice said my landlord and a deal is a deal. Within 60 minutes, diggers, construction huts, engineering types, Hydro linemen, flaggers all disappeared and three men and a backhoe came and fixed the problem.

What does this have to do about snow removal? Simple, the city's Engineering Dept. can't be trusted to do a simple job cheaply and will screw the taxpayer for every dime he/she has!

Can Mayor Greg change City Hall's mind-set? I doubt it.

Quote of the Day

"THERE IS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN CITY SNOW-REMOVAL PLAN: MAYOR"

You think?

Clearly Gaza

Under the title,

A setback for Israel, a calamity for the Palestinians

Margus Gee has written in this morning's Globe one of the single best things I have read about the Gaza disaster in recent weeks.

His argument is simple and direct and accurate.

Read it here.

Renowned Joshua Bell PLays on $3.5 Million violin in D.C. Metro

Year in Review - Hahahahaha...

Encounter

I work at a college.

Today, at 1pm some students will hold a RALLY FOR GAZA.

Yesterday, I stopped at their table in the front hall and inquired about the event.

A tall, Anglo kid explained and handed me a little blue sheet of paper. The highlight on the handout was ISRAELI WAR CRIMES.

I asked this lad what that meant.

He said, "What would you call attacking schools with children?"

I asked, "What would you call more than 10,000 rockets fired by Hamas into Israeli towns over the past several years?"

He replied smartly, "Self defense."

I said so cleverly, and after all my years of study at Quick Quip School, "You're a fucking idiot! Your ignorance is appalling."

He smiled beatifically and offered, "Have a nice day."

I repaired to the Staff Lounge with murder in my heart.

And so it goes...

Quote of the Day

Talking about out-of-bounds skiers to Gary Mason in the Globe, Wally Opaque has given forth with another Wally classic:

"Maybe they have to add five bucks to the cost of a ticket to cover the costs of monitoring these areas, I don't know."

I especially like the avuncular, bemused "I don't know" part.

Uh, Wally?

I don't know how to break this to you, Good Buddy. But you're the Attorney-General of the Province of British Columbia.

It is your job to know.

You have battalions of lawyers billing out at $500/hour at your beck and call to study the statutes and advise you.

As always, Wally, you give us that simple shiver of confidence whenever we hear from you. Keep up the solid work...whatever it may be.

Re-Writing History - Local Edition

Frances Bula has written two very good pieces on the Olympic Village story in this morning's Globe.

One is called "Sun will shine on athletes village, builder says"

The other is "Out of Mud, Olympic Village a showcase of ecology."

The second piece is a tour through the sludge and rain to view first-hand the building progress and it's good clean messy fun.

But the first article is the one with all the real juice.

First we get the Millenium GM chronicling the entire list of hardships and challenges that he has heroically overcome. Hahahaha...It's a riot.

Then, moving on to the thorny issue of What Idiot Signed Off on this Deal, we get one mayor after another disclaiming any part of the guarantees that the City has apparently provided in case of problems.

Why hasn't CBC TV, which specializes these days in sophomoronic humor signed up Owen, Campbell and Sullivan (An Act Funnier than it's Name!!! Tonight at 8!!!) to do a song and dance number called, "I Didn't Do it, Do it, Do it, I Swear."

The photo, by the way, is of the Salt Building (1930), which has been preserved and upgraded and will become a restaurant and pub in the Mark James Group after the Olympics.

A Little Background Please