TRAGEDY NOT AVERTED

It appears that a mentally disturbed woman has murdered a young boy in Grand Forks, B.C.

This is a tragedy on a hundred different fronts.

The mayor "criticized cutbacks in the province that have led to reduced services for mental health patients over the last decade. “I think what we've lost here is mental health support in the community,” he said. “The community sees [this] as a health problem as much as a crime problem.”"

Governments, like individuals, have priorities, and we and they are consistent in our choices.

Recent provincial and federal governments have shown a distinct lack of interest in something as baffling and time-consuming and labor-intensive as mental health problems.

The results, on a daily basis in all our communities, speak for themselves.

Now you See it, Now you don't..

The other day, we spoke here about Lotto monies being held up and not distributed to community groups that have been promised such.

Here's the scenario.

Province yanks $1 Billion a year from our stupid pockets as we buy gambling tix that have a hope in hell of ever paying off. OK. So be it. We are dumb and poor and we dream. I am among you, believe me.

Province then passes on about 15% to charities and community groups.

Or at least, they say they are passing on this money.

So you are running the Lake Cowichan Flugelhorn Consortium and you buy new mouthpieces, music stands and a side of donuts for your group on the promise that money is soon to arrive.

Surprise!

Rich Coleman is the Villain here. He is the Social Development Minister and he's the guy who is supposed to yell down the line to the minions, "PAY THE LOSERS ALREADY!'

Alas. Rich is no where to be found.

Neither are the funds already spent.

I know, all you hard-nosed successful Type A Free Enterprise Worshippers will scream, "Yah, well they shouldn't;t have spent the money of they didn't have it."

Please. Join the real world.

ps...Rich is the tall guy.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"A bit more promotion would be useful."

The god of all gods, the Supreme Kvetch on High, the man who runs a completely unchecked world government bigger and better than any James Bond villain could have ever thirsted after...

His name is Jack Rogue...uh, sorry, Jacques Rogge, that is, Count Jacques Rogge (we kid you not, he is an actual Count, whatever that may be), and he is the president of a governing body that supercedes all local sovereign governments.

We speak, of course, and humbly and on our trembling knees, of the (shudder, shudder, genuflect) INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE.

Rogue feels we are not pushing the Games enough.

Hahahaha...

Has he ever checked into the local press?

Day after tiresome day, our print and radio and TV sources are filled to the overstocked gills with 2010 "news" stories.

Jack, baby, get serial.

ZAP!

The Globe & Mail editorial this morning has rightly called Taser International's charges of bias again st Thomas Braidwood "ridiculous."

This straight-forward condemnation of a the company points out that "Twenty-five people in Canada have died after being tasered, yet most police forces in Canada have been loath to acknowledge that the stun gun is dangerous."

Scusa me, but isn't that more than the number of people who have died from gunshot fired by police forces in the same time period?

Referring to the Robert Dziekanski incident, which I continue to call Murder, the editorial makes clear "A video of the incident showed as horrific a piece of brutal and incompetent policing as this country has witnessed for some time."

Time for the Taser executives to try a little of their own medicine or be extremely quiet.

"ISN'T sHE lOVELY?" FROM SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE...The whole album is a stamp of musical genius...More Stevie Wonder

STEVIE WONDER 1975

FIND ME A PARTY

Do you not yearn and crave for a political party or one political leader for whom you could, with full enthusiasm and endorsement, vote?

I do.

(Oops. The last time I said those two words, 20 years of my life went by.)

I need a party or a leader the thought of whom does not make me hurl.

That immediately eliminates the Federal and Provincial Liberals, The Torch Premier and Iggy Pop.

That discounts Stephen Harping.

So I return to my voting roots - the NDP.

Ouch!

I know.

Look at this exciting and productive national convention just held in Halifax.

Nothing new put forward, nothing challenging accepted, no Big Public Policy announcements.

With the national media attending in full force and the opportunity to make a minor splash ... nada.

Listen to this milquetoast: "I think the conversation certainly got started."

That's Jack Layton, and that's the problem.

All the political instincts of a rabbit.

Shiny white teeth and a moustache. Then what?

Do these folks not want to win or govern or exert some influence?

Yesterday, I mentioned that Adrian Dix might be a better leader for the NDP provincially than Carole James. No doubt there are many people who might be a better leader than Carole James. She is not terrible. Se doesn't make awful toe-stubbing mistakes. And she is up against a huge Liberal machine. But she just doesn't grab us, does she?

Does Jack grab us?

I don't think so.

Does the National party have a real war plan? Doubt.

Does it have a future?

Not until it finds new blood, a new leader and some core selling points built on core values.

I'm ready to get excited. Just let me know when it's all starting.

GETTING THE PICTURE YET?

While Carole James may not be setting new heights for political leadership, one of her camp is demonstrating the best traditions of a good opposition member.

I speak of Adrian Dix, the NDP provincial health car critic.

It is Dix who keeps supplying me and you with these delicious tidbits of flesh and flash around the Premier's ongoing disregard for citizens.

600 seniors affected by health-care cuts

Program could be kept afloat this year for less than Premier's recent pay hike, NDP critic says

In the piece in yesterday's Globe by Robert Matas, we learn, among other things, "A community home-care program in the Fraser Valley that helps more than 600 seniors stay in their home will be discontinued. But without the program, seniors may be more likely to move into long-term and acute-care facilities. The seniors' care program in Langley, which received about $88,000 from the government this year, is run by about 100 volunteers and five staff members,"

So 100 good people volunteer their time and energy to help the elderly in their community and the reward from the Premier is that the entire program may be starved shut.

Nice.

Don't forget that the Cambie Line is opening next week. Wave a flag.

And thousands of government employees are "volunteering" their PAID time to the...what's it called? Oh yah, the Olympics.

WAITING FOR LEFTY

On my continuing theme of The Olympic Premier who Cares Not a Fig for You or His Basic Responsibilities...

Community groups left in dark over funding

Thousands of cash-strapped organizations growing anxious as province freezes lottery money

By Mary Frances Hill and Richard J. Dalton Jr., Vancouver Sun August 14, 2009

What are we talking about here?

Little league sports, seniors’ clubs, school parent associations, softball teams and soccer clubs, parent advisory councils that are trying to build playgrounds.

Look.

This isn't very mysterious.

Idiots like me and possibly you buy Lotto tickets in the hope that we will hit the big one. We should get a life, I know.

Much of that Lotto money is designated to help local charities - more than 1700 local charities.

The money should be distributed with dispatch.

Keeping thousands upon thousands of citizens hanging on the edge while Rome fiddles is cruel and unnecessary punishment.

This speaks to bad policy and worse execution.

Execution may be appropriate here, but possibly in some other direction.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I forgot.

The Burnaby Little League hockey teams won't be competing in The Big Snowjob next year.

MY HOOVER NIGHTS

I live in a fantasy world.

I really do.

About some things (work, projects, friendship), I am responsible, focused, dedicated, a Detail Man to the last dot.

About others (money, housework, money...), I am the reluctant child, refusing to grow up and get on with it.

Year after year, I pay my taxes late - VERY LATE.

At home, I stumble through the dust and cobwebs until choices are minimized and The Big Clean Up must begin or else.

(Laundry is exempt. Laundry falls into my Obsessive Bin, and from there to the MACHINES!, bless their little whirling hearts.)

So...

Noticing that my vacuum cleaner did not seem to be really getting all the stuff and popcorn kernels from one of my favorite middle east rugs, I did the unthinkable.

Yes.

I ventured into - yuck! - the garage, dug out the vacuum cleaner box - you know, the one with all those attachments that look like they were made by a guy bending balloons for kids in a hospitable ward.

And there they were: two perfectly preserved bags of pristine, green vacuum bags.

I ripped one free from the plastic and read the instructions. It was the first time in...are you ready? Maybe, 10 years, so I had to read the instructions.

Open your vacuum, pull down the full bag. DO THEY HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT FULL REALLY MEANS? Push the roller forward. Pull off the old bag, etc, etc, etc...

O.K.

The full bag looked entirely like a beached whale.

The hose to which the full bag has been attached neigh these decades or so was so full of compacted dust and dirt that I had to take a pair of chopsticks from the kitchen drawer to extract and clean it.

All of this mess lay on the prepared Globe & Mail pages.

When I wrapped The Remains of the Day and carried my little baby down the several flights of stairs to the garbage bin behind the house, I looked and felt remarkably like someone in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, lovingly, dutifully carrying a pod person to bloom.

I appreciate that this is the second time in recent weeks that I've mentioned Body Snatchers and the Pod People.

Clearly these two movies have had a deep and lasting psychological imprint on me. Go explain.

I also watch Dexter, the TV episodic about a serial killer, but that's another story.

Now.

What about my Hoover?

Amazing.

Haven't seen sucking like this since, since..well, never you mind.

Suffice it to say, the carpets themselves are practically being devoured by my ancient Hoover. I mean I've had this thing for at least 20 + years.

O.K. I've only used it 50 or so times in all those years, and I've only changed the bag - tops - twice.

But.

What a beaut.

I love my Hoover.

I may complete rehabilitate myself and change the bag again before the calendar year is out.

Well. Let's not get carried away.

Maybe before next Passover.

You're Not So Excellent After All

Governments across Canada are cutting scholarship monies previously available to high school graduates.

Never to be outdone, The Education Premier has topped them all.

"British Columbia sent letters to 185 of its leading high school students this month informing them of the cancellation of the Premier's Excellence Awards, which for more than two decades have given thousands of dollars to high-achievers who stayed in the province for their undergraduate education."

This bit of penny-wise, pound-foolish decision making will save the province about $240,000.

In other words, lunch.

The future is in their hands. The future is our children. And so on into the good night.

These are cliches that slip from the lips of political leaders at every foto op and chicken dinner.

But.

Sending thousands of civic employees to the Olympics as "volunteers" at a cost in the many millions, now that's O.K.

But encouraging our students to succeed?

Nah.

Wait until The Games are over.

Are you still not getting the picture?

Its' Me and the Mentally Ill and the Sexually Abused. We Have No Place at the Podium

"The Fraser Health Authority will cut elective surgeries by 10 to 15 per cent, place a cap on MRI procedures and reduce management positions in an effort to meet a budget shortfall of up to $160-million that the opposition alleges was hidden from the public during the last provincial election."

News that managers and adminstration staff may be sent packing is not so dreadful.

But this is:

"Services for seniors and the mentally ill will be cut. They include services for sexual abuse victims and the scuttling of the New Westminster domestic violence response team."

Let's see now.

Seniors, the mentally ill and sexual abuse victims.

No longer priorities for the Olympic Premier.

Are you still not getting the picture?

LES PAUL, MUSICAL WIZARD

IT'S STILL A GOOD DEAL, NO, A TERRIFIC DEAL

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

Yesterday, I wrote in this space about health care in America and Canada.

There were some wonderful responses.

Two of my friends were quick to point out that I pay much more than $168 every three months for my coverage.

Here are their comments:

From David M:

Terrific letter from your friend at Tulane University. I love his analogy to a "shady used-car dealership". Unless the Democrats undertake tort reform, and thereby help constrain the practice of unecessary medical testing, they will not be able to achieve their goals within a reasonable cost structure. Will the Democrats turn their back on the number one source of campaign funding, the trial lawyers? It's called "leadership".

Like you, I'm a supporter of the single-payer, universal access system that we have in this country. However, the cost is a lot more than you imply in today's blog entry. When one factors in the 42% or so of every provincial tax-dollar that goes to health care in this province the cost is huge. Single-payer, universal access is great but we've got to introduce private sector competition and disciplines, inside the system, or we simply will not be able to afford the level of service we have let alone that which we seek to achieve.

From Victor:

david:

You do NOT pay $168 every three months for health care. This is an
illusion born of decades of government propaganda. Here are the actual
numbers.

Health care accounts for 45% of government spending. Therefore, it
sucks up 45% of all government revenue.

So, that means if you buy a microwave oven and pay $15 sales tax, $7
of that goes right into health care. If you pay $2000 in provincial
income tax, $900 goes to health care.

Do we have a single tier cost system. Only if one is math challenged.
Consider this.

In BC, if your salary is $100,000, your provincial income tax is
$8500. About $4000 of that goes directly into health care. That's $333
a month for health care plus the $56 a month for MSP for a total of
$389 a month for health care.

If your salary is $28,000 a year you pay $1000 in provincial income
tax, meaning $450 a year goes into health care. That's $37 a month
plus $56 for MSP for a total of $93 a month for health coverage.

Thus, if these two hypothetical taxpayers are sitting in a doctor's
office awaiting exactly the same procedure, one person is paying 4
times as much as the other for the same service. Whether the rich
should pay more is a whole other debate. But the facts are (a) we have
a multi-tier system regardless of what lying politicians say (b) Our
MSP payments do not remotely cover our total contribution.

GREAT TV

Oxymoronic, I know.

Almost as impossible as happy marriage, Catholic university, military intelligence, liquor control board...

BUT...

In this case, it is true.

Bravo is running the original first year of "Law & Order."

Over the years, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Michael Moriarity - "Ben Stone," Rene Balcer, the show runner and Executive Producer, and the great Stephen Hill - "D.A. Adam Schiff."

They were all marvelous interviews.

The first year or two of this wonderful series was filmed in a gritty, neo-realistic style. One had the sense of being in those stuffy rooms and on those scary streets.

Moriarity, before he succumbed to demon drink and a few other of his unique peculiarities, was one of America's great, great actors.

Hill was a lesson in acting week after week.

The show has continued to be pretty darn good, but nothing as superb as those first few seasons.

Bravo, 8pm, Monday to Friday.

NEW FEATURE

Every day for the near foreseeable future, I will share with you the number of actual bicycles I have seen on the Burrard Street Bridge as I drive over it in my car.

The number is just to the right of this column.

The largest number I have ever seen since the One and a Half Million Dollar Ideological Miasm was instituted is 11.

But a friend told me yesterday that he counted 12!

Now, I don't drive over the Burrard Street Bridge every day, but most days. And I don't always drive over at rush hour, but often enough.

An important caveat:

I do not work for the government or Vision Vancouver, so my numbers may not match theirs.

But you knew that, didn't you?

COMING UP

I have been asked by one of our regular readers to talk about solutions for addictions and the DTES.

I will do that in the coming days.

Stay tuned.

MOB RULE

I appreciate that the devil is in the details.

And that President Obama's health care initiatives may be craggy and rife with almost as many problems as the ones he is trying to solve.

But...

He is trying to find health insurance coverage for almost 50 million of his fellow citizens.

And the hysteria and lies and near-violence and death threats against the President himself are astonishing to me.

Hideous and repulsive.

And the fear implied in words like "socialism" speaks so much of rank ignorance, lacking of facts and information.

This simple fact remains.

I pay $168 every three months into my publicly funded health care system.

For a great many years, I have cost that system darn little.

As I age, I cost the system more.

I see my doctor more often in his office.

I have had two heart "procedures" in the last four years.

Nobody asks for my credit card.

No insurance company argues with me about what they feel bound to pay.

Americans and Africans ( South Africa is in the midst of the identical struggle to reform their own system, which is rife with iniquity, based largely on color!) should be looking to Canada as a hopeful role model not as the devil incarnate.

FROM A FRIEND IN AMERICA

I'm afraid you've grossly underestimated the extent of the problem. While the uninsured are, of course, in deep doo doo, those of us 'lucky' enough to have "health insurance" (really just the 'illusion' of health insurance) in the US are, in some respects, even worse off.

My wife and I pay $364 a month for insurance through my job at Tulane university. For this, I receive the dubious privilege of arguing with United Healthcare about which part of which bill they may or may not bestir themselves to pay. The way it works is, I go to the doctor (first, of course, coughing up my $25 "co-pay" in front). He takes a look at me, and if that's all he does that's the end of it. If, however, he actually treats me in any manner, in about three weeks (although I have received them up to six MONTHS) I receive a calculation containing the actual cost of the procedure, minus whatever United has decided to pay. What's left is the "patient responsibility," which is mine to pay.

As near as I can tell, there is no sure way to ever determine what this will be. The insurance contract itself contains pages of meaningless, deliberatly misleading blather, all of it undecipherable, even by colleagues with degrees in higher mathematics. Their website is no help. I've even tried calling their 1-800 number while in the doctors office, only to receive an ultimate accounting wildly different (and always larger) than their representative's 'quote.' Imagine a healthcare system run along the lines of a shady used car dealership and you get the idea.

At a recent 'enrollment meeting" (don't ask) United asserted that they would now pay for a "routine colonoscopy" every five years for men over 50. After a morning spent wasted on the phone with a representative I now understand that the word "routine" means something very different in insurancespeak and that if I want fiber optics technology shoved up my ass this year I'll need to fork over $1800.

Then there's the "lifetime cap" for treatment. On most policies this is about a million dollars, which seems like a lot, until you get a load at what a couple of weeks in the ICU costs. Once you've exceeded that your family has a choice between letting the hospital kick you out on the street to die or bankrupting themselves paying out of pocket.

For a lot of people though, things never get that far due to a nifty process insurers call 'recission.' If you get sick and start costing them money, algorhythms in their computers red-flag your file and their team of adjusters go to work looking for egregious reasons to cancel your coverage; childhood asthma that you forgot to include on your original application, say, or a change in meds your doctor noted on your chart but forgot to inform you of.

Unfortunately even Obama's 'reforms' still leave private insurers in the catbird seat. The uninsured will receive government subsidies to assist them in buying private insurance (talk about "socialized medicine," only in this case the risk is socialized while the profits are privatized). The 'public option,' if it happens at all, will likely be so compromised and ineffectual that only the poorest and most disenfranchised will opt for it, reinforcing the notion that "government" can't do anything right.

I'm sad to say it, but this latest "health care reform" bill is looking more and more like a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic

FROM A FRIEND

There are 2 things that the BC Government is counting on:

1. As British Columbians , we will continue to be apathetic to the proposed HST and although we will bitch about it to our friends and neighbours, we will not do anything to stop the government from implementing this tax.

2. That we will be as stupid as the government considers the voting electorate to be and by the time the next election rolls around, we will have forgotten how the Liberals lied to us (HST was not part of their platform for the May election)

If you do not want this tax implemented in July of 2010...Please contact your MLA and the Premier's office.

SIGNING ON LINE PETITIONS IS NOT ENOUGH They must hear from individuals!

The Premier and MLA's will only take notice if they are inundated with emails, phone calls, faxes, and letters.

Find and email your MLA Http://www.leg.BC.ca/MLA/3-1-1.htm

Premiere's Office - email - premier@gov.BC.ca;

- phone 250 387-1715

- FAX 250 387-0087

- mail PO box 9041, Stn Provincial Gov't, Victoria, BC V8W 9E1

Listed below are a few of the items that you will be paying more for if the Liberals get their way and the HST is passed:

• Cable TV
• Car and home insurance
• Chiropractors, naturopath
• Golf Fees
• Gym Membership
• Gas for your car
• Hydro
• Haircuts
• Heating Fuel
• Internet
• Income Tax Prep.
• Legal Fees: for wills, P.Of A., advice, etc.
• Hockey/Football/Baseball Game Tickets
• Home purchases
• Home heating oil
• Magazine Subscription
• Movie Tickets
• Newspapers Subscription
• Pizza Delivery
• Restaurant Service
• Telephone
• Theatre Tickets
• Used Car purchases
• Vacation Travel: airline ticket and hotels
• Veterinarian
• Vitamins
• Tim Hortons Coffee

Aren't you tired of handing over your hard earned paycheck? Please email/write/fax this government and let them know that we will not be lied to anymore....and keep writing until they start to listen