Follow the Money

1. David Ebner has written an excellent piece in today's ROB about the BC economy. The story is very detailed and worthy of a good, slow read. But the highlights are relatively simple. We have depended on real estate and consumer spending, while ignoring at our peril, exports. Our trade deficits are enormous.

What does this say to you about any real sense of planning and foresight and vision Gordon Campbell may have had for our economy?

What, if anything, have they been doing, besides riding the crests of various illusionary waves, about stimulating and encouraging productivity and exports of finished goods?

2. There was a small but telling story in the news today:

Ottawa spent $1.5-million on empty rooms at summit

More than half of hotel budget was spent on rooms that remained empty

Read the story and then ponder how this is but a microchasm (no, you spelling freaks, that is not a typo) of all governments all the time everywhere.

Multiply that million and a half by the days of the week and the months of the year and you will begin to get a glimpse into how your tax dollars are misspent with dedicated regularity.

If you have never gone to Victoria or Ottawa for even a day, you cannot rightly call yourself an informed citizen.

You must wander the halls and talk to the folks who "work" there - that is, between team meetings and lunch and coffee breaks and cycling. You have to add up all the copy machines and shredders and telephones and all the relocations and leather couches.

The Teen in All of Us

I'm not usually caught up with cars.

I drive a 16 year old Mazda.

But...

The other day a friend joined us for dinner.

He is 21.

He brought over his new Shelby.

Yikes!

500 horsepower.

Open the hood and the engine looks like something NASA would build.

I don't want it. I don't need it.

But having driven in it, I get it. Wow!

Home, Arthur...and make your best time

Make drivers pay up: transit report

Road tolls, higher vehicle fees and even increases to insurance are among commissioner's recommendations

The key to this story lies in the fact revealed very near the end.

Vancouver has lower overall use of its system than Toronto and Montreal, so revenue from riders doesn't cover as much of the operating cost – one reason the Vancouver system has to be subsidized so heavily by taxes.

Let's keep this simple.

When Transclunk makes riding its toys a reasonable, safe and pleasant experience, I'll be there.

You make people pay to get on your little cabooses and stop letting addicts and drunks on for free on the laughable "honor system" and have enough security to allow for some civil behaviour on your buses, and I'll be there.

Until then, you can tax and toll and fee me till you're blue.

I'm going to stick with my barely polluting 1993 450 km-to-the-tank Mazda 3 and count the six bicycles going over the Burrard Bridge any day.

Alternatives

A commenter raises an interesting point.

Responding to yesterday's post, "Elected on Lie$," he tells us that whenever criticism of Campbell's Liberals breaks out at a social gathering, he always manages to close the discussion with the question, "Who would you vote for then? Carole James."

Game, set and match.

Well, my answer would be "Yes. For sure. Carole James."

Because even though I don't think she's the greatest political leader in recorded history and even though I know that she must be beholden to someone, I don't think of her as a creepy, lying crook with a stone cold heart who will rob milk from children's breasts at any opportunity to build something new made of cement.

ELECTED ON LIE$

The current Liberal governement was elected on a lie.

The $495 Million deficit they announced at election time was easily in the Billions.

They knew it and perhaps some of you knew it. Now we all now it.

But, as Gary Mason points out in his column today, nobody really cares.

"In the spring of this year, the Liberals campaigned on budget numbers that were complete fiction. And now we know that even they knew it.

Does any of this matter? Does anyone care, other than reporters and political junkies? I'm not sure. But I believe we all should care because it speaks to the integrity and honesty of our politicians. And the day we stop caring about whether they are being truthful and forthright with us is the day we take a huge step back as a society."

Corruption is in Column A

The biggest businesses in the world are Armaments, Oil, Illegal Drugs and Pharmaceuticals.

With that much cash flowing, there's bound to be skulduggery at every level.

Big Pharma, one of my favorite whipping posts, has been caught again. Good.

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3-billion (U.S.) civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday. This is the largest criminal fine in American history.

No sweat.

This is the fourth such settlement with Pfizer in 10 years. Clearly the company simply views these inconveniences as a part of doing business.

The fines come from, among other detestable activities, providing doctors with free golf, massages and resort junkets. This is what we call bribes.

Know in the comfort of your barcolounger that your doctor has been giving you medicines based on how much he has enjoyed his recent escape to St. Lucia.

Play this story against the background of President Obama struggling to provide 50 million of his fellow citizens with health insurance that they don't have and that they will never have if the Republican scare-mongers and Fox News gets its way.

RACISM SPELLED OUT - Again

I have written several times in recent days about the racism apparent in the sleepy response by Canadian governments and police forces to the disappearance of over 500 aboriginal women nation-wide.

I have suggested several times that if 500 white women were similarly "disappeared," the country would be on permanent uproar mode.

Andre Picard, writing in this morning's Globe asks exactly the same questions I have asked, only better.

"Let's be blunt. The main reason an in-depth investigation is required is that the situation reeks of racism, stereotyping and discrimination. There seems to be a deadly double standard at play."

"The life expectancy of an aboriginal is a decade less than a non-aboriginal in Canada. The rate of infant mortality is three times higher. The suicide rate is six times higher. Aboriginal people have a rate of diabetes and heart disease three times the national average, and dramatically higher rates of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS and H1N1 influenza."

And very much more.

Please read the entire column.

It is a sad and honest revelation of the continuing inequities in our country.

The Arts Review

1. The BC government has reversed its dreadful decision to withhold monies already promised to arts groups. It will now fund the over 500 large and small organizations it already said it would. That's real nice of them to stick to their promises.

2. The Toronto International Film Festival runs something called a City to City program. This year they chose to focus - How dare they? Who do they think they are? - on Tel Aviv.

That would be your Tel Aviv by the sea in that "apartheid regime" known and hated around the world as Israel.

Among the many vocal protesters to this monstrosity are Naomi Klein, Jane Fonda, and Danny Glover.

These deep thinkers allege, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that this is part of a Bran Israel propaganda machinery.

The ugly truth is that the protests are part of a Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Driving You Crazy

The dreadful incident of road rage that resulted in a cyclist's death and the shame and possible end-of-career for an Ontario political star is telling in a hundred ways.

The cyclist was drinking. He had no helmet. He has a small criminal record. he comes from a family with criminal records.

The politician is a driven Type-A Master of the Universe privileged egotist. He was driving the wrong way down a street.

The roads are too small.

Everyone is in a hurry.

Everyone is in their own movie.

If I don't know you, you are not really a real person. You basically don't exist.

I don't know of a law or a public measure that will make the increasingly horrid act of driving in the city any better.

Civility is gone.

Yesterday...

Yesterday, I was entering a traffic circle at Nelson and Jervis. Of course, we live in the only city in the world where people either don't know how to use a traffic circle or they willfully choose to ignore the rules.

I was entering a traffic circle...

A woman was attempting to cross Nelson Street. She was wheeling her baby in a stroller.

I stopped to make sure she could get across safely.

Of course, the Master of the Universe in the black Porsche couldn't have that.

He drove over the zebra lines, directly in front of the baby stroller and when he found my car not moving, he did what any self-respecting sociopath would do, he honked his musical horn many times.

How do I know there is a God?

Because more people aren't killed.

Including the ones who aught to be.

Settle Down, NItwits

If those idiots in federal politics bring down upon our heads a fall election, it will be the fourth in six years.

In a recession.

We need to spend about $500 Million on changing from one ego-centric duffus to another?

I tell you what, Iggy.

How about you and Steve sit down over a Reuben and a cup of chamomile tea and agree to spend that money on something useful like health or education or music or sport or roads.

Harper may or may not be every one's favorite picture of evil these days, but what exactly does Iggy have to offer other than his personal ambition?

What?

He's a nice guy?

He can read?

Slap me with a wet fish

Culture 'no longer a priority,' B.C. arts groups say

Really?

When was it?

THE SILVER BULLET SYNDROME

Everyone wants a Silver Bullet.

The holders of the Silver Bullet Lifetime Achievers Award are, of course, drug addicts and alcoholics.

They live and die by a belief system in which a small dusting of inert white powder or a beer will basically be sufficient, thanks, for all their needs.

We call that encapsulation.

The Runner-Up, however, in this world wide event are perennially Doctors and shrinks and government who find addicts and drunks just so darn pesky that well, it would be so nice if we could just find some QUICK answer.

For the addict, the Silver Bullet is the heroin or crack cocaine or gin.

For the government/shrink.doctor, the Silver Bullet is free needles, free crack pipe kits, free heroin, methadone, pills, places to shoot up and funding for your drug users association.

These quick fixes involve little work, ZERO HUMANITY, and the hope is that these annoying bastards, who are not like us at all, Margaret, will just be quiet for a minute and stop whining and for sure stop breaking into the condo or the Prius.

Today is yet another shining smiley day in the lifeblood of The Silver Bullet Saga.

Witness:

"Landmark B.C. study lets trauma sufferers find relief with ecstasy

Vancouver therapists get green light to use drug in trial to treat post-traumatic stress"

Hahahaha...until I weep.

These sickos just won't stop, will they?

Today's cocktail is X.

Hate to be a party pooper, kids. But let's get real.

Post-traumatic stress is no Sunday picnic. It can in the fullness of time be overcome. But what is needed is ... wait we already said it... Time. And support and friendship and an ear and conversation and walking and swimming and air.

In other words, PTSD requires exactly what addicts require.

It's an old-fashioned concept, folks.

It's called WORK.

But governments and shrinks and doctors, exactly like their addict and PTSD patients, don't want to do the WORK.

They want a Silver Bullet.

Jonathan, who WORKS at a residential treatment centre where people WORK their way out of their misery, adds this:

I was once diagnosed with PTSD...do I still qualify?? Sheesh.

Well, if you keep people dependent, you control them. If you keep them dependent on drugs, they are presumably not as much trouble due to the fact that they become quite predictable...all they want is their next fix.

Creating an addiction that provides a predictable outcome is an easy way of looking socially responsible while assuaging the guilt associated with doing nothing and caring even less. Are they creating an addiction? Sure they are. Instead of spending time with a person and helping them overcome their trauma in a healthy manner, they give them a drug to feel better. And feel better they will...for a time. Unfortunately, instead of learning productive and healthy coping methods, many will continue to seek out the manufactured (illegitimate) good feelings provided by the local doctor/pharmacist of a professional or street professional variety.

For some reason it seems we believe we can manufacture happiness and connectedness, instead of realizing it is actually cultivated over long periods – often a lifetime.

Jonathan

This latest "announcement" is static noise. It is destructive, silly nonsense and should be ignored by all reasonable and compassionate people.

It is a resident evil and should be summarily smacked down into the dirt where it belongs.

What They Value

The withdrawal of promised funds from BC Lotto to many, many local arts groups is a double and triple slap up side of the head.

Lotto monies are basically theft. They are a tax on the poor and the stupid and the hopeful. I qualify as I pre-buy a 649 ticket on the Internet perpetually. It costs me $4 a week, or the cost of a double cappuccino with skim milk, please.

More than $150 million is promised annually to symphonies and children's' festivals.

The monies that are now being withheld had already been promised and, in most cases, spent or committed because of that promise. Nice.

The government tells you that yes, you are getting your $47,622.51, so you go ahead and book the hall and have the posters printed, because hey, it's the government and they said so.

Oops! We were just kidding.

No money.

But the deepest cut of all is this.

This scurrilous behaviour speaks to Victoria's values.

In short, (aside from promises are NOT US) it tell us that roads and Olympic Games are important but music and paint and dance are not.

These are just frills, extras that can be indulged when times are good.

This isn't even good archeology, let alone sociology or psychology. It demonstrates a colossal ignorance of the human condition.

We have been painting on the walls and dancing around the fire since time began.

You colorless, soulless, stupid mismanagers.

As We Were Saying...

Sun Aug 30, 10:46 AM

Top of Form

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain agreed to include Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi in a prisoner transfer deal with Libya because of "overwhelming interests" shortly before an oil deal was sealed with Tripoli, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Sunday Times said leaked letters from Justice Secretary Jack Straw undermined government denials of a link between the former Libyan agent's freedom and British trade interests.

Megrahi, 57, was released from jail on August 20 after Scottish authorities said his terminal cancer gave compassionate grounds for him to return home to die.

The British government has distanced itself from the decision, made by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, which has angered many relatives of the bombing's victims and the United States government, which lost 189 citizens.

Megrahi was the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people. His rapturous reception in Tripoli has been criticized by the British and U.S. governments.

The Sunday Times said two letters from Straw, dated five months apart, showed he reversed an original plan to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement that was being discussed with Libya.

The paper said the change of heart appeared to be linked to a stalled $900 million oil and gas exploration deal with Libya for British oil giant BP that was ratified a few weeks later.

BP has always denied any link between the deal and the prisoner agreement.

Straw wrote to MacAskill in July 2007 to say he favored excluding Megrahi from the prisoner transfer, an arrangement desired by the Scottish administration which has autonomous powers over most criminal matters.

But by December 2007 he told MacAskill his position had changed.

"The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and, in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed that in this instance the (prisoner transfer agreement) should be in the standard form and not mention any individual," the Sunday Times quoted Straw as writing.

Straw told BBC radio the alleged link between trade and Megrahi's release was an "absurd confection."

"The suggestion that at any stage there was some kind of backdoor deal done over Mr Megrahi's transfer because of trade is simply untrue," he said

The negotiations on prisoner transfers were part of a "normalization process" with Libya, he said.

London had made clear to Tripoli that Scotland would retain an absolute right to refuse a prisoner transfer, he added,

Straw said the issue was "academic" given that Scotland eventually released Megrahi on compassionate grounds and not under the transfer agreement.

(Reporting by Tim Castle; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

RACISM SPELLED OUT

Sometimes I take short cuts in my writing. I assume that everyone will make the leap with me from one thought to another without my stating the obvious step in between.

This is a mistake on my part. It is bad writing.

Twice in recent days I have spoken here about "racism" in the heartbreaking instances of missing aboriginal women in BC and Manitoba and all across Canada.

The racism which I am suggesting is NOT in the selection by lunatics and murderers of aboriginal women as victims, although that may in fact be an issue.

I am referring to the sluggish reaction of the police.

Let me be clear.

If 20 young blond white women were abducted or murdered or gone missing from Vancouver's west side, all bloody hell would break loose.

One woman was tragically murdered here in recent months and 75 police officers were assigned to the case.

Nobody begrudges the dedicated and thorough response that this shocking incident enjoyed.

But it does point up a dreadful double standard.

Three years before Robert Picton was even suspected of anything, three years before the police launched the final concerted effort that would end at Picton's farm, I had an aboriginal woman and a female Vancouver police officer on my radio show. We were talking about the native woman's missing sister. We were all suggesting that there was an awful pattern here, that some serious investigating needed to begin.

Both the woman and her sister had lived in my house with my wife and son and their two brothers many years ago when I was running a treatment centre. They were all children at the time, the children of a very wonderful woman who had spent many horrible years drunk.

Some of those children developed into citizens as adults. But one of the girls ended up on the street - a prostitute and addict.

While officials ignored the obvious, more women disappeared. They were murdered.

We are encouraged to learn from history.

But the Highway of Tears shows that we have not.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

But investigation delayed is murder.

And racism.

YOU CAN'T COME IN MY HOUSE

My recent employer of record, Langara College, is in the soup.

That's OK. Getting in the news is good for them.

The College offers many course in the so-called "Alternative Healing Arts and Practices."

Do you know anyone who has died from shiatsu, touch therapy, massage or music?

Maybe once a year somewhere on this bouncing ball we call Earth a frightened soul runs off to some ashram or other to find a "better" way to deal with cancer and makes an early exit.

But who has just about the biggest Territorial Imperative known to humankind?

The medical profession, of course.

So now the BC Medical Association, which represents doctors, is criticizing Vancouver's Langara College for training the public in therapies that are "medically useless" and potentially harmful.

Hahaha...

Isn't one of the primary dedications of medical practice "Do No Harm?"

Can the BCMA claim as clean a track record as the many happy (possibly deluded) people who practice these sundry and colorful voodoos?

Hasn't it been demonstrated over and over again that if you believe a treatment is helping you, then it often does.

The study of "energy healing" and like courses is very much in demand. So is the practice. Patients are lining up at store fronts everywhere to partake. Herbal medicines sell in the billions of dollars world-wide.

That doesn't make it right or good science, but show me the person whose toe has fallen off after acupuncture.

The BCMA desperately needs to take a Big Pill and mind its own business.

Water Fight

$2.49 for 24 bottles of water?

Yes, kids, that's the going price in some American discount stores. Even national brands such as Aquafina are flying off the shelves for a song.

The love of bottled water is disappearing fast, as cities and other governments are cancelling their contracts and encouraging employees to drink from the tap.

Well, at least we won't have to watch one-day stubbled CEO's carrying their ubiquitous bottles to press conferences.

I still have giant bottles of water delivered to my house every month. Some of my friends point to this idiosyncrasy as one of the many signs of my oddness. So be it.

I have bottled water in the car and I take bottled water to the tennis court.

I recycle the bottles.

Am I poisoning myself? Am I poisoning the famous environment?

Search me.

And pass the bottle, will ya?

This comment deserves ttention

David,

This comment relates to both of your files today. First, a little disclosure on my part. 30-odd years ago while still living in Winnipeg we adopted our second child, a boy born to a teenage aboriginal mother. We were aware that there were complications during the delivery, a result of a lack of any prenatal care by the mother, but not until many years later did we discover that the mother had a lengthy history of alcohol abuse.

The combination of these factors resulted in years of frustration for our son and ourselves. Eventually, a diagnosis of ADD confirmed our worst fears. To make a long story short, a biography of our son would read like that of many young delinquents. In the 70's there was little help available for children like our son and today he still struggles with his addictive behaviour, but is finally making attempts at recovery.

While today it is commonplace to see ads warning women about the danger of drinking during a pregnancy, not that long ago the effects of alcohol and drugs on a fetus were not well understood. As I now understand it, the first trimester is particularly important in the brain development of a fetus. Impulse control, general intellectual development, and a tendency toward addictive behaviour seem to be a lifelong legacy of maternal substance use, not only substance abuse.

I firmly believe that the societal cost of this legacy is staggering, not only in financial terms but in the human misery and suffering associated with it. A national problem like this requires multiple interventions. But one that I have long believed would be worth considering is a voluntary prenatal programme that would provide financial incentives for women who abstain from alcohol and drugs during their pregnancy. Such an endeavour might even include residential supports of various kinds to enable some women to escape toxic social environments.

I realize that there are many public health initiatives intended to deal with this problem, but to the best of my knowledge, there is not a programme which offers women (particularly women with limited financial resources) financial incentives to protect their unborn children. Money talks.

Finally, the national tragedy of so many murdered and missing aboriginal women does speak to the frightening presence of murderous men in our society. While racial explanations might explain some of this phenomenon, it seems to me that substance abuse and poverty in all its forms may also be a major factor. How can we tolerate child poverty to the extent that we do in BC and elsewhere and not expect tragic consequences. As the automotive ads so clearly put it, "Pay me now or pay me later".

Dave C.

Race - It's Murderous

18 young women missing from Kerrisdale.

Imagine such a headline.

The world such as we know it would go mad.

But 18 young women have been missing or determined to be homicides near Prince George for many years now. All but one is/was aboriginal.

Only now, the RCMP have a serious suspect. His name is Leyland Switzer and everyone who knows him had him as "the guy" years ago.

Today the RCMP and their dogs are sniffing around the property and digging up old wells that smell of oil fires.

No doubt in the fullness of bureaucratic time, Switzer's name will join Picton's and others in the Gallery of Monstrous Ghouls.

But as I reported here the other day, 75 aboriginal women missing in Manitoba, over 500 in Canada.

Is there a quiet and bland and uninterested racism in Canada in the year 2009?

Yes.

The Aboriginal File

There must be something in the air.

Only yesterday, writing about the extraordinary number of aboriginal women who are "missing" across Canada, I mentioned Northern BC's infamous Highway of Tears.

Today, we learn that a huge contingent of RCMP has appeared in the vicinity of Prince George, with a special interest in a local property. Conjecture is that this is directly related to the disappearance of a young woman from the area in 2002.

There is much more to this nasty story and we should all follow it closely.

In a related item, the Winnipeg Free Press reported yesterday that the Chief of the Norway House Cree Nation has proposed by-laws that demand that residents involved in illegal or destructive behaviour either seek treatment or get out.

This is a most welcome instance of Canadian aboriginals seizing the day, showing real pride in themselves and fighting for positive change.

The official response?

INAC (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada) has said that the group has no jurisdiction over such matters and their local bylaws will be meaningless and unenforceable.

On the other hand...

This week I am visiting the St. Norbert and Selkirk, Manitoba installations of the Behavioural Health Foundation, Canada's oldest, first and foremost residential treatment centre for addicts, alcoholics and others.

The resident clients of these facilities, old and young, are eighty per cent aboriginal.

It is a truly beautiful thing to behold.

Over one hundred kindred soul working together, maintaining sobriety and building for the future.

Why people feel they have to go to Italy or further afield to study the Therapeutic Community model is mystifying when it has been operating here so successfully in Winnipeg for so many years now.

Full disclosure.

I was the founder of this program forty years ago in Vancouver.

I retired from this work in 1976.

To see how the next generations have hauled this idea so much further up the mountain is inspiring.

The more programs like this are welcomed and funded, the fewer Highways of Tears.