GHOSTS

A hospice is a place for the dying to die in peace and dignity.

Hospices can be found world-wide. There are not nearly enough of them, but they exist everywhere.

A UBC proposal to open a 15-bed hospice run by the Order of St. John and the UBC faculty of medicine has been put on hold for the moment. A handful of Chinese residents of a near-by residential tower have protested that their cultural values are not being recognized. The residents have complained that living near the dead or dying is bad luck.

I understand.

Most of the men who died in the American Civil War died, not of gunshot or bayonet, but of disease that raced through their own camps. Similarly, towns adjacent to these military camps in both North and the South were devastated by disease.

Living near the dying could be bad luck indeed.

SOME CENTURIES AGO.

People who have come to a hospice to die are not disease carriers. Most are dying of irreversible cancers.

The University (which of late has become the Poster Child for Political Correctness - note the cancellation of the art exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology - puleeeese!) has quite rightly taken a momentary breath to calm the waters.

Thank goodness for Tung Chan, the former CEO of S.U.C.C.E.S.S., who has spoken up and pointed out that most Chinese are very supportive of hospices.

Perhaps, with the help of a conciliatory voice like Tung Chan, the good people of The Promontory highrise will relax, stop yelling "Racism!" and accept that one day they too might appreciate a quiet and loving place to go at the end of days.

STARTLING TALENT

THE BIG FIX

Happy New Year All!

Here is my announcement:

This month I am beginning a new television show.

I am partnering with SHAW TV CABLE 4 to launch a half-hour weekly public affairs show that will be broadcast on SHAW TV CABLE 4 four times each week.

We are taping the first show on Thursday, January 20th. I am not yet sure of the first air date, but, of course, I will let you know and here is the tentative schedule for the run:

Tuesdays 10:30p
Wednesdays 8:30p
Fridays 2:30p
Monday 4:30am

As for the name of the show...we hired a dozen focus groups and flew them by private jet up to a remote private fishing resort for consultation. After three intense and sleepless days and nights, we came up with...

DAVID BERNER

That's how it will be listed in your favorite media.

Here is what the show will look like and what it is about:

“Charlie Rose” style, the Host and one or two guests at a round table before a black cyclorama.

Host and guest(s) dig into the major headline story of the week and get behind the headlines to reveal the as-yet unspoken truths.

Did the Liberal government buy the silence of two felons? Is it credible that these two petty crooks acted alone?

What was the role of Patrick Kinsella, who we are led to believe was, at one and the same time, working for CN Rail, BC Rail and the premier’s office? Is this not conflict of interest?

What of Gary Collins, the Finance Minister at the time, and the boss of Dave Basi? Why did he jump to private industry, working for an airline that went bankrupt only a few months later?

Our guest, [TO BE ANNOUNCED] has been following this story from the beginning.

The show is sponsored by a number of local companies and we have reached a cross-promotional agreement with the Vancouver Courier newspaper.

I will begin posting the blog about a week before we begin the show. The show will also be posted regularly to YouTube and to this blog.

When I left radio in April '06, I really thought that I had put my broadcast days behind me. So this is great fun and I am very much looking forward to getting back on air and stirring the pot.

Hope you'll ride along with us.

Health and prosperity!

ATTENTIONE SI PREGA PASSEGERI TOURISTICA

This blog, retired on May 10, 2010, will be resurrected with new vigor in the New Year.

There is a reason.

It will support another public effort to be soon announced.

Watch this space...but not too closely...until late December when all will be revealed.

Goodbye

In the words of Rogers & Hammerstein,

"So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night

I hate to go and leave this pretty sight


So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu

Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu."

Adios, shalom, tiejen, ciao carissimi...

Except for a short period last summer when I stopped writing the blog, I have been doing this continuously for over three and a half years now.

It's been a lot of fun and I've made many new friends.

Your comments have, in the main, been delightful, insightful, welcome and on the mark.

But all things come to an end.

Last year I cancelled my Vancouver Sun subscription. This morning I canceled my Globe & Mail subscription.

May music and laughter remain constants in all our lives.

May all the politicians retire and give us back our money.

May Life be kind to you.

Thank you and good night.

In Praise of Women

Maybe we need more of them in High Office.

One woman in Ottawa and one woman in Victoria have together shown courage and leadership that is rare.

We applaud them both and look for more in the same mold.

In Ottawa, the MP's have skulked away into the night, refusing to even comment on how or why they refuse to let Auditor-General Sheila Fraser look at how they casually spend HALF A BILLION TAX DOLLARS each year on themselves.

And in Victoria, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the provincial watchdog for children has had to go to the courts to get Campbell & Co to turn over cabinet documents. She won.

But, understand that in order to do her job protecting children and youth, she had to sue Gordon Campbell and Children's Minister, Mary Polak.

Way Too Much

The Gulf Oil Spill has exceeded all imagined horrors.

A first, it was a tragedy focused on an explosion and 11 deaths.

Then it was about 40,000 gallons of oil leaking into the sea.

Then it became 200,000 gallons a day.

And now it is about an immense human disaster, eating away at wild life, the oceans, local communities, jobs, livelihoods and everything else in its wake.

It was somewhat encouraging to see President Obama being truly angry not only at BP and Halliburton and their complicit partners in this crime, but also the US office of Minerals Management Service.

While this anger and determination may be a bit of theatre and a bit of how we all feel, in the long run it may mean next to nothing.

Every weekend, the newspapers publish their biggest and no doubt most lucrative section called "Driving."

Oil is built thoroughly into our culture, our thinking, our very assumptions about how we live.

There is an old adage.

"Do not s--t where you eat."

We have, as an entire species, been ignoring this quint idea and we are running out of time and space.

Willie Nelson

I am a huge Willie Nelson fan.

Below are three classic videos that might get you onside if you are not already leading the cheers.

I don't really know much about the fellow's life or story.

What I do know is that he is in the top rank of singer's whose work is artfully artless.

Listen to this Vocal

Such ease...

Anthem

Wither The Opposition?

A regular commenter to this site raised a very good question the other day, something I've been wondering about me own true self.

Campbell blah, blah, blah...yes, fair enough.

BUT...where is the NDP?

What are they doing to take advantage of all the self-inflicted wounds that the Liberals are offering them?

Where are the rallies, the town hall meetings, the press conferences are whatever else it takes to keep the heat on the current administration?

Yes, it's the HST.

But it is also the consistent pattern of Playing All the Big Games, while letting the little people hang out to dry.

It is the heartless and cruel approach to health and education and families.

So very many thousands of British Columbians have had it with this government and yet the NDP has stayed curiously off the radar.

What the heck are they waiting for?

America may be slightly mad in the heels, but if this were Colorado or New Jersey, the Official Opposition would be on TV and radio every night, screaming bloody murder and building their voter base.

Where are the Opposition Stars? Who are the Names? Who is positioning himself or herself for leadership?

If this is excitement, I need a pill.

Wake up Little Suzy...puleeeeze.

Pay...and then pay Some More

We pay enormous amounts of money for public education.

That money is called taxes.

Taxes on practically everything, but especially school levy taxes on home ownership.

(We also pay considerably for private education, but that's another story and another argument.)

Think then about the peculiarity of this headline:

Coquitlam considers school bus user fees

School boards in the TriCities are now suggesting that parents should have to pay to get their kids to school.

Melissa Hyndes, the chair of School District 43, which covers Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody, Belcarra and Anmore, said the school trustees have ordered a report on the proposal.

Hyndes said trustees want to know how much the district could save by implementing a user-pay system. The district currently spends about $1.5 million on school buses.

Similar proposals have been considered in the past, but have never been implemented because of opposition by parents and trustees. Any new user pay system would not go into effect September 2010, but could be a possibility for 2011.

Some parents say the free service is unfair to those who pay for their own children's transit passes.

*****

This fun little announcement comes on the same day that You Know Who has declared that he will run for a fourth term as Premier in 2013.

Hey parents in the TriCities...better start saving up to buy your kid a skateboard.

Never You Mind

O.K. Now it's official.

Members of Parliament are refusing to let Auditor-General Sheila Fraser examine their expenses, saying she has no right to look at their books – and they don’t plan to give her one.

The combined Houses of Parliament spend some $500-million a year.

But your MP's and Senators feel it is not our business how they spend tax dollars on themselves.

Welcome to Feudal England.

One of the Great Albums of All Time

And someone Printed it and Sold it to her

We were sitting in the window seats of a coffee shop the other day.

A young woman, perhaps late twenties, early thirties, jaywalked across the busy street in front of us.

She did this casually.

She was wearing a bright red T-shirt.

This is what the T-shirt declared in very large bold leters:

JUST DO ME

Just do me.

Just do me?

Clearly this young woman is not working for Rape Relief.

Clearly this young woman has never heard of Rape Relief.

Possibly she's never heard of terrible things that happen to women every day of the week around the world.

Yes, even here in Supernatural.

Why aren't all of the women and at least half the men in this idiot's social circle telling her to think about what she is doing?

Is there someone who thinks this is clever or funny?

And if some madman attacked her, what would be her defense?

I was just kidding, your Honour?

He should have known that.

Just Drill Baby, Drill

Turns out it wasn't an "act of God" after all.

Seems it was that old Triple Threat: Greed, Graft & Incompetence.

Always bound to get someone dead.

In this case - the Gulf Oil Spill - 11 people died in the explosion and the oil spill is ruining coast lines, livelihoods and communities.

Between BP's rush for crude at any cost, sloppy and sleepy management of the site and corruption of government regulators, this was entirely a man made disaster waiting for the green light.

Can the likes of Gordon Campbell and Stephen Harper be trusted to approve off-shore drilling with real and secure safety measures in place?

Come on, get serious.

Life is a Trial...especially in B.C.

Six and a half years.

The other day, I found myself thinking about the Basi-Virk case.

I was struggling to remember when all of that began.

Such is the beauty of the internet.

On Dec. 28, 2003, police executed a search warrant on the legislature in Victoria and seized documents and other evidence.

I cannot help but suspect the highest reaches of the current administration from having some hand in causing all these delays in bringing this case to trial.

As the story revolves somehow around the selling of BC Rail - with a little sidebar of narcotics thrown in for good measure - one wonders who has what to hide?

But we seem to specialize in justice gone astray in this neck of the woods, do we not?

How about 25 years?

Trial date on Air India anniversary dismays families

Perjury case to be heard 25 years after terrorist attacks that killed 331 people

Inderjit Singh Reyat has been accused of lying only 27 times under oath in the original trial that acquitted B.C. residents Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri of charges of murder related to the Air India disaster.

The old saw about "Justice delayed is justice denied," seems to have been strongly out of favour in these parts for at least a quarter century.

Campbell Calculus

Here's how we compute in B.C. under the regime of The Monumental Premier.

If you are a poor parent and your children have been placed in foster care, your housing allowance is now being cut from a family rate of $570 a month to a single person’s rate of about $375.

The government will save the taxpayers $195.

Of course, if your housing allowance is now $195 less than it was last month, you may have even more trouble than usual paying for your home, which in turn reduces your chance of getting your children back and out of foster care ad its intendant costs.

Lovely.

Of course, there is no problem funding the Site C dam, the new roof for The Playpen, the new convention centre, etc...

How do Campbell, Hansen, the Housing Minister, the Minister of Children & Families and the rest of these carpetbaggers sleep at night?

Probably very well.

Because they have a personal belief system that allows them to ignore this kind of human suffering in their own back yards.

Footnote:

Many of you will now tell us that parents whose children are in foster care are loafers and bums and that they are hardly citizens at all.

Thank you very much in advance.

Merry Bloody Men

The Cannes Film Festival is in full swing and the press can't say enough about the new Russell Crow/Ridley Scott version of "Robin Hood."

The press had yet to praise or condemn the film. They are too busy gushing over the stars.

On Monday, February 8th, I posted an item about this release, called "Merry Men."

If you missed it, here it is again.