Enough Already...

You know what?

It's a beautiful day.

I've read the entire paper and .... zzzzzz....

Awards to cheesy, third-rate people, analyses of miscreants, chronicalling of the end of a dreadful presidency, gossip, and the story of the brilliant mastermind criminals who end up enjoying their ill-begotten gains in Winnipeg! Hahahaha...

I'm going for a walk.

Later, I'll meet with friends.

Then Sweetheart and I will have dinner. Tomorrow a bike ride, a movie and more dinner.

Life's a beach.

Guest Blogger eats Out and Finds Sushi Surprise!

Those of you who, like me, eat alone in restaurants will understand this story. Those who have company when they go to restaurants, will, perhaps, gain understanding.

I went to a sushi restaurant today, newspaper in hand, planning on a bit of sashimi, a beer and a relaxing read of the paper.

I sat at the very end of the bar, next to the wall, taking as little space as possible, as those who dine alone do. We leave the tables for couples and families because we realize that we are like the wounded gazelle at the waterhole. We dare not take too much space.

After settling, I was approached by a charming server who suggested I might want to move to a table, since meals were served over the bar, near to my location. I never, ever, disrespect servers, so I pointed out to her that since there was a stool there, I assumed I could sit there. I added that since I was alone, I didn't want to take a table. She charmingly agreed.

I hadn't made it to page 3 before her boss, a brick-faced, middle-aged Japanese women asked me if I was ready to order. I replied that I would sip my beer and read for a few minutes and then order. She returned every two minutes to bark her question, before I got to page five.

Feeling that I was in the way, I ordered. While waiting, the sushi dishes began being passed over my head to servers. When I first selected my corner stool, the dishes were passed two stools away. Now the plates were skimming my skull. Clearly some kind of statement.

Brickface returned and suggested that I might be more comfortable on the patio. Compared to having herring eggs dropped in my curly hair, it sounded like a good idea.

I went out to the patio. The charming server carried my plate. I resumed reading my paper when the husband of Brickface came to my table. Mr. Brickface informed me that I could not sit on the patio since I had ordered beer with my food ( my beer was untouched inside). They asked me to move again. I moved to a small table inside. They brought my now-limp sashimi and my warm beer. By now I was so nervous, I opened the paper and knocked over the beer. Brickface hissed and wiped the table. Nervous and confused, I left my meal and went home. I tipped Brickface. Hey, I'm a Catholic. We search for guilt.

So here is my message to restaurants. The lonely people are loyal customers. We tip better. We bring friends to places where we have been treated well.

While I was bumped from table to table I saw couples blabbering for an hour, long after they had eaten.

If I had a restaurant I would have a sign that said " You will never eat alone here, you will eat with friends".

This is for all the lonely people, as the song says.

Le Boulivardier

( although the boulevards aren't as friendly anymore) Homage to Springsteen.)

Harper Politics at its Lowest

Tales of skulduggery in local political circles surface as often as used condoms at the neighbourhood creek bed.

Barbara Yaffe writes in this morning's Vancouver Sun about such carryings-on in Vancouver Quadra's Conservative camp. A long standing party faithful works diligently to secure a nomination only to see the hand writing blazoned on the schoolhouse wall : Get out! Stop it! We have our own hand picked, Harper-sanctioned candidate.

In the article, Yaffe names John Reynolds as the Key Meddler, and she is right.

Mr. Reynolds is now one of the great back room dealers and he apparently loves every cloak-and-dagger moment behind the curtains. Reynolds sweeps across all levels of politics these days - federal, provincial and municipal, swooping down from his national aerie several days a week to advise The Nutty Mayor on a range of subjects about which they both remain blissfully ignorant, but highly opinionated.

But Reynolds is hardly alone. He works in concert these days with some of the slimiest, amoral operatives we've seen in a long time. These are low level mandarins who, having failed at getting or keeping any honorable jobs in life, now find themselves at the Lunch tables of the World. Their salaries and cholesterol levels are climbing, as is their low self-esteem and new regard.

Good luck to them all.

At long Last ...again...

My reprinting of the National Post's editorial burying "harm reduction" as the hateful scourge that it has always been gained several excellent comments - even days after the item appeared on the blog.

Here is the article and the comments. Rummage around...add a comment your own true self.

paul mccartney - sgt.pepper's lonely hearts club band (1993)

yesterday

Der Go da Judge!

The USA's Supreme Court is favoring corporate America over The Little Guy or Gal. Lovely.

Read about it here.

Sports Reporting at its Best

Sports "reporting" is a questionable activity at the best of times.

Can you say "filler," boys and girls?

But two items in the NY Times this morning pretty well define the issue.

In one, we learn that brain concussions can lead to depression. DUH!

In another, we are asked to consider the age-old question that has baffled philosophers for centuries: Was the Randy Moss trade to the Patriots a Bad Move for the Patriots? Double DUH!

Just what Tom Brady and the Patriots need - a hot-shot, fungo-mouthed, totally selfish, boy-child dingaling.

Now where are the Big Golf Questions? And how many California Angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Bravissimo! And pass the dice...

The President and CEO of the BC Lottery Corporation is Vic Poleschuk.

The Corporation is under serious fire for mismanagement, since it's been revealed that ticket sellers win more often and more money than you and I.

Mr. P. will not resign.

Mr. P.was recently awarded the "lifetime achievement" award by the Public Gaming Research Institute, an entity which magically resists being Googled. In other words, where and what is it exactly? Something Vic's mom made up in the back yard next to the lemonade stand?

Great Scott

We're keeping our Scott Young survey up for another day or two.

First, the good mayor of Port Coquitlam is now about to "finish off" his miraculous 45 day rehab. Get him into Ripley's asap.

Second, one respondant to our survey, added in the "other" category, that the good mayor is now "The Queen of De Nile."

More! More!

Etta, Chaka and Gladys - Ain't Nobody Business

Not to mention B.B. King, with whom I once spent about 3 hours for an interview in a North vancouver Hotel room. There was one amazing guy!

AT LAST! AT LONG, BLOODY LAST!

'Harm reduction' doesn't work

Editorial: National Post
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Last week, it was announced that the Conservative government will soon unveil a new national anti-drug strategy. The plan is said to feature a get-tough approach to illegal drugs, including a crackdown on grow-ops and drug gangs. And while it will also (wisely) include tens of millions for rehabilitation of addicts and for a national drug prevention campaign, it is said to retreat from safe-injection sites and other fashionable "harm-reduction" strategies introduced by the previous Liberal government.

To which we say: Good. This editorial column has long urged a softening of drug policy on marijuana and other non-addictive recreational substances. But heroin and similarly addictive drugs are a different story. Moreover, safe injection sites don't work. And they send the wrong message, too, promoting disrespect for the rule of law by having government facilitating the consumption of illegal substances.

Safe-injection sites (SIS)-- typically inner-city facilities where addicts may go to shoot up with clean needles under the watchful eye of medical specialists --are often said to work wonders. Benefits claimed on behalf of Insite, Canada's one and only SIS in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside since 2003, include reduced needle sharing, reduced spread of deadly diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, fewer needles discarded in surrounding neighbourhoods and fewer addicts overdosing in alleys. Lives have been saved, advocates claim, the "well-being of drug users improved," and all without increased street dealing around Insite.

Too bad most of the proof to back these positive claims come from SIS proponents or the academics who devise harm-reduction theories. Police here, and in Europe (where they have lots of experience with SISs) tell a very different tale.

When Insite applied to have its three-year licence renewed last fall, the RCMP told Health Canada it had "concerns regarding any initiative that lowers the perceived risks associated with drug use. There is considerable evidence to show that, when the perceived risks associated to drug use decreases, there is a corresponding increase in number of people using drugs."
That has certainly been the case in Europe. Currently there are more than three dozen major European cities on record against SISs. Most have had such facilities and closed them because they found that drug problems increased, not decreased.

After an injection site was opened in Rotterdam in the early 1990s, the municipal council reported a doubling of the number of 15- to 19-year-olds addicted to heroine or cocaine. Over the 1990s, the Dutch Criminal Intelligence Service reported a 25% increase in drug-related gun murders and robberies in neighbourhoods housing one of that country's 50 official methadone clinics or addict shelters. Zurich closed its infamous needle park in 1992, after the police and citizenry became fed up with public urination and defecation, prostitution, open sex, panhandling, drug peddling, loud fights and violent crimes.

Since word of the Tories' new strategy began to leak out of Ottawa, the well-meaning people who work at Insite have stepped up their campaign to save their facility, which Ottawa has said must close this fall. We sympathize with these supporters. No doubt, they have genuine concern for their charges, who are troubled souls caught in a downward spiral of abuse, crime, disease and pain.

But as much as we admire the good intentions behind SISs, drug consumption is the wrong business for government to be in. A government that funds safe havens for injecting illegal drugs on one hand will quickly find it is working against its efforts to reduce drug dealing on the other.

© National Post 2007

School Daze, Part LCMVCCM

You can always count on school boards from Das Hinterlandt (Chilliwak-Mission-Abbortsford) to do the ugly thing.

The latest is to punish a child for a political argument the board is having with the boy's mother.

Kids are all going on a field trip to The Big Smoke. Highlights will include the Museum of Anthropology, the planetarium and the aquarium. That's 3 good ums in our book.

But mom refuses to pay the fee. She has the money, but it's a belief thing, a political principal.

Fine, OK. So duke it out with Mom already and leave the kid alone.

No, that would be too Solomonic, too sensible. Instead, let's make the little kid's life a misery, boot him off the bus and get back at Mom that way.

I've heard of hiding behind mother's skirts, but hiding behind Johnny's sneakers?

Thus, we have added to our list of oxymorons (Catholic University, happy marriage, military intelligence, Liquor Control Board) this: "Chilliwack Education."

Guest Blogger takes on The Nutty Mayor

Remember Chauncey Gardner. He was the simple minded soul played magnificently by Peter Sellers in the movie "Being There" from a book of the same name.

Chauncey, a humble gardener, accidently became a national celebrity and seer by mumbling such inanities as " We have Spring and Fall, then we have Winter, then it is Spring again". Politicians and journalists would rapturously probe the deep meanings of Chauncey's pronouncements. It was a splendid satire on celebrity, politics and media.

Chauncey lives here in Vancouver.

His name is Sam Sullivan.

His most banal pronouncements on drugs, city planning and economics, that range from simplistic to outright stupid to dangerous, are reverently reported by a fawning media. It proves the old adage that states " media are like puppies, excitable, poorly trained and they suck up to authority".

But whereas Chauncey was an innocent ingenue, Sullivan is a sinister, bitter man. His delusional theories and pathologically inflated ego will leave a legacy of pain on this city. His blatant attempts to turn the Mayor's office into a presidency ( State of the City Address my royal purple ass) goes unchallenged by most of the media.

As Truman once said of a political rival " He's a stupid man, but he's not a nice stupid man".

The Boulevardier

Whose Cousin Owns the Biometrics Lab?

A dentist I used to visit had a sign on the front desk. The sign said,

"PLEASE LEAVE A DEPOSIT."

I told the receptionist that we had a wonderful dog, Ralph, a Samoyed, and that the next time I came in, I'd be happy to bring Ralph, who was always so accommodating. He'd leave a deposit, alright.

This Life Peak Experience comes to mind when I read in the morning paper that soon we will have to carry DNA, biometrics or "other biological identifiers" to go shopping in Bellingham.

My response to this highly effective and sensible new initiative from America's Homeland Security Toy Factory is that I would be happy to DUMP SOME DNA IN THEIR LAPS.

I now join the millions of Western democrats world-wide who mutter into our beer, "The terrorists are winning..."

While grannies and academics and sports teams are having their eyes poked out by cheesy, ineffective laser beams at airports and bus depots along the Canada and Mexico borders, real, actual, lunatic, madmen terrorists are quietly embedded in local culture, eating Royales, watching ball games and waiting for their moment to explode.

Whose cousin owns the biometrics franchise? Is it a Carlyle Group subsidiary? Halliburton? Cheney's nephew?

Survey Said...

The Sunday Survey will now to removed; but, oddly enough, it will re-emerge with different content, next Sunday. Our respondents were consistent: 25% said Sunday is best for making love; 25% said it was best for making lazy circles in the sky and 50% said it was great for everything.

Our DOPE survey will stay on the blog (to your right) for a few more days. Take it - you'll like it!

John Legend - PDA live at Royal Albert Hall

We're going to see John Legend this evening at The Centre, so I thought a little preview wouldn't hoit...

Good News First

The doctor prescribed two medications.

I paid the Safeway pharmacy $93.36 for the two, took them home, read the patient info sheets and was sufficiently horrified. The list of possible side effects, which went on for pages, included losing your dick and being trapped in a small cell with Ryan Seacrest for the rest of your life.

I went back to the doctor.

He agreed that this treatment was optional.

I went back to the Safeway pharmacy. They agreed that they could take the medications back because I hadn't opened either of the packages and the pills were all secured in blister packs.

Did I have the bill?

Mysteriously, I did not. Where the hell was it? I tore the house apart. No luck.

Meanwhile Louise, the head Pharmacist at Safeway, had already assured me that even if I couldn't find my bill, she would re-imburse me. How kind and generous is that!!!

Yesterday I went into the doctor's office and asked the nurse/receptionist if she had found the bill. She got my file and searched for it. No luck.

I was maybe 20 feet along the street when the nurse came flying out after me.

"Mr. Berner, Mr. Berner. I found it!"

Thus, the story ends well. Money returned, bill on hand for verification.

But much praise and thanks to both the nurse for her diligence and especially to Louise at Safeway for resolving this tiny, human problem so graciously.

Emperor's Clothes

How can we take the new "Green" initiatives seriously when everything in the marketplace denies the need?

Example.

This morning's paper comes with an 8-page, 4-color, high-gloss flyer from Chrysler.

I counted 28 vehicles on display. Not one of these monstrosities is a compact or hybrid or fuel efficient machine. They are all huge, gas-guzzling, polluting muscle trucks, SUVs and the like.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Clearly we don't believe for a moment in the necessity of conservation and sustainability.

The preacher at the pulpit is drinking and fornicating in the back room. Not news, I realize.

The New Mothers

An idiot leaves her baby alone in a parked car in Kits and goes shopping. Ditz in Kits.

Firefighters arrive and the woman is "warned" by the police.

Why not charge her with criminal negligence? Because we don't want to fill up our jails? Because we don't want to deprive the child of such a caring, thoughtful parent?

Last summer, I was in the middle of exactly this situation.

Spotting an infant alone in a van, I called 911.

About 5 minutes later, as I waited for the police, the "mother" stepped out of a tanning salon. When the police arrived, one officer stood with me and one with the lovely mother. Apparently, the officer with the mother thought I was as funny as the mother did. Apparently, I was a busy-body old fool minding other people's business. Apparently, leaving an infant alone in a van is a sit-com. Who knew?

How is this any different from the cardiologist and his G.P. wife who left their 3 children under the age of 4 to go have a quiet romantic dinner while on vacation in Portugal?

Why not just dump your babies face-down in public toilets? That's being done too, so it must be alright.