Will that be 10D?

Remember Eaton's?

Remember Woodwards?

I'm a son and grandson of retailers and it's in my blood. I'm always fascinated by stories from the street.

Here's a great one about one of the most famous shoe brands in the world - making a healthy comeback.

The Age of Migration

Immigration problems are as ubiquitous as ants. They exist worldwide.

Here is a telling article in this morning's NY Times.

As we struggle with identical issues here in Canada and in the USA, it is instructive to read about "The Age of Migration."

RUNNING ON EMPTY - Mobile Safe sites

Do we have a "mobile" cardiac unit (other than your basic ambulance) operating in BC?

Do we have "mobile" osteoporosis, arthritis, cancer, emphysema, depression, erectile dysfunction units screeching through the streets? Are they going so fast I haven;t noticed them? Do they only run at night?

I ask these questions in light of the fact that the mayor of Victoria, that bastion of Social Enlightenment, wants the federal government to approve 3 new "safe injection" sites, one of which will be "mobile."

In other words, kids, some horribly mistaken volunteers and social workers will be in a Honda minivan, dashing to help a poor, deprived addict of his right to a clean needle and a clean place to get high. What is worse is that these poor fuckers (I mean the social workers and volunteers) will actually believe that they are doing something good and useful, when, in fact, they will be killers and enablers and no different form the pushers.

How did we get so far down this dark, confused path? When did we abandon the idea of HOPE?

The Selfish, Secretive Mayor

Only those who don't truly know and understand the vengeful teenager who is known as Sam Sullivan are "puzzled" that The Nutty Mayor is trying to patent the word "ecodensity" for himself.

Sullivan holds about 50 patents for one thing or another. He has been applying for and registering patents by the score in the "disability" field for many years now.

Unlike my good friend and neighbour, Jim Foort, who has done more for prosthetics and amputees than almost anyone else alive these days, and who has NEVER taken out a patent for himself, Mayor Sam has always been all about Sam.

No mayor in living memory has operated so privately and so outside the boundaries of City Hall as Sullivan.

He is basically a new fiefdom, The County of Sam.

May we all survive it.

My New Diet

Please join me in a revolutionary new diet plan.

My friend Michael and I invented it.

It's called "FAT CREDITS."

How it works is this: I am paying a family in Pakistan to not eat for me.

One robust friend who has leaped (well, more like lumbered) onto the bandwagon, says that he is now paying 3 families in an un-named South American country to not eat for him.

Our good friend, Nelson Skalbania, is looking into the possibilities of an early stock offering.

AIR INDIA "ANNIVERSARY"

Twenty-two years later, what do we have? What do we know?

The failure of the justice system to close this case compounds the tragedy into an ongoing disgrace and horrow show.

One can barely imagine the tortuous pain being endured by family members directly affected. But, as Canadians, outraged by this disaster and its never-ending costs, we can be justifiably sad and angry on their and our behalf.

Blah, Blah, Blah: 10 to 1

Talk Radio in America is All (to the) Right.

The numbers tell the story.

Tolerance and Offense: The Western Dilemma

Women covered from head to toe are a)an expression of religious freedom; b)an ourageous throwback to barabric days?

Read this story in today's NY Times about daily life in London and try to solve this Gordian knot.

Remember Right & Wrong?

June 21, 2007

No more crack kits for Nanaimo

By CP

NANAIMO, B.C. -- The Vancouver Island Health Authority says threats against community health nurses in Nanaimo have forced suspension of a controversial harm reduction program.
Health Authority CEO Howard Waldner says residents were harassing nurses who were handing out "safer crack kits."

Waldner says distribution of the kits has been paused while the health authority meets with municipal officials in Nanaimo.

More than 200 of the kits, which contain a crack pipe and other information, have been handed out in the Vancouver Island city, despite concern about the program raised by Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan.

He called distribution of the kits "immoral" when he learned of the program in late May.

But Waldner defended the program, saying it is a widely accepted strategy to reduce infection rates among addicts.

And what about washing the drunks' shot glasses for them? And cleaning up the children for the perverts? And hand washing the Hondas for the car thieves?

We must do everything we can to aid and abet stupidity and self-destruction.

The Nanaimo mayor is completely right when he calls the handing out of "safe" crack kits immoral. It is so sick.

Pea and Shell Games

There is only one thing to remember about the disruption and loss of business along Cambie Street as a result of the Canada Line construction.

Everyone was told that the construction would be done by underground tunneling.

Surprise!

The cut-and-cover method, which has caused all this hardship, was brought in without announcement or provision for the small businesses that would inevitably be affected.

What callous disregard for citizens!

When I see the smiling politicians beaming at the cameras on ribbon-cutting day, I will kick the cat. If I have a cat. Which I wont. Maybe I'll kick the sofa.

Air India

Two Air India witnesses have already been assassinated. Now 2 more refuse to testify because we cannot protect them.

This case continues to be a disgrace.

Fatal Arguments

Is "I mean what I say," the same as "I say what I mean?"

If all sparrows are birds, does that mean that all birds are sparrows?

When is a raven like a writing desk?

At least two of these questions come from Alice in Wonderland. Or is it Alice through the Looking Glass?

Does "I support the troops," mean the same as "I support the war?"

Absolutely not.

But politicians of all stripes use this confusion to their temporary and specious advantage, and citizens regularly confuse the two arguments.

Of course, every Canadian can and should be proud of Canadian soldiers doing their jobs as best they can in Afghanistan. Why do we have to keep reiterating that this should go without saying?

But that doesn't in any way mean that we condone or approve of or agree with sending Canadian soldiers to Afghanistan in the first place. Nor do we think our men and women should remain there another day.

The country is a narcotic economy run by thugs and crooks and serious evil-doers.

What will a handful of sacrificing, sacrificed Canadian soldiers do there? Bother the Taliban? I think not.

To truly honour the Canadian military, bring them home for a rest. Then is need be send them to some theatre where they can actually help and win. Remember winning?

Why the Greens are Going Nowhere Fast

For reasons that are as mysterious as the human mind itself, I found myself thinking this morning about how I almost ran for the Green Party several years ago.

When I say "almost," I mean one cup of coffee and one backyard meeting. Finito.

A lawyer, active in the Greens, asked a lawyer friend of mine to recommend a candidate.

The Green lawyer and I met over coffee. Of course, in this life one is usually flattered when asked to do almost anything. "Clean out the elephant pen? Wow! Thanks!"

A few nights later, I walked over to a house just 5 minutes from mine. On the back porch, amidst baying dogs and scrambling children, we future masters of the universe huddled. It took me several minutes to appreciate that this was an "interview" and that I was the "interviewee."

When "the committee" asked me about the Downtown East Side, I spoke, among other things, about "dope fiends."

And that was just about that.

The lawyer who had drafted me in the first place said, "I'm not comfortable with the way you speak about things." He was referring to my calling heroin addicts "dope fiends."

I said, "Well, dope fiends shoot dope. Drunks drink. Baby diddlers diddle babies. What's the problem?"

The problem is that the New Masters of the Universe, who will never get in office, are completely doctrinaire. You not only have to agree with them in general principle, but you have to look and walk and talk and smell like them as well.

In short, you have to BE one of them. If you are not, they are not "comfortable." (As soon as I hear someone say in a meeting that they are not "comfortable" with somethingorother, I get out my hatchet.)

I left the meeting soon thereafter, and walking back home I thought, "Well, these people drafted me because I am a Talk Show Host and I can talk my face off and I have the Gift of the Gab and I can sway audiences, but they don't like the way I talk and I should talk more like them. HUH?"

My lawyer friend who had recommended me in the first place was furious. "Who are these assholes?" etc...

I was too happy and relieved to be angry.

Everyone is Green Today

What are we to do when one of the world's biggest polluters buys full page ads to tell us how GREEN they really are?

Barf? Laugh? Cry?

GM has given itself a Gold Award for a modest program in whch they reccycle old cars. Yippee!

Has anyone noticed the gas-guzzling, polluting shit-kickers these folks turn out on a daily basis?

Boys, puleeeeze...

Your Kid's Shrink is Your Kid's Biggest Danger

This is news?

94% of child psychiatrists are creepy, evil drug pimps. Duh!

Is there someone who didn't know that kid shrinks have been licensed dope dealers for Big Pharma for years now?

Yes, there are two people: parents and the press, who keep announcing this as if nobody had ever noticed before.

The level of prescription medicines being enlisted for social and emotional problems of children as young as 3 soared in the past 2 decades, and the reason is simple - Big Pharma went on The Big Push. And all the little pea-brained, immoral, amoral Baby Shrinks bought into The Plan.

A Tale of Two Cities

From a circle of concerned and INFORMED citizens:

Dubai:

Today, we find that a Canadian anti-narcotics official, who was at work in Afghanistan on alternatives to poppy cultivation has been convicted of drug possession and sentenced to four years in prison. He had several dried poppy flowers and 0.6 grams of hashish (which he claims in another article was trace elements found on his clothes from working in areas rife with drug problems). (http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=06af35e1-2a4a-4a24-a973-8a1a8a2af218&k=17994)

Vancouver:

Earlier this year, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask acquitted a member of the Hells Angels on a cocaine trafficking charge. Glen Jonathon Hehn was found not guilty, even though he had about 1.5 million dollars of cocaine in his locker. Leask dismissed the idea that it was Hehn's, "... he'd have had to have been out of his f. . .in' mind to store it in his own locker, all right? I mean, that's for sure he wouldn't do that. Let's not spend any time on that theory." Later, Leask apologized FOR HIS USE OF PROFANITY.

The score:

a half dozen dried poppy flowers and an aspirin-sized amount of hashish worth about $4: four years hard time in Dubai.

$1.5 million in cocaine or upwards of 20 kilos: an apology from a BC judge.

Cecilia Bartoli - Agitata da due venti

From the ridiculous (escaped murderer cons cop) to the sublime Cecilia sings Vivaldi

Smooth-talking escapee evades police

The story of escaped murderer, Richard McNair, is well told in the New Yorker magazine of Oct. 9, 2006. A complete transcript of this unbelievable AND TRUE video is included. The officer is interviewing a murdere, who has just escaped from a super-hyper-maximunm security prison.

Johnny Reb Takes the Road

And, of course, I forgot to mention the latest from Johnny Reb, the All-Canadian dufus.

All over the world, people drive through and around traffic circles without confusion.

In Vancouver, the Adolescent Community, people, truck drivers and even police (!) simply ignore the signs and the traditions and common sense and turn left because THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO DO, SO WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM EH?

Pit Bull Rules

Why?

Because we are a nation of snarling, rule-breaking, adolescent, self-absorbed pit bulls.

All of the letters to the editor in today's Sun were concerned with dogs in the city. Dogs poop, nobody cleans up, dogs off leash and so on. All of which is true, no doubt. And I always said if you want to get the lines ringing on a radio show, just say the word "dogs" and you're in business for the next 3 hours.

But "the dog problem" is merely symptomatic of a social order (if the weltshmertz in which we swim can be so described) in which nobody behaves about anything.

I walk on a certain lovely "walking path" on average once a week. (My other daily walks are usually in my neighbourhood, on sidewalks.) This path is clearly designated with ample signage as a NO BICYCLES walking path. I encounter, on average, 3 bicycles per 30 minute walk. Not bad. Only one threat to my physical safety every 10 minutes. Hey, I'm a ranger; I can handle it.

No cars in Vancouver use turn signals. I drive a 14-year old Mazda, so I'm not up on the latest models, but it has been my firm belief for many years now that cars sold in Canada do not come equipped with turn signals. Or how else to explain their non-use when that is the law?

People now walk against red lights all the time.

Cell phones and flashing cameras are standard fare at concerts, in spite of the threats by ushers that the offending toys will be confiscated. I'm not talking here about teenagers. I'm talking about 40 year old men and women.

You think the cell phone in the car is a danger and a nuisance? Haven't you noticed the latest terror?

It's the cell phone pedestrian crossing the street, not looking for an instant at the traffic he/she is stopping.

The Me Generation is alive and well. It is an unruly, self-involved unlovely petty criminal. And like the pit bull it should be put down.

But, what can you do? Eh?