IMDb Video: Vantage Point

IMDb Video: Vantage Point

Feminism Stops at the Border - The Israeli Border

Feminism has its limits.

Here's the headline from Friday's edition of America's oldest Jewish newspaper, The Forward:

"Pro-Israel Ad Rejected by Ms. Magazine"

Ms. mag, by the way, bills itself as "more than a magazine - a movement."

Is that a set-up for some bad humour, or what?

Read the story here.

Cambie De-Construction Drove a Hole Through Democracy

What follows below is a letter from Susan Heyes, outraged Cambie Street merchant, to the Sun's Vaughn Palmer after his column yesterday on Campbell's lead in the polls:

Hi Vaughn

The validity of polls in BC are no different than the poll results that wereproclaimed in IOWA. Out by a country mile once the disengaged masses get outto vote. Further to this, as one observer put it "the very voting systemitself is tainted. Both pre-election and exit polls in New Hampshire hadObama ahead of Clinton by the same margin as his Iowa win. Diebold held thecasting vote in that state, as they and their similarly neocon-owned sistercompany ESS will accross most of the country in November".No one asked the many here who no longer have a land line what they think ofthe current climate of political arrogance. The twenty somethings are wakingup from their studies and stupor - and what is happening in the states isinfecting the attitudes up here. Hopefully, momentum will keep growing andmore people will take a stand for what is right, and show their support forthose who choose to do the right thing.

I have had first hand experience with just how hard this is to do, when theodds are so stacked against us. It is little wonder I keep hearing suchcynicism and despair from the merchants and have had a collective shrug fromthe powers that be. The bullies seem to be getting a free pass. Well, enoughis enough.

You left out the Cambie Crisis in your long list of political malfeasance.

Province of BC small business friendly? HA! This is a perfect example ofDisaster Capitalism at a local level. This abuse of power will stick, and Iwill do everything I can to see that it does.

I have worked hard to build up my previously successful life's work, and nowwith my recent year end tally, I've lost half a million dollars since late2005, and risk having to sell my home. My Lease is up in November, rightaround when I'll be taking this case to court. LOUDLY.

The hardship was preventable and is on-going - many stores losses have morethan doubled since the CFIB did its report at the end of the summer. Theripple effect with staff and suppliers has changed the lives of hundreds ifnot thousands of people. The refusal of financial help is despicable. Thearea will be compromised for years to come with steady demolition, and thediscussion of the Broadway line will fan these flames.It is a tragic state of affairs that the unconsciounable behaviour of ourelected officials is considered in any way acceptable according to thesepolls. It is not. The 'divide and conquer' strategy worked for the longesttime - especially on Cambie with the business association - but not anymore. The climate is to unite, not to divide. With any luck, and we sure ashell need it, CHANGE will be the mantra here as well.

Regards

Susan

Al-Qaeda plotted to kill the Queen

From news.com.au, the Australian web news service, comes this alarming story.

OOPS...FORGOT TO POST FRIDAY'S PROVINCE COLUMN

David Berner

The Province

Friday, January 11, 2008

B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor will not run for the mayor's chair in Vancouver. So who will save us from Sam Sullivan?

Sullivan has adopted a curious attitude in office. It goes something like this: You folks at city hall, you're all fine people, so carry on and take care of the fort, I have more important things to do.

Sullivan has raised a lot of private money, and has surrounded himself with cardinals by the score. In particular, federal Conservative Party hacks whisper in his ear night and day.

What Sullivan has shown consistently is a great unwillingness to be concerned with the normal affairs of business at 12th and Cambie.

During the garbage strike, it was common knowledge that it was impossible for ordinary citizens to get anything done that required city attention.

Work of any kind had ground to a standstill.
Long after that mismanaged affair was settled, developers with multimillion dollar projects were kept waiting for hours on meetings that never took place.

So who wants to take up the challenge of fighting a man who has boasted that he likes to get his opponent down and then step on his throat?

Who is capable?

COPE Coun. David Cadman or NPA Coun. Peter Ladner?

Neither man has the power base in politics, business or the community.

The NPA's Suzanne Anton?

Too much of a lightweight.

Vision and COPE, the two parties in opposition to the ruling NPA, have strangled one another by their petty infighting. So who?

Gregor Robertson is a name that keeps bubbling to the surface as a possible mayoralty candidate.

Robertson, the founder of Happy Planet Juice, is the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview. He is young, handsome and accomplished not just in business, but in a fashionably green business.

Can he waltz into the job the way a Carole Taylor might have?

Hardly. He is bright, but not well polished.

I moderated a panel recently, and Robertson, a keynote speaker, sat next to me. There were too many hums and haws, too many broad generalizations for a generation swimming in the information age. Today's electorate demand specifics.

That doesn't mean that Robertson cannot grow into the challenge, if he chooses to more fully acquaint himself with the issues. If he fine-tunes his presentation skills and if he can find the support to build a groundswell, he might become a formidable candidate.

Elections can be curious adventures, especially in the fanciful city of Vancouver. Perhaps before November, another golden contender will emerge.

What is certain is that we don't need a red-nosed clown or an egocentric feudal lord, plotting in dark corners.

We want a mayor who understands the mechanics of city hall, the role of governance and the pleasure of being an ambassador for the people and its institutions.

Hospital Failure Kills Child

The cover story in this morning's Province is a shocker.

A baby has died of pneumonia after a visit to Surrey Hospital, in which the examining doctor DID NO EXAMINATION.

There are so many things wrong with this nightmare.

The child was checked in a 3:30pm and didn't see a Dr. until 5:30pm.

The so-called physician did no examination of the child's chest, lungs, throat or ears.

It is not the nurse's job to do a physical exam, only to take vital signs. Why? Why not? When will we start allowing nurses to do these kinds of simple procedures that might free doctors up?

It is common folk wisdom that one of the most dangerous places on earth is a hospital.

This is not only a tragedy. It is sickening. Read the story here.

The Skies Aren't Big Enough

A Victoria area man gets increasingly drunk on a flight to Miami. He slaps a woman on her ass and then gets into a fight with two male flight attendants.

The plane drops out of the sky, pausing at Denver, just long enough for this idiot to be handcuffed. He's in jail, and may be remain there for a good long time. I'm sure that becoming some drug dealer's roomie and bitch will enlighten him.

Air travel has become as appealing as root canal dentistry and CRA audits.

ON a recent flight to San Francisco, I paid the extra $29US for a "United Plus" seat. Meaning my knees were not in the grasp-yourself Yoga position.

Nevertheless, the ADHD jumping jacks kid sitting next to me sniffled for 2 hours and 20 minutes. His highly unusual laptop was no doubt a secret NASA issue and he is, I'm sure, on covert missions as we speak.

On the flight heading to California, the guy sitting next to me coughed 10 times, loudly in my ear, before take-off. In the first half hour of actual flight, he coughed another 20 times.

The stewardess, whose ass I did not slap, gave me a "United Plus" seat for no additional charge.

So what? I was holed up with a cold for the next week. Thanks, Mr. Cougher.

We stand in endless lines to check in, to go through customs, to take off our shoes, to have our water bottles chucked. All to combat terrorists.

And then you get on a plane, and a drunk terrorizes everyone?

No. This is high treason. Plane travel has become bad enough without turning it into a Prince George blues bar.

Keep Russel Petrie, formerly of Cobble Hill, in a Denver lockup indefinitely, or at least until he is willing to buy a car from that pigeon-toed Broncos quarterback who now owns every dealership in Colorado.

Huckabee, My New Hero

Mike Huckabee, evangelical, Southern Baptist minister, Governor of Arkansas, hater of homos and abortions, has accidentally become my new hero.

Look at the the way this morning's NY Times describes his current "unintended consequences":

"Mike Huckabee’s candidacy threatens to divide the leaders of the conservative Christian movement and their base."

WoW!

Captain Simple may do what so many of us has been yearning for - he may accidentally accomplish a separation of church and state. He may destroy the very base from which he operates.

Good on him.

Read the comedy here.

Get Bush Out of My Schul

I have had the strangest and most visceral reaction to a minor news story this morning.

The sight of George Bush wearing a yarmulke and laying a wreath at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, makes me sick to my stomach.

One would think I would be honored that the President of the United States is in tears while adding his tributes to the murdered Jews of 60 years ago.

But, I am not honored.

The skull cap is not a piece of costumery. The Yad Vashem is not a "foto op."

To any man or woman of conscience, this is a place of profound sorrow and holiness.

There is nothing of Mr. Bush that could be described as profound, except perhaps his complete lack of understand about most things human.

It was further reported that, flying back the America, Bush got into a discussion with Condaleezza Rice about why the US hadn't bombed Auschwitz.

He desecrates almost anything he nears.

Now, I can hear one of my favorite Rabbis disagreeing with me.

He would say, "I believe that it is always a good to expose any one to the realities and to let them see and remember what happened."

"Yes, I understand," I would argue, "but my opinion of Bush is so low, I believe him to be so false a construct, so inauthentic a person, such a force for bad in the world that he doesn't deserve the honor of this visit."

I know, I am not as good a person as my Rabbi. That's why I am me and he is my Rabbi.

Maybe If I had learned years later that Bush had gone to the memorial quietly and without fanfare, perhaps secretly, I could have thought more of him.

But to me, Bush is not just Bush. He is Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Blackwater-Iraq-No Health Insurance for Children...

I can't see this puppet without his masters and his misdeeds.

I don't want him pretending to be Jew-For-A-Day.

I don't want him at all.

November can't come soon enough.

Homes for Homeless, Tratment for Addicts

Daphne Bramham was written one of the best and most comprehensive editorials I've ever read on the subject of the DTES.

Her conclusions about the neglect of all levels of government, while searching for a silver bullet solution, echoes exactly the conversation I had with a labour leader over lunch on Friday.

"What are the answers?" he asked.

I told him that the anwers are homes for the homeless and treatment for the addicted.

I explained that the Federal government, through CMHC, had stopped providing any real funding for housing almost 30 years ago. Put CMHC and the federal purs back into the game and housing could be built for so many homeless.

Treatment by fellow addicts and not by expensive and ignorant doctors could be up and running today at reasonable costs - less than $35,000/year/bed.

Read Bramham's column. It's spot on.

Forget the iPOd

Unbelievable, but true.

The big hit at the big consumer's electronics show in Las Vegas this week is a combination MP3 player and TAZER.

If only we were joking.

Read the story here.

Won't riding public transit be real special now?

A COP SCRUTINIZES HARM REDUCTION

John McKay, a long serving Vancouver Police Officer, wrote this analysis in 2005:

THE FOUR PILLARS RE-EXAMINED

The Four Pillars approach to drug addiction (prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction) is a social experiment developed in Vancouver, promoted worldwide by our former mayor, and hailed as a great success by its proponents. As a police officer working on the Downtown Eastside of this city for the past 4 years, I have had the opportunity to observe this strategy first hand and see beyond the theoretical Four Pillars model to the actual results of its implementation.

The Downtown Eastside, one of Canada’s economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, is a 12 block area including a population afflicted with unusually high rates of drug addiction and mental illness. There are 130 social service agencies concentrated in this relatively small section of Vancouver which also has a disproportionate share of the city’s social and assisted housing complexes. Among the services available to drug using residents are free distribution of needles (more than 3 million are provided to addicts annually), drug cooking kits, and North America’s first safe injection site.

The philosophy underlying the current situation in the Downtown Eastside is, in theory, the “Four Pillars”. In practice however, the Harm Reduction pillar has been embraced and supported to a far greater degree than the Treatment, Prevention and Enforcement components of the strategy. It is interesting to note that harm reduction is the least expensive pillar to fund and the most supportive of drug use. Harm reduction measures enable drug use and the implementation of this ‘pillar’ through multiple initiatives has given Vancouver’s addicts a sense of entitlement.

The aim of Vancouver’s Safe Injection Site is to provide addicts with a safe place to use drugs where there is access to immediate medical attention if they overdose. In fact, the police officers who work in the DTES 24/7 have observed that most street drug use takes place in alleys just a short walk away from the SIS.

Unlimited free needle distribution is intended to reduce the spread of HIV and other diseases. The unintended consequences of this harm reduction initiative are the thousands of uncapped used syringes that addicts discard in parks and on neighbourhood streets. Because there is no longer a 1 for 1 exchange, users have no motivation to return the needles for proper disposal. Harm reduction for one group causes harm promotion for the rest of our city’s residents. The drugs injected in the SIS are usually paid for by the criminal activities of addicts who are responsible for most of the property crime plaguing Vancouver’s residents and visitors.

Many of the agencies promoting harm reduction are run by earnest, well-intentioned individuals whose objective is to keep addicts alive until they get treatment. Although this is an admirable goal, many harm reduction initiatives damage rather than help the addicts they target. Harm reduction on its own not only can’t help addicts get out of the pit of addiction, it actually digs the pit deeper and wider. On balance, many aspects of harm reduction can actually harm both addicts and non-using members of our communities.

To get a clear focus on the Four Pillar strategy we need to look at it from a broader perspective and examine how such an approach would be applied to illegal activities other than drugs. Effective existing strategies to deal with many criminal activities include prevention, treatment and enforcement. Harm reduction is usually one element included in all of these 3 “pillars.” It is illuminating to overlay the Four Pillar template on non-drug related crimes and observe the role of prevention, treatment and enforcement. This exercise reveals the flawed logic on which our City’s embrace of harm reduction is based.

If we place the Four Pillars template over other crimes, the roles of prevention, treatment and enforcement become clear. In the case of domestic violence [spousal assault], prevention includes violence recognition training and education about the availability of shelters, transition houses and legal protection. Enforcement policies for domestic assault exist in every province and treatment can be mandated for people convicted of spousal assault. These 3 pillars are already in place for domestic violence and all other crimes that society has deemed merit fines and imprisonment.

What then would be the 4th pillar? Harm reduction for domestic violence might mean that the batterer would wear boxing gloves when assaulting his spouse. Boxing gloves would, of course, reduce harm to the victim. Perhaps a ‘Safe Spousal Beating Site’ could provide immediate medical attention for the victims of domestic assault.

To extend the analogy we could consider harm reduction applied in a ‘safe impaired driving zone’ or a ‘safe burglary zone’. These concepts are ludicrous but the extension to a ‘safe rape site’, a ‘safe pedophilia site’ or a ‘safe assault site’ are as chilling as they are inconceivable. The answers to these offenses are Prevention, Enforcement, and Treatment. Harm reduction as a tool in these cases simply does not work. Nor is it a panacea for Vancouver’s drug problems. `

It is my belief that the 4 Pillars approach has placed the cart before the horse. There is no doubt that for effective solutions we must focus on prevention, treatment and enforcement. Harm reduction cannot stand alone. It is already included in the first 3 pillars and its value depends on its connection to prevention, enforcement or treatment. Those elements of harm reduction that are not congruent with prevention, treatment and enforcement should be seen for what they are: pro-drug initiatives which will lead to legalization. If successful, these initiatives will be detrimental to a safe and secure society. As a police officer, I have offered this perspective on the Four Pillars Approach so that citizens and their elected leaders can include it when they are considering the effects of drug addiction on our communities.

Salmon Janet Evening

I strolled along Robson St. Today, past the Art Gallery, one of our few period architectural treasures. I gazed on the former skating rink, where the Premier plans to put his giant clam shell.

No doubt, when Premier Clambell produced this pearl of an idea, he was eating shellfish in a restaurant and it suddenly popped out, to the rapturous applause of his ever-applauding, 30 something entourage. One of them perhaps wiped the oyster drool from his chin and put the napkin on Ebay.

But Robson St. is no place for the Clambell shell. It's like hanging furry dice from the mirror of a Bentley.

It's a dumb bell idea.

David Berner on Vancouver's Misguided Drug Policy (Part 1)

What follows below are 4 videos, each running about 9 or 10 minutes. Together, they constitute a speech I gave last week to the Rotary Club, Arbutus branch. This is a speech I have now given to many similar groups.

I cannot thank enough our friend, Robert Werner, who so diligently recorded this event and transferred it to YouTube and DVD.

Soon, these videos will all be avalable as well under the "Addictions Expert" section of www.davidberner.com.

David Berner on Vancouver's Misguided Drug Policy (Part 2)

David Berner on Vancouver's Misguided Drug Policy (Part 3)

David Berner on Vancouver's Misguided Drug Policy (Part 4)

Shocker - Your New Energy Saving Light Bulb will Cost More

Our electricity, in spite of winter storms and blackouts, is abundant and relatively cheap.

But learning that ordinary households are to pay more while corporations have practically been gifted the resource is a bit much.

Singh in Sanctuary

The most tiresome tale of Laibar Singh and his famous deportation order is one of social, political and cultural blackmail.

Hiding an illegal immigrant in a house of worship to claim sanctuary and blocking the road and door are detestable acts.

A man leaves his 5 children in another country and lies his way into ours. When discovered, he is ordered by our soveriegn nation to return to his place of origin.

The fact that he caught a cold or had a heart attack is moot.

The Sikh community who are rallying behind this man might be better served if they rallied behind someone who honors both them and Canada.

Wrong horse, wrong time, wrong fight.

Alex Tsakumis on Carole & Sam in Today's 24 Hours

WHAT NOW?

By Alex Tsakumis'

Rebel With A Clause'

In the aftermath of Carole Taylor's announcement that she will not run for Mayor of Vancouver exists the most compelling evidence that Sam Sullivan isn't simply in deep, dark trouble.There has never been a greater collective deflation of spirit than when Ms. Taylor said that she'll pursue other matters. The one person who would have been 'the natural' at doing the job that has been desecrated further since Larry trotted off to the luxury of the Red Chamber, will not be the one to polish Vancouver's badly tarnished star. Instead, Ms. Taylor will blend her time between familial bliss and corporate challenge.Consequently, Sam Sullivan would do well to look skyward (or is that downward?) and thank whatever or whomever it is that he believes in this week, because had Ms. Taylor run, he and his cabal of resume-advancement lapdogs and yesteryear has-beens would have all been out of work A Taylor run would have certainly helped a couple of Tory operatives working out of the local minister's regional office with their (tax-paid) time management (read: juggling) of federal duties and shilling for Sammy. Then again, every single major position either of the Mayor's personal campaign or that of the NPA is occupied by a prominent member of the Conservative Party. Two of three of his campaign co-chairs are simply window dressing: Mr. Sullivan shamelessly panders to the Asian Community and the meandering 'green movement'. The third co-chair, of course, is, you guessed correctly, another prominent Conservative. Liberals have bolted, en masse, from the NPA bailiwick for the less stormy climes of Vision Vancouver, and rightly so.The viciousness, with which some of the Mayor's local Tory pals were referring to Ms. Taylor in the last month, is surely a contributor to her abrupt withdrawal, too. I received one of those calls myself over the holidays. “Alex, we've got so much s-t on your girlfriend … she's the worst Chair the CBC ever had” (Note to reader: I've never dated Ms. Taylor). Besides, alleging that Carole Taylor was a lousy CBC Chair, is akin to referring to Jesus Christ as a failed carpenter.The Mayor's people know how bad his fortunes are and they will stop at almost nothing to get him re-elected, including tearing someone down - personally. I witnessed this last election, first-hand. The political muskets, loaded with immaterial personal tales about Jim Green, were at the ready. It was sickening.Is it any wonder why Ms. Taylor seemed so willing to save us three weeks ago and now seems repulsed, as we are, by the politics of division and nastiness that the Mayor's team lives for?We could once disagree with one another, politically, without being disagreeable. This notion is what Mr. Sullivan has torn from the heart of this city.Ergo, leaving Vancouverites with a sizable problem: having made abundantly clear how much they would abhor another three years of Sullivan nothingness, what now?