The Worst Editorial Ever Written

In all the many years I have been reading newspapers, I have never, never ever, read a more wrong-headed, stupid, colossally appalling editorial as that in the Sun today.

This is the Heading:

Closing down Insite will bring out the angel of death

But the reality is that Insite IS the Angel of Death.

99.9% of all Canadian citizens detest this local atrocity and understand what a dreadfully mistaken and deadly public policy it pursues.

It is only most of the politicians and the pseudo-scientists and the academics and those invested heavily in continuing failure who continue to defend the idiocy that is safe injection sites.

Scotland, faced with exactly and precisely the same problems, has woken up. In May, Scottish Parliament declared that all of their harm reduction strategies were failures and that they were now going to invest entirely in treatment.

The photograph that accompanies this worst of all editorials ever written shows The Three Wise Men signing the documents that gave birth to Insite. Honorable men, each and every one.

Rumor hasn it that one of these men is an alcoholic. We don't know that to be true. But if it is, we can understand an addict who hasn't yet faced up to his own problems happily endorsing anything that enables.

The other two are politicians. A sprinkling of pseudo-facts here, an opinion from some well-spoken murderer there, and they're off and running.

Imagine Insite being your legacy. How do they sleep at night?

Here's my legacy.

Forty years after we started it, our treatment centre is still running in Manitoba, still helping hundreds of addicts get clean and sober and stay that way.

I'm proud of our work. I feel honored that I was a part of it.

I cannot imagine for a nano-second leading an addict to a place to shoot drugs.

Fortunately, not all politicians are cut from the same cloth.

Health Minister Tony Clement is being ridiculed and personally attacked for expressing what most of you already know and believe - safe injection sites don't' help. Treatment helps.

Mr. Harper has been quietly doing a reasonable enough job as Prime Minister. He isn't in my face every morning, as Chretien was for far too many years. Yet, how quickly the silly class out here in Point Grey are quick to condemn hium because he isn't a Liberal. How quickly they forget and rush to bring back the most corrupt government in Canadian history.

Help Mr. Clement to have the courage to act on his understanding. Email him words of encouragement. He is on the right track.

Canada, Get Out

No soldier should be sent on a third combat tour, except under the most compelling circumstances of need and crisis.

This speaks to a depleted force and very bad planning.

To make matters worse, for a young Canadian with a young family to die, as Master Corporal Erin Doyle of Kamloops did yesterday, fighting a useless war in the drug economy known as Afghanistan is both tragic and obscene.

What will any of us remember of this idiotic conflict years from now? What gain will these senseless deaths have brought?

Canada, get out.

Campus of Care

There is a small story in this morning's Province that speaks volumes about so-called nursing homes or senior citizen's homes.

A man dies and days later the staff call his family to ask what they should do with his bicycle. No one had called to say he was in hospital for two weeks.

The staff and the hospital are pointing fingers at each other saying it was the other guy's responsibility to behave like a caring human being with common sense.

Read the story and then multiply by about 100,000.

In my experience, too many of these institutions have a culture that is lacking in common sense or common decency.

As soon as you hear the staff telling you how much they care about their residents, book a flight for Tierra del Fuego.

The War Under Cover of the Circus

In Georgia today, people are asking, "Where is the Untied States? Where is NATO?"

Well, we know where Bush and Putin are. They're at the games in Beijing.

A war has been declared and people are being killed and not many people seem to be noticing.

Here is one NY Times report, if you can drag yourself away from archery or beach volleyball.

And here is another.

Real Music Will Do This To You

My family never had to work at being Jewish.

That is what we were.

Thus, I don't think I heard the self-conscious kvetching of klezmer music, with its store bought gaiety and off-the-rack minor key sadness, until I was in my 30's or 40's.

The house I grew up in - my grandparent's house in North Winnipeg - was filled with music.

But none was ethno-centrically Jewish.

It was the music of Beethoven and Ravel, Gershwin and Leiber & Stoller.

There were Hebrew texts and Yiddish short stories, no doubt, but there was an ample supply of Joyce and John O'Hara and Somerset Maughm.

Usually when I listen to music, I have no apparent thoughts. I am happily hearing the music itself.

But last night, at a wonderful concert by the Leipzig String Quartet - part of Festival Vancouver at the Chan - my mind wandered back a mere 60 years.

The players were playing Mendelsshon, most beautifully.

Maybe I had heard this piece somewhere long ago. I don't know.

But I had certainly heard this kind of moment many times before.

Intricate melodies and rhythms, now powered, now delicate.

I curled a little lower in my seat, leaning a little closer to my friend. I was at home.

Home.

No Doubt there is Some Explanation for This

In case you might have thought that evil has disappeared in the world or that it always shows bared teeth, witness the horrifying and astonishing story of food supplies in Sudan.

The NY Times chronicles this morning a tale of a country receiving tons of free food, growing billions of dollars of its own food for export (including to feed camels in nearby countries) and starving its own masses in Darfur.

No doubt this is all done with the customary well-tailed diplomacy that shields inhumanity everywhere and in all times.

Chet Baker

Have They No Shame?

Apparently not.

Almost doubling the salaries of deputy ministers in the BC government seems a reasonable and appropriate action for Mr. Campbell.

Except that he tried to sneak this offense in under the cover of the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

Well, it isn't reasonable or appropriate to most of us.

Most glaring of all is the listed salary of one Leslie du Toit. She is the deputy children's minister. Her salary last year - and now about to climb considerably - is $234, 180.

This is a ministry that is utterly dysfunctional.

It is a department that is outright dangerous in its disregard for suffering children.

This is the ministry that, using the most sophist benchmarks unimaginable, is eager to cut off support for children who may have an IQ of 71 and therefore be way too smart for support.

Jim Sinclair points out that we have the lowest minimum wage in the country and that number has been on ice for over seven years.

Mike Farnworth says, "I don't know what planet the premier's living on, but it's not the one that the rest of us are. At a time when we're being hit by carbon gas-tax increases, high ferry cost increases, higher fuel increases, tolls on bridges, increased housing costs -- the premier's deputy gets an $105,000 increase? I'm supremely ticked off."

August 6 and August 9, 1945

Hiroshima.

Nagasaki.

Enough said.

One of the Great Show Biz Moments - Larry Parks as Jolson

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Light Rail Guy has left a new comment on your post "Bus service may be halved: TransLink":

Here are some facts that may further contribute to the TransLink fiasco.

- Expo Line rebuild + 10 km. extension in Surrey - $3 billion.

- Cost of SkyTrain to build - almost $200 million a km.

- Cost of Véléz Malaga (Spain) new LRT - $7 million a km.

- Cost of Canada Line subway - $2.5 billion+

- Capacity of Canada line subway as built - 15,000 persons per hour per direction.

- Cost of LRT on Arbutus Corridor - $20 million to $25 million a km.

- Capacity of LRT on Arbutus Corridor - 20,000 persons per hour per direction.

- Capacity promised with the SkyTrain Expo Line - 30,000 pphpd

- Capacity by contract, Millennium Line - 26,000

- Capacity of Expo Line, delivered - under 15,000 pphpd.

- Maximum capacity achieved by Hong Kong's Tuen Mun (at-grade) LRT - 25,000 pphpd.

- Estimated cost of a Vancouver to Steveston LRT (using the Arbutus Corridor) - $800 million.

- Operational costs of SkyTrain is about twice of that of LRT.

- Lifespan of LRT line before refurbishment 30 to 50 years.

- Lifespan of SkyTrain line before refurbishment - about 30 years.

Cities operating LRT - over 600

Cities operating SkyTrain - 5

It seems SkyTrain and its very high costs are strangling TransLink, yet we build more!

Bus service may be halved: TransLink

Apropos of my Transit post this morning, try this:



Frank Luba
The Province


Thursday, August 07, 2008


Looming cuts at TransLink are a big concern for bus drivers' union boss Don
MacLeod.

"It's always the bus service they go to first," said MacLeod, president of
Local 111 of the Canadian Auto Workers.

"We make all these commitments and promises but we have no money to support
it," he said of TransLink plans.

Provincial legislation requires TransLink to have a balanced budget, so when
its accumulated surplus of $400 million runs out in 2011, there will have to
be $150 million annually in cuts.

For "simplicity," according to the transportation authority's recently
passed 10-year transportation and financial plan, that massive cut is
achieved by cutting more than half the region's bus services.

There are 4.181 million bus-service hours scheduled for 2008 and that total
is projected to grow to 4.722 million by 2011. In 2012, and out to 2018,
that number is chopped to 2.122 million.

"If expenditure reductions are required, we would effect a reduction through
a combination of reduced bus service, roads funding and administration and
program support costs," reads the plan.

The bus service, which carries about 80 per cent of transit users,
represents the biggest opportunity for cuts with an expected expenditure in
2011 of $668 million.

TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie identified annual administration costs at $48
million to $49 million and funding for the road network at $55 million.

"Ultimately, there's not nearly enough money in those budgets to offset the
$150 million," said Hardie.

"Our goal is to not cut anything."

But unless a ready source of ongoing funding materializes, there have to be
cuts.

"After 2011, we'd have to find $150 million in savings somewhere," said
Hardie. "Some would come from programs and some would come from service."

There was a huge outcry in 2001 when TransLink cut just 160,000 hours of
service in response to not getting its reviled vehicle levy approved.

Looking for a Miracle

Hi Jesse

What has happened here in Fairview along the Canada Line route - in a
democracy that is brimming with money for every Olympic whim of our
Premier - is a travesty.
It was preventable and most definitely undemocratic.

The world will be watching, and looking for examples of the consequences
both good and bad of bringing the games to our city. After three years of
suffering, and of having our concerns dismissed then whitewashed with pretty
banners, this Liberal totalitarian regime could still do the right thing and
reimburse us for this negligence.

There is no excuse for the meanspirited abuse of power that has resulted in
the near collapse of all we have built up over years.

I am already talking to foreign press who are very interested in stories
from small businesses - like the one about the hardworking, tax paying,
involved in the community single mom who was forced to take the unthinkable
step of legal action against every level of government - while losing
hundreds of thousands of dollars and nearly losing her 25 year old
business - lied to and continually mislead about a several Billion dollar
way over budget transportation project that was funded, rammed through and
rubber stamped by the government as part of the bid to win the 2010 games.
Film at eleven.

Nothing for Canada (Line) to be proud of - especially in a democracy.

Dr. MacDiarmid understands fully the effectiveness of timely preventative
medicine. The families along the Canada Line route were given a fistfull of
costly placeboes, and have been left to die by the roadside.

The cure for RAV disease is available, and still within the grasp of a
person with itegrity and courage who is trained to assess and heal.
Dr. MacDiarmid has what it takes to be this person.

The malpractice that has occured here will not be forgotten any time soon -
until the appropriate treatment is dispensed. Money. Credit. Rehabilitation.
And in an IV transfused directly into our life's work. The autopsy results
are conclusive.

While the good doctor is making her rounds in our neighbourhood, she will no
doubt be mindful of the consequenses of ignoring the oath to "do no harm".

I guess we're looking for a miracle.
In the meantime I will continue to press forward my legal case for full
compensation.

Regards
Susan Heyes
Hazel&Co
3190 Cambie Street
Vancouver BC
604 687-0721

A Breast of the Times

This is Vancouver's idea of a controversy.

Mothers breast feeding in a clothing store.

Yah, world class city.

Oy.

Would everyone please grow up.

Quote of the Day

Hedy Fry calls her political position "energetic, progessive thinking."

This worst of all MP's in living memory has been elected and re-elected five times.

She has shamelessly courted the gay community in the West End and accomplished nothing substantive of which we are aware.

When will people, gay, straight or purple, realize that simply having some fool gush over you does not mean that he or she has something real to offer. In fact, it is usually a guarantee of the opposite. POepl with real policies feel no need to salivate.

Justice Mockeries on Parade

House arrest for a Hell's Angel associate dealing cocaine.

Oh, and no guns please, sir.

Duh?

Tom Sandborn, filling in for vacationing Allen Garr in the Courier, reminds us that Mayor Sullivan promised to reduce Translink fares.

Of course, that never happened.

Instead, fares have risen and service continues to decline.

The Premier's carbon tax is a long-winded route to a cleaner environment. It doesn't work.

Reduce transit fares, improve service at whatever cost. That's why we already pay taxes.

Then more people will ride the system.

World Class Chumps

Vaughn Palmer's recounting of Campbell and Co being utterly hoodwinked by a con man and scheister is so hysterical you simply have to read it to believe it.

In honor of which, you will find below Robert Preston and the original stage company's lusty version of "76 Trombones" from "The Music Man," an homage to con men and country hicks everywhere.

76 Trombones!

M.D. - Me Doctor!

"Never marry a doctor!"

Those words of wisdom came from one of the most beautiful, accomplished women I've ever met.

She and two of her friends had dreadful experiences dating doctors. All three women found doctors to be arrogant, self-absorbed shmocks.

"They think they're God. How much fun can that be on a daily basis? At the clinic, they play with life and death and everyone answers to their every whim. Then they come home...and HELLO!"

These warnings came to mind this morning as I was reading the story about the local bones who won't treat a child because they can't get along with her parents.

Huh?

Some doctors treat patients in the midst of gunfire, famine, flood, insurgency.

Then there's this home-grown group of geniuses who expect everyone to be nice.

Here's the telling moment.

Dr. Doug Cochrane, vice-president of medicine for BC Children's Hospital no less, writes, "Everyone is trying to do the right thing, but faith, trust and honoring the expertise of the doctors is important."

Ah, yes.

Where in the

Hippocratic Oath

does is say something about treating children only when they have lovely, cooperative parents?

Get over it, Doctors. Do your job. Treat the patient, who, in case, you haven't noticed is a helpless child.