THE REAL THING

"Gomorrah" is not "The Godfather."

The distinction is important because this new film by Italian director, Matteo Garrone, has been called by some reviewers "the best crime movie" since that iconic Coppola masterpiece.

It is also important because this movie begins with the headline, "Martin Scorsese presents," an irony that becomes increasingly evident as the film ever so slowly unspools.

The first two Godfather movies are among the two greatest movies ever made. Year after year, they top everyone's all-time favorite lists, including my own (after "Lawrence of Arabia," of course!)

As they appear almost daily it seems on Peachtree TV or the so-called Arts & Entertainment channel, I find myself watching long sequences, repeating the dialogue now by rote.

"Don't you know, Kay, that I would never let you take my children."

"But I didn't know until now that it was Barzini all along."

But here is the distinction.

These two great films and anything by Scorsese, good and horribly bad, (Good to Great: "Raging Bull," "Taxi Driver," "The King of Comedy." Bad to Appalling: "Goodfellas," "Casino," "The Departed."), like all Hollywood films are romances.

The moment a Marlon or a Jack or a Leo or a Matt appear in the credits we are dealing with fantasy. That doesn't make it bad or dismissible, but completely an artifact.

Look at the spectacular choices by costume and set designers in"The Godfather." Look at the furniture, the color and exposure for the film stock; of course, the music.

These are glorious stories brilliantly told.

But never forget what they are. Romances. Heroic iconic movie stars play charismatic, fascinating mobsters who love their children and their gangs.

Now, comes this bleak, relentless film, "Gomorrah," about the criminals of modern-day southern Italy, Naples, in particular. It "stars" no one.

This is stripped-down, unglamorous, often painful movie-making. It is more docu-drama than crime movie.

Everybody is poor and stupid.

Everybody is armed.

Everybody lives in a government built tenement slum.

The aerial establishing shots of the apartment complex are themselves condemnation of shameful public policy. You look at this place and ask yourself, "How else could people be expected to live in this rat maze?"

The key figures in this sordid affair are children, boys with guns and boys with bad ambitions.

The movie begins and ends with acts of violence. In between there are long stretches of tension and boredom and more violence. After a while, the director succeeds in making you feel completely trapped in this universe of despair.

This is not a date movie, kids.

At the end, the script comes on the screen detailing the latest numbers of people killed by the Camorra, the local Mafiosa.

You might have been watching something about tribal warfare in a besieged African Nation, in Darfur.

You might have been watching something about the Lower Mainland.

Whatever it is, it is not your traditional amusement with guns. It is often difficult to behold, but it is a healthy reminder, even in the midst of Easter and Passover, that ugliness exists not only in the hearts of some people, but also in systems and communities where attention is not paid.

Getting Over It

“We are firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective.” “The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”

On Friday, in a unanimous ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a legislative ban on same-sex marriage using language uniquely direct and unequivocal.

Has it ever been more elegantly, more simply put?

How can limiting the rights of gay and lesbian citizens in any way improve public policy?

Gay and lesbian rights, including the right to marriage, are growing slowly each day as state after state in America allows for more inlcusion.

Some 30 states have still have legal or constitutional provisions banning gay marriage or civil unions. Most of these roughly correspond with the states that voted Republican last November.

PREDICTIONS

It is a familiar story.

Someone says the sky is falling. Everyone laughs.

Ibsen put it on stage with "An Enemy of the People."

Spielberg scored his first huge hit with "Jaws."

There's a shark in the water.

No there isn't.

Yes, we've seen it.

No, we depend on happy tourists so it can't be. Relax and have another beer.

Now, this:

L'Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region, about 100 kilometres north of Rome, bore the brunt of the quake, which struck just after 3.30am. The epicentre was five kilometres beneath the town. Thousands of the city's 60,000 residents, fearing aftershocks, fled their beds and ran into the streets.

150 dead, 1500 injured and tens of thousands homeless.

A seismologist warned everyone who would listen that this tragedy was on its way.

Nobody listened.

Now, that creepy crook who is disguised as the Premier of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, has flown to the region and, among other things, utterly discounted this warning by a real scientist.

SAILING AWAY

The numbers are discouraging.

62 cruise departures from Vancouver cut by Carnival/Princess/Holland America.

20% port biz lost.

$120 Million loss to local biz like produce suppliers, taxis (already reeling) and hotels.

21.5% decline in commercial container traffic since February.

For those who continue to believe that this is a community fueled by latte and condos, wake up and smell the deep. This is a maritime town. No sail, no loot.

Some 62,000 people visited in recent days the new addition to the port side Trade & Convention Centre, believing as the politicians who spent the money to build it, that this is a structure important to our local future.

Certainly, the worldwide economic collapse cannot be put on the shoulders of local planners and politicians.

BUT...

What, if anything, have the Powers That Be, the Folks Who Should Know Better, been doing to avoid this disaster? Has there been any foresight in this matter? Have locals met with Trans-Pacific shippers or Cruise Line brass?

Or Scare Canada?

One of the reasons that the cruises have relocated en masse to Seattle is the prohibitive cost of connecting air fares.

One for The Good Guys

The RCMP finally has something to cheer about.

An Ontario Supreme Court judge has struck down a section of the RCMP Act that precludes unionization as unconstitutional.

Punchline - Mounties can now, like every other police force in the country, belong to a union.

I'm not sure how, if at all, that will effect you and me, but it might have some push in re-energizing a group that has spent so much time in recent years on the ropes.

None of us is happy bitching endlessly about an institution in which we once had considerable pride.

Most of us would like to see the force right itself and make us proud once again.

Perhaps this rightful decision will help.

TRIANGULATION

Gordon Campbell. Partick Kinsella. David McLean.

There are more, of course, but that's enough to draw the basic outline.

Campbell is the Premier of the Province of British Columbia. He will, in all likelihood still be the Premier on the morning of May 13th.

He's the Premier who swore in a previous election campaign that BC Rail was not for sale and never would be.

Never turned out to be about 6 months.

Kinsella is a little bit of everything.

Political wizard, running successful campaigns for all manner of would-bes, including...wait for it..Gordon Campbell.

Kinsella also has worked as a communications consultant ("But I am not a lobbyist!") for BC Rail and CN Rail. Hm...

McLean is the CN Chairman and major fundraiser for...you know...Gordon Campbell.

Now, there's also Martyn Brown to consider, but that would make our neat triangle a box or a rhomboid or a moibus strip or something curving ever deeper in on itself until it finds its own entrails as delicious desert.

Brown is the Premier's chief of staff, who after he stopped having daily social intercourse with Kinsella during an election campaign, was having regular conversations with Kinsella about ...you guessed it...CN Rail.

Question: CAN YOU GET ANY COSIER THAN THIS AND STILL BE ON THE GOOD SIDE OF JAIL BARS?

Which raises the other question: Why will this administration, which should be spending the next several months testifying in court but will not, win yet another election?

Because, as morally bankrupt as this group of shady wheeler-dealers is, they will continue to be perceived - and regrettably with some justification - as more "capable" than Carole James and the NDP.

Regrettably, because we urgently need a new fresh gang of cutthroats at the helm to plunder and pillage us.

With some justification, because as much as I am historically an NDP voter, James and her party have yet to show the necessary royal jelly.

So, like thousands of you, I am stuck at another voting booth between a rock and a hard place.

Of course, I have already made my decision.

I will vote NDP.

The current Triangle should move to Bermuda.

Be Scared, Really Scared

Federal Transport Minister John Baird and Liberal Senator Colin Kenny did something unusual the other day.

They decided to behave like interested responsible citizens.

Fearing the worst about lax security at Canada's largest and most expensive airport, Pearson International, they wandered through an unlocked doorway somewhere around the back end of things and strolled right onto the tarmac.

Four plain clothed RCMP officers accompanied them. These officers are now being suspended and many are shrieking in their highest voices at the two politicians for being reckless and "stunt-driven."

All of those reactions are, of course, way beyond the point and the pale.

The real issue is that you and I must take off our Clarks and reveal to the world our favorite brand of Aquafresh and aftershave and not buy (the latest environmental devil) bottled water, while crazy people could simply walk through unguarded side doors to terror.

If this is the case at Pearson, what about YVR and every other airport in the nation?

YVR, of course, is an exception. In this case, one need only be concerned if one is suddenly seized by the irrational urge to staple something.

We have - do we not? - the world's longest, largest, coldest, iciest coastline. And exactly how guarded is that? Last we looked the so-called Coast Guard couldn't put out a barbie fire on the back deck of an Evinrude runabout if lives depended.

The Minister and the Senator have done us a solid. They have dramatically pointed out a gaping inadequacy that needs fixing.

Thank goodness we are such a placid, harmless lot. The maniacs who live to strap bombs to their bellies don't often think Canadian.

But they will in time.

And who will stop them?

About Health Care

The paramedics are on strike.

Give them what they want. They deserve it. And more.

There is much in our health care system to improve and change.

We spend too much on administrators and middle men, on pharmaceuticals and shrinks. We have failed to track in even the most basic ways what some supplies cost us; learn from retail about inventory.

We have way too many over-seers and boards and groups. We need to simplify and localize.

But having said all that, we must have one of the greatest health care systems on earth.

This is my second experience with paramedics, for example. The first was 25 years ago in Winnipeg in aid of my mother. Again, these folks are amazing. Knowledgeable, efficient, re-assuring, kind, and professional.

Whatever they are being paid, it's not enough.

The nurses at VGH in Emergency and Cardiac Care are astounding. Knowledgeable, efficient, re-assuring, kind and professional. This was my second visit to these wonderful people. If you should have the misfortune to be in need of their services, you will have the good fortune to be in their care.

The doctors and attendant technicians are equally laudable. Knowledgeable, efficient, re-assuring, kind and professional.

Twenty some years ago, people with angina died. Not always and not right away, but the mortality rate was high. Today, it barely measurable.

Even the technique of entering through the femoral artery to perform an angiogram and angioplasty has dramatically improved in the four years since my first experience. This time, thanks to a collagen plug in the wound, almost no post-op bleeding and certainly no post pain.

We can and must continue our vigilance in trying to bring down costs and improve our system every day in every way.

But simultaneously let us remember how lucky we are to have what we have.

About You

So many thanks to so many lovely people for those kind thoughts and good wishes.

I am walking every day in the 'hood and feeling stronger as we go. Hope to be back at work in the coming week or so.

Your comments have been great comfort and encouragement.

Wally's Worst Ever

Of all the egregious, duplicitous low acts offered our way by Wall Opaque, the man who poses as Attorney-General, nothing can come close to his latest.

The BC Supreme Court has rightly declared key elements in Campbell's election gag law unconstitutional.

People can now spend basically what they want arguing their political points of view in public.

We call that free speech.

Bill 42 was a clear attack on that democratic privilege and it deserved to be hit with a shovel.

But Wally will not rest.

He has attempted - and as of this morning's news, failed, we are happy to report - to ask for a stay of proceedings.

His transparently dubious excuse for this blatant political creepery is that the government needs time to react.

How does this man sleep at night?

How has he so completely failed to understand and respect the basics tenets of the very social order his sworn to protect?

Massive shame on him.

HYPOCRISY

For years, the corner of Willingdon and Canada Way has housed one corrections or mental health facility or another. Without, as far as I can recollect, a single untoward incident.

Now the provincial government wants to build a prison there, a pre-trial holding joint.

There is little that I like about the Campbell Liberal administration, but this plan seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

Of course, I don't live in Burnaby.

Moreover, I am not the Mayor of Burnaby; nor do I have a wife who is running on May 12th for the NDP.

My name isn't Corrigan.

The good burghers of Burnaby have cried long and loud - just like you and me - about the current wave of gang violence and the felt need for some old fashioned Law and Order.

Like prisons for bad guys, for instance.

BUT...

Not in my neighbourhood.

We want lock-ups for pistol-packing mothers alright, but we want them somewhere on the left side of the moon...say, Lac La Hache.

The Good Mayor, knowing well the limits of his constituents thinking powers and tolerance and seeing a good opportunity to further the political aims of his spouse jumped all over this one.

There will be no pre-trail centre at Willingdon and Canada Way in the foreseeable future.

And all because of down and dirty politics.

NEWS ROUND UP

* In a current story about a murderer who pleads guilty to "an additional" 27 murders, we get this gem:

Mr. Gallant isn't even the most lethal Quebec hit man. In 1985, the Hells Angel Yves (Apache) Trudeau confessed to 43 contract killings.

Mr. Trudeau plea-bargained it down to 43 manslaughter counts and was paroled after seven years.

43 murders down to 43 manslaughters = parole after seven years.

Only in Canada, you say? Pity.

* President Obama may or may not be on the right track in basically assuming control of GM for the time being. Certainly having the federal government micro-managing one of the great stalwarts and symbols of The American Success Story does not sit will in a great many craws.

He may also be right or wrong in bailing out the banks and AIG and tabling an enormous budget.

He may be right or wrong about his troop commitments in Afghanistan.

Only time till tell.

But we can say this. It is refreshing, after 8 years of Mr. Wafflehead, to see someone boldly doing something.

Will it be disaster or reclamation? I have no idea. Do you?

STORY

I had a heart attack.

For those who might have been checking in on the blog and wondering where I had gone, the place was VGH.

Here's the story.

For about a week, I had been feeling the recognizable symptoms of angina - pain the in the shoulders and arms, lower jaw and teeth, shortness of breath and some tightness in the chest.

Recognizable, because I had an angioplasty procedure done at VGH in June 2005, in which a drug-infused stent was inserted to pry and keep open a blocked coronary artery.

On Friday at 6pm, I went swimming at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre. Great time to go, by the way. Very quiet.

I did my usual 500 metres, stopping at the end of each 50 metre length for a moment or two. On Friday, I couldn't help but notice a real shortness of breath and the unavoidable fact that both arms from shoulders to hands hurt and felt heavy and buzzing.

Stubbornly, I persisted, finished my routine, enjoyed a bit of a shvitz in the sauna and the whirlpool, showered, dressed and went home to a quiet dinner and evening.

I went to bed about 11:30.

At ten to one a.m., I woke up suddenly with pain in both arms.

I tried a blast of nitroglycerin, which seemed to provide short relief. I put on my heart monitor, found that my heart rate was low, but o.k. and tried another shot of nitro.

Then I thought I might try to go back to sleep. All along, the number 911 was very much on my mind.

I lasted less than four seconds of pillow time, and sat up with the full realization that calling emergency was my only choice.

Within six minutes, eight uniformed and brilliantly equipped firemen and paramedics were milling around my kitchen.

By 1:30 I was in a bed at VGH emergency ward.

Around 9 am, the doctors appeared, one of whom was my original operating surgeon, the aptly named, Dr. Saw. You can't write material like this.

The doctors confirmed that another angiogram and possibly angioplasty was in order. The "lab" or operating theatre is normally not up and running on the week end, but, they assured me, if an emergency or two appeared, they would be at work and they would piggy-back me into the rotation.

Of course, by the time I had been transferred to the Cardiac Care Unit, around noon on Saturday, two emergencies had presented themselves. I was wheeled in for action shortly after 3pm.

An hour and two new stents later, I was returned to my favorite bed in CCU 15.

I should add that before and after the procedure, there was a most welcome run of friends and family and loved ones all. Do not underestimate for a second, the huge importance of that love and support. It is everything, believe me.

I slept well and on Sunday, the doctors informed me that not only had I had a revisiting attack of angina, but I could now claim my first heart attack. A small one, sure enough, but real. Yikes!

They sent me home at 3pm.

I stood outside in the sunshine on 10th Avenue, near Willow, waiting for my daughter to pick me up.

I thought for a moment about the people who think I am cynical.

If only they knew what an unrelenting optimist I am.

"Only twenty-four hours ago," I babbled quietly to myself, "I had a heart attack. Now I am standing in sunshine. Miracle of miracles!"

Catherine came along with her beloved little pooch, "Rocky," and we went to the pharmacy and bought only $550 worth of medicines for the next year. While the pharmacist did his magic, we had a coffee and a snack.

I slept very well last night. I have no pain. I am tired and weak, but I will walk about one block today as per the post-op instructions.

I am in shock. I am a little weepy with a mix of emotions. And I am happy to be alive.

I may not blog for the next few days.

But, as we say in radioland, "Stay tuned."

As for you...stay young, eat your veggies, sing favorite songs, rarely refuse sex, and keep trying to understand The Mysteries...

BROADCASTING

Monkey see, monkey doodoo.

Now that banks and auto makers have sucked mightily from the public tit, the line-up of Big-Lipped Monsters is getting downright pushy.

Elbowing right to the front in Canada are broadcasters.

Global, CTV and the CBC are all behaving like rink enforcers in the corner shoving and biting and high sticking their way to The Big Payoff.

These people all want taxpayer bailouts.

My answer is simple.

No. No. No.

Canwest Global and CTV have consistently made fortunes by blithely ignoring any vague sense of responsibility to the country they have been fleecing. They basically are windows for American programs. The little that they have focused on local or national texture has been entirely at the end of regulatory shotguns. If they hadn't been forced to do local news or the occasional drama, they wouldn't have wasted a penny on such pain-in-the-ass hard work.

Now that times are tough, now that the sons have blown the father's gifts, now that ad revenues are migrating elsewhere, they want you and me to help out.

Huh?

Get lost.

Fold your cheesy tent, boys.

Let me watch CBS is that's what I want.

You want me to watch you, give me something to watch. Otherwise go the way of Eatons.

I cannot for a moment understand how or why I should pony a penny for your bad practices.

As for the CBC, let's quote the former chair, Carole Taylor:

"...go for broadcasting that is different from what the privates do, that is not going for ratings, but is proving a service that cannot be found anywhere else."

Bang on.

The CBC is a hideously deformed monstrosity, a twisted, unworkable hybrid. It is overgrown and knows not what it wants.

It should be cut in half or to a third and it should produce and show only entirely original Canadian content.

The claim by its current executive that the audience it gets at 7:30 pm for Jeopardy carries into its 8-11 prime time is utter nonsense. If this fool actually believes that fabrication, he has no business in the business.

The remote rules, Dopey.

The minute Alex says goodbye, we are all gone.

More taxpayer money for dunces and dissemblers like this?

No.

It should have absolutely no concern with ratings. It should be concerned only with doing good work.

What a concept!

DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL

Follow as closely as you can the proceedings in BC Supreme Court in the case of Susan Heyes and her civil action against the city, the province, the federal government, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority and RAV project Management Ltd.

You should stay with this story because it is important.

A small business owner's Cambie Street livelihood was not disrupted, but destroyed, by officials who lied to local merchants. The officials said the line would be build by boring underground. Of course, that's not what they did at all. They changed to cut and cover.

Most importantly, they never once considered for a second offering some kind of compensation for the financial and psychological damages they inflicted on innocent, honest, working citizens.

This case is about the heart and soul of democracy.

Heyes, who has since relocated her shop to Main Street, is courageous and feisty and determined and she should be recognized as an exemplary citizen for this action.

Of course, she has made a basic strategic error.

If only she had presented herself as a drug addict, she would have been given compensation by the carload: needles, places to shoot, housing, social workers, doctors, nurses, psychologists and the like.

That'll teach you to get up in the morning, shower and dress and go open the front doors of your business and try to earn a living and pay taxes.

What have we all been thinking?

Economics 101

When your personal property tax bill arrives and it sis almost 8% higher than it was last year, all you need ask is, "Am I getting 8% more in services."

But you already know the answer.

I've had the distinct displeasure of driving across the Oak Street bridge several times in recent weeks. Pothole City. 'nuff said?

A student told me yesterday that it took an hour and a half to get by bus from Westminster Highway and #3 Road to 49th and Cambie. But VANOV urges you to take transit. Hm...

Councillor Louie has proposed spending $300,000 to hire someone to save money at City Hall. Nice.

How about this, Raymond?

How about City Hall slash and burn a dozen useless offices on its rolls? How about the City stop trying to be all things to all people? How about leave Health, for example, to the province and the federal government where it belongs? How about getting out of the drug business? How about ending the personal fiefdom that exists at City Hall in Arts and Culture?

No one that I know of at City Hall has come even remotely close to tightening the City belt in the same way that everyone world-wide has had to in this economic climate.

The 8% solution is no solution at all.

Plea

non-postismentis

Tomorrow morning I must rise and shine and leave the house at an ungodly early hour.

Hence, no blog.

See you all on Friday.

Cheers.

REMINDER

Tonight.

7:30...doors open at 7

Alice Mackay Room, downstairs at the Vancouver Public Library, main branch, Robson & Homer

THE LANGARA DIALOGUES - a public debate

RESOLVED: LEGALIZE DRUGS; END GANG VIOLENCE

Be there or be square.

See Jon Ferry's column in today's Province.

ALTERNATE ENERGY FILE

Wood pellets?

Are you familiar with them?

I was not, until this morning when I read a column in the Globe by Neil Reynolds.

Wood pellets look remarkably like dog food or goose droppings, but they are in fact pressed from sawdust and mill shavings and they are amazingly efficient at creating clean heat and energy.

Here in Canada, we produce huge amonuts - 1.4 million tons a year, but use almost none of it to heat our homes or create energy.

Read this piece and then ask along with me when are we going to wake up to the possibilities?