SHAME

Spirit Vigils were held all across Canada yesterday in memory of the more than 500 aboriginal women who have disappeared in the last three decades.

Vanished.

Gone.

This news story was given a tiny bottom corner of page A4 in the Globe. The Province newspaper did cover the story with a bit more of the attention it deserves.

First, there is the tragedy itself of young lives wasted.

Then, to add insult to injury is the astonishing lack of interest such a disaster seems to warrant.

How jaded and indifferent have we become?

I've written previously on this site that if 3 white Anglo-Saxon women were missing, the militia would be on watch.

But these are not white Anglo-Saxon women. They are natives. And many were prostitutes.

And now, we seem to take all of this in our stride, as if this is the way things are and this is perhaps the way things should be and what can I do about it anyway?

I can do many things. I can talk about the issue in public. I can encourage and poke the police into taking these matters seriously. Remember how long it took for the police to act in the Picton case and the Highway of Tears?

I can lobby politicians to wake up. I can get to know some aboriginal students or community leaders and help bridge the cultural gaps that still separate us dreadfully.

Please note that whenever I write about these missing women, a horrible man (I am assuming he is a man, of some sort.) sends me an anonymous comment in which he cheers. He says that these women are scum and that they deserve to be killed. I don't publish his comments. They are unbearably ugly. He is sick.

And our indifference is sick.

The fact that 520 Canadian sisters are missing is a tragedy and a shameful fact.

Remind someone in authority today.

TV OR NOT TV

Canadian broadcasters and Canadian satellite companies are having it out on the front pages these days.

CTV, Global & CBC, among others, have bought full page ads everywhere declaring in bold print that LOCAL TV MATTERS

Hahahaha...These are the folks that laugh all the way to the bank offering you CSI MIami, Jeopardy and Judge Judy.

Yes, it's true that the local Global News is the best there is, but, be assured that the bean counters who pay the bills resent every penny spent, when they could be bringing you more Oprah.

What besides the supper hour news do these local philanthropists give you?

Solid documentaries on real local issues? No.

Muscular debates or round tables about local social issues? No.

The CBC has never been clear about its own mandate.

Many of us would be happy to pay for the CBC if it were a real public television network. Can they show us a movie without a hundred badly placed commercials? No.

And CTV and Global simply would not exist without their yearly trick to the pop culture market in L.A., where they buy and program the latest unwatchable goop.

So these dissemblers buy full page ads and point fingers at the greed of the cable operators.

Turn the page, and what do you find?

All the cable companies - with the curious exception of Shaw - are on full page ads of their own, complaining about a tax.

May I say the obvious?

A pox on both your houses.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

PRIVATE LIVES

There are a handful of movies that I have seen so many times, that have each become so much apart of my psychic life that I feel, when I watch them, that I am in the movie, that I am living the life of the movie.

Ridiculous, but it it so.

Such is the power of a good movie well told.

Such is the weakness of my shabby soul.

I say the lines along with the actors. I sing the songs. I cast the side-long glances.

My all-time favorite movie, "Lawrence of Arabia" is largely exempt from this personal psychosis. The movie is simply too vast, too enormous for me to traverse. O'Toole was so impossibly handsome and blond that it is hard for me to transport myself into his boots and up onto one of those camels. Nevertheless, I love the movie. I rarely watch it on TV because it is the great epic and we need that 35 foot screen or better to capture the sense of its scope and beauty.

On the other hand...

How many times have I watched "The Godfather" or "Funny Girl?"

Basically any time they show up on the tube.

I will tell myself that I'll just check in and catch a few scenes.

Ha!

Not till all the men are kissing Michael's hand, while Kay looks on amidst the packing boxes and Barbra sings the last note of "My Man" am I released.

Look...there's a reason G-d invented popcorn.

Dinner?

Who's Being Naive Now, Kay?

DECLARATION OF A NEW TALENT

FUNNY...

HERE'S TONY BENNETT WITH THE GREAT PIANIST BILL CHARLAP (Who we saw at last year's Jazz Festival) ON THE ELVIS COSTELLO SHOW

SAVING THE WORLD FROM MY CONDO

Margaret Wente has written a very funny and provocative column today in the Globe.

Here's her basic argument: Never mind recycling or solar panels – if you want to cut your carbon footprint, move downtown and throw your garbage down the chute.

She focuses on two of my favorite places and two places from which I have just returned: Toronto and Salt Spring Island.

She posits Toronto as the greener choice! Ha!

This may or may not be the best science, but it sure makes for a good read and a good discussion.

CASH SPEAKS

I see where Kash Heed, BC's Solicitor-General, has returned the $440,000 that was originally lopped out of the budget for domestic violence programs.

That about face happened because of the wide and vocal response from the media and concerned citizens.

But are we to leap in joy and jubilation?

Heed has simply put back the meager cookies that were stolen in the first place by His Grinchness, the Mean Premier.

$440,000? You've got to be kidding.

That's lunch money.

You want real oversight, real front-line social workers, really trained police officers and courts?

Try $25 Million to start.

These folks aren't serious.

Should we buy 12 balloons or 16 for Jenny's birthday party?

Before I Forget...

I'm hiding in the Islands for the next few days, non-blogismentis.

Hope to come ablogging again Saturday or Sunday.

Be well.

Eat a peach.

Wear your pantlegs rolled...

BAH HUMBUG

Some mornings I just don't have the stomach for it...

So here, in no particular order of merit or importance, are the day's stories and my grizzled reactions:

* IGGY POPS. Denis Coderre steps away from the Ig Camp, saying "If you want to have what you want in Quebec, all you have to do is short-circuit the party's Quebec authorities by talking to the leader's inner circle in Toronto,” Then, he adds that he is still supporting the Ig. So for the moment, Iggy is revealed to be a naif at politics even within his own toy soldiers.

Will this harm the man in the long run? Probably not.

Which leads us to the question What did Jack Claypot get for his support of Harper? What did the country get?

Nothing that I can see.

* Two low-level drug clowns from Kamloops are living in Puerta Vallarta with no known means of support. They have a Benz, a Hummer and a Ford pickup parked outside their condo. Bad guys execute them.

Moral of the story?

Low-level drug clowns from Kamloops are probably ill-advised to mess with the Mexican drug cartels.

* A man drugged and raped a 13-year old girl. After serving 42 days in a prison for psychiatric evaluation, the man flew to England and then France. Now, many years later, the American government have arrested him in Switzerland, and plan to bring him back stateside to face the music he began low those many years ago.

Oh, the man is famous.

His name is Roman Polanski and he makes movies, often memorable movies.

What if he was Michelangelo or Beethoven? What if he was Bill Smith or Sam Jones?

Here is what Mr. Polanski must do.

He must go back to California and shut up and deal with whatever may follow. Most likely, it will all be horrible as an experience, but, given that he can afford wonderful legal advice, his legal punishment will probably be not especially severe.

* The Dominion Hotel has been refurbished and now houses 63 poor people, some of whom are cleaned up addicts, some of whom are using drug addicts.

The folks trying to run businesses on the street level are complaining.

The new tenants, they say, toss food and syringes out the windows. They leave shopping carts outside the building and spit on the sidewalk. A clothing store owner said she watched a man beat up his girlfriend on the sidewalk outside her shop.

I mention this because almost daily I watch the new housing project for addicts and the mentally ill going up at 16th and Dunbar.

I welcome programs that work, run by people who know how to run programs. And yes, I welcome them next door to me.

But programs run by politically motivated and ignorant governments are not welcome in my neighbourhood.

I think the folks at 16th and Dunbar have much to look forward to - and most of it will be disgusting.

* Glenn Beck is on the cover of Time magazine.

I stopped reading Time magazine when I was eleven and realized that I was reading the weekly status quo report.

I've seen Beck exactly once and dismissed him for the buffoon that he is.

In Mr. Beck's view of the world, Mr. Obama doesn't like white people very much and is conspiring to turn the United States into socialist state. Mr. Beck sees this plot lurking behind nearly everything Washington does - the bailouts, the stimulus package, the push for health care reform and the roster of "czars" working at the White House.

All of which has made him a huge success. Radio and TV talk shows, books, T-shirts, stand-up.

Having recovered from drug and alcohol abuse, Beck is now a Mormon.

Is it part of Mormon teaching to be consistently cruel and rude and incendiary and inflammatory and remarkably close to a public menace?

No.

But it is THE essential part of the American dream to be "successful" at almost any cost.

* Most days I walk past the homeless and turn my eyes away. Occasionally, with no particular rhyme or reason, I stop and chat and give someone a couple of bucks.

Yesterday, a bone-thin man with saggy pants was hawking roses at a traffic Island on Pacific Boulevard near the Science World.

The poor shall always be amongst you. I believe it was Jesus who said that.

But some days, life's cruelties are easier to absorb than others.

Bah Humbug.

Maybe tomorrow I'll offer some music.

ANNOUNCEMENT

In 1967, I became, by a serious of mysterious accidents, the Founder and Executive Director of the X-Kalay Foundation, a residential treatment centre for addicts, alcoholics, ex-cons and others.

We began here in Vancouver and Salt Spring Island, and in 1971 expanded to Winnipeg.

The X-Kalay Foundation Manitoba Inc., incorporated in 1971, has continued for over 35 years to flourish first at its original site in St. Norbert, Manitoba, near the University of Manitoba, and now with a satellite program for teen-age boys in Selkirk.

The Foundation has evolved through two name changes, and is now the Behavioural Health Foundation, about which I have written several times in recent weeks.

In a nation apparently dead set on counter-productive, expensive and harmful initiatives like free needles, free crack pipe kits, free heroin, methadone and places to shoot, the BHF, Canada's original, first and foremost therapeutic community stands out as a glorious sore thumb turning out clean and sober men and women every day.

I was invited recently by Jean Doucha, the executive Director of the BHF, to come to St. Norbert and speak to the resident clients, the staff, board of directors and invited guests.

My speech, given on the evening of Friday, August 28, 2009, was about The History of X-Kalay.

My goal was to try to give everyone a sense of our place on the time line of good rehabilitative work, past, present and future.

Frankly, I found my visit to the St. Norbert and Selkirk facilities of BHF and its 100 resident clients - my first in 30 years - overwhelming.

The experience was moving and profound.

The speech is now on YouTube, as well as on my website www.davidberner.com under the heading "Addictions Expert."

The speech, which begins below, is in 11 parts, each just under 10 minutes, running a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes.

If you get lost in the process, you can always go to my website where the speech runs continuously, or go back to YouTube and search "The History of X-Kalay."

This may not be for everyone, but if you go forth, I hope you will enjoy what you see and hear and that you will gain some insight into the arduous but rewarding work that is involved in real addict recovery programming.

THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT ADDICTIONS

NIMBLE NIMBY

Welcome Home has been trying to find a home of its own for several years now.

Part of the problem was that United Furniture magnate John Volken, a multimillionaire turned philanthropist, was not very clear at first about how his $50 Million program would actually work.

I should know.

I worked for him for a few months when he was trying to build the centre here in Vancouver on an excellent site he owned at Powell near Victoria Drive.

But he and his staff have come a long way since the City of Vancouver dithered and put up one pointless obstacle after another.

Here was a guy donating a ton of his own money to getting addicts clean and sober and the bureaucrats just kvetched and whined until Volken said, "Enough."

He hightailed it a few years ago to Surrey where the Best Mayor in Canada, Dianne Watts, welcomed Welcome Home and has since declared that it is a "fabulous program" which does "a lot of good work."

She is right.

And the 900 people in Newton who have signed the latest Not In My Back Yard petition to keep this program out are entirely wrong.

We need more and more programs that will turn out clean and sober citizens.

These programs can not be on the moon or on an ice flow, if there are any of those left.

These programs must be, as they often are, right next door to you and you don't even know it.

One important caveat:

If such programs are built and run by the government, you can bet your mortgage that they will be badly designed and run even worse. Protest those with all your righteous strength.

If such programs are designed and run by non-profits and /or by recovering addicts themselves, there is a mighty good chance that these folks know what they are doing and you will be safe in your bed.

Support those programs with all your righteous strength.

SUPERB, INSIGHTFUL INTERVIEW

Anthony Tommasini, an opera buff, has scored a real coup - a lengthy, thoughtful and quiet interview for the NY Times with Barbra Streisand about the mechanics and wellsprings of singing.

All of this is in anticipation of a new CD release. Streisand’s latest album, “Love Is the Answer,” will be released on Tuesday by Columbia.

It is produced by none other than Diana Krall.

Barbra is 67 and she's releasing new albums.

Why not?

Tony Bennett's been sending out great new material into his 80's.

Barbra & Bernstein - What could be better?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"He's a very good Muslim...a very nice boy."

Hahahahahaha...

Usually this kind of irony comes from the neighbour of the mass-murderer after all the bodies are discovered in the backyard veggie patch.

But in this case, we are talking about Najibullah Zazi who has been charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States.

In short, he is a terrorist who took little study holidays to Pakistan to bone up on making and planting bombs that would kill many, many innocent people.

The quote, by the way, comes from his devoted Aunt.

Altogether now...

"If you knew Zazi like I know Zazi, Oh, Oh, Oh, what a guy...
None so classy, with such a chassis..."

THE CROWNING OF THE KING

Rick Mercer was some time ago anointed by the CBC.

The CBC does that.

Every so often they anoint some man or woman with their high stamp of approval. That person is subsequently given 101 chances to shine, 102 excusable failures, a permanent position in the Towers and a life pension.

Mansbridge, George Stanopopopopopopopulousishness.

Sometimes, as in the case of a guy I went to school with in Winnipeg, the blessed recipient is sent to Harvard Business School by the Corporation. Much of this is not made public.

Now, we are being encouraged to believe that Rick Mercer is the funniest person is Canada.

Mr. Mercer floats in zero gravity capsules and tries soccer and hockey and other past times.

Who is he supposed to be? Harold Lloyd? Buster Keaton?

He is not even remotely funny.

You know who's funny?

My son is funny.

I am funny.

Why haven't we been anointed by the CBC and been given what amounts to a Free Pass in life?

I know.

We have to suffer so we can grow.

Alright, already.

We've grown. We're elephantine.

Where's our Pass?

When's the coronation?

Will Rick Mercer be there with a cream pie?