It is not often that I feel the direct impact of a labour dispute.
But the current struggle between Ambulance drivers and paramedics and the B.C. Government has me a little worried.
It was only a few months ago that I dialled 911.
Within minutes, the whole gang was in my kitchen, and only a few minutes later, I was in a bed at VGH.
The response from these dedicated and knowledgeable workers was terrific.
Now, as they have been legislated back to work, they are running a series of work stoppages that has severely limited the number of vehicles and personnel on the road.
The public is being urged to call 911 only in the most dire emergencies.
The first thing that tells me is that in ordinary practice many people are calling for ambulance services when they should not.
If people are being told to visit a walk-in clinic or their local bones, they must be casually using 911 frivolously.
This is not something I had ever before considered, but why should I be surprised?
Now...
If anybody, any worker or group of workers is fighting with the B.C. Government about almost anything, my natural sympathies will lie immediately with the workers.
And so in this case, I support the paramedics pleas for a better contract. They do great, life-saving work and they should be appropriately compensated.
I just wish they could find a way to drive home their arguments without scaring the living beejazus outta me.
As proof positive that the world is completely mad, we offer some recently announced and conferred awards:
1. Martin Scorsese will be honored with the Cecil B DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes next year.
It is true that Scorsese made Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, two brilliant iconic movies.
And then?
The aptly named "The Departed" won the Best Picture Oscar. I departed the movie theatre with 40 minutes left to run. Months later, I asked a group of people who were standing around talking about it (Why?) who killed whom at the end.
The answer was, "Everybody."
If that wasn't the most execrable movie ever made, then certainly "Gangs of New York" was. I walked out of that just after Daniel Day Lewis threw an axe into someone's back.
Scorsese is obsessed with bloody violence and macho posing.
He is absolutely a fine craftsman and knows film as well as anybody ever has.
The Howard Hughes bio? Yawn, goodnight.
Unfortunately, he makes unwatchable drivel.
2. The man who was drug czar for the City of Vancouver is being given an award from a delusional group in the Excited States. They feel that this creep, who helped create and open Insite and has openly said repeatedly that "treatment doesn't work," has put Vancouver right at the apex of leadership in responding to drug issues.
These geniuses should try living here for five minutes.
They are also awarding the nutty German psychiatrist at UBC who is giving a handful of heroin addicts free heroin. Cost about $8,000,000 a year. Nuff said.
3. And then, of course, there is the dullest bore in broadcasting who was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award for reading off his question sheet and never looking at his guests. Hahahaha...
By the way, one of the stations that still pays His Dullness has recently fired one of its longest running and popular hosts to accept $100,000 a year in fees from a rival broadcaster to air programs on their own home signal. Possibly a first in the history of broadcasting and the clearest possible example of living by the Bottom Line.
Can a war criminal or terrorist or soldier be tried in a civilian court?
Should he?
Can such person get "a fair trial?"
Can justice - whatever that may be - be served?
How?
Can the confession of a man who has been tortured be believed or accepted.
These are big questions and they are all thrown on the table as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends are brought to New York City to face charges on killing more than 3,000 people in one horrible moment, now known a 9/11.
Every paper in the world has covered this story today.
The Globe and Mail's is as good as any other, I suppose. Read it, and tell us what you think of this.
Simple "off with his head" comments won't cut it, so to speak...
The Save Local TV campaign by Canada's major broadcasters is, of course, a farce of the cheapest order.
The broadcasters and the cable and satellite companies will lock horns this coming week in Gatineau, Quebec in front of that most discerning of audiences, the CRTC.
Lord help us.
Three such august groups.
In the late 70's, I worked at CBC Vancouver for a brief year.
I was a story editor on the supper hour newscast, known as Hourglass. I wrote and performed comedy sketches for several TV shows, I read the news and hosted a Saturday and Sunday morning music show on radio. And sometimes I scrubbed down the hallway.
In those days, that concrete bunker on Hamilton and Georgia was the equivalent of a small MGM, studio after studio producing local and national product of every kind. The costume and make-up rooms were huge and always busy.
How can CTV, Global or CBC lay any claim today to "local TV?"
This is and will be entirely a fight for free taxpayer dollars from an industry that has outlived its own business model.
Two stories with similar trajectories have got my morning goat.
1. An Islamic radical is shot and killed by the FBI in America. Days later, two Canadian associates are arrested in their homes by Windsor police.
But wouldn't you know it, those gnarly officers patted down a number of people during the arrest, including, stand back, a female relative of the suspects.
As these things go, the Windsor Police Chief has now made a formal and public apology and set up new officer "sensitivity" training in conjunction with the local Islamic Association.
Write your own commentary.
2. People bring their relatives to Canada under the family class program. Many of these reunifications work out just fine for all concerned.
But many of theses relatives are quickly and mysteriously destitute. They are suddenly on the dole and the relatives who sponsored them and swore that they would support them so I don't have to now claim they cannot.
The Ontario government has asked that some of these monies be repayed by people who promised in the first instance to do exactly that.
But, no.
Now, these people have sued the Ontario government and thanks to Ontario courts, they have won. Ontario cannot ask to be repayed, at least en masse. The government must pursue each niggly case on its own.
The key element here is that the sponsors have claimed that circumstances - ill health, for example - have made it impossible for them to honor their commitments.
I suggest that they are liars.
I suggest that Canada is known with great good humour in Third World countries as a famous patsy. That we are soft in the head and softer in the heart.
Why not demand a surety or some other bond that can be called in if necessary?
I am not anti-Olympics but I am really bored with the torch stories. If we have to endure this for another 100 days how about some edgy torch stories. How about these?
At a Prince George strip bar, 12 guys standing at urinals pass the torch to each other.
In Vancouver's downtown east side, 15 crack addicts race shopping carts while lighting crack pipes with the torch.
At a Winnipeg WalMart, 9 obese shoppers pas the torch while sitting and eating nachos.
At Kingston penitentiary, 5 inmates pass the torch while getting manicures and massages.
At Toronto airport, 137 illegal immigrants launch a class action suit for not getting a chance to run the torch. [Hahahaha...editorial comment...this is my favorite...hahaha]
In Ottawa, caregivers carry the torch past 8 sleeping Senators debating a crime bill.
In Victoria, the torch extinguishes suddenly and the Liberals blame the Glen Clark government.
In Oshawa, 14 auto workers on their third one hour break, pass a zippo lighter and demand a bonus.
Lately it seems that every restaurant and cafe I'm in seems to be playing Sinatra.
This is hardly a complaint. I am grateful.
These days, I find myself marvelling again and again at just how good, how great he was.
Totally committed to every note and every nuance of meaning.
Here is one of the first songs I ever learned.
My mother who favoured Chopin etudes and little Mozart piece on the upright piano in our living room loved this Kurt Weill Maxwell Anderson tune, and I would rock back and forth on the sofa while she played it.
It is not "embedded" on YouTube, but here is the link.
Enjoy at the deepest possible level....Sink into it. Swim in it.
For those interested in the plight and fortunes of small business in Vancouver, yesterday's cover story in the Courier will be an eye-opener.
So far, 16 businesses in the neighbourhood between the Granville Bridge and West 16th Avenue have closed this year.
High rents and even higher city taxes will do it every time.
Two inevitable consequences follow.
Empty stores and the ultimate arrival of Big Chains, which rob neighbourhoods of any semblance of individuality. Think Robson Strasse of several decades back to Robson today of the Gap, Banana Republic, and Roots . A big yawn if you're not a tourist in a group from Japan.
The Stanley Theatre (Arts Club) continues to be a major and important anchor and draw for the street, and while their work isn't entirely my cup of tea, they are a boon for everybody - actors, singers, directors, musicians, writers, shop owners, audiences and shoppers.
Spurred on by the announcement of a "safe" crack smoking room, Hasiuk offers a few original initiatives of his own.
This reminds me of the very large public meeting about 40 years ago when I announced with a straight face that three levels of government had entered into an agreement with Ford Motors of Canada to keep a lot in Steveston fully stocked with new cars. The catch was that the keys would be left in the ignitions and that car thieves were allowed only one theft a day.
At least half the mural stared at me in complete baffled belief.
2. By now you have probably heard or read that former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan has scored more money for his various nutty programs. About half a million. Dollars, that is. His ideas are about seven.
When asked about his continuing plan to give substitute opiates to addicts, Sullivan admitted that he didn't really have a structure or a team or an office but that this would help him nicely survive the cold winter months.
What follows is written by Christina, who just celebrated her 15th birthday. She is in Grade 10 here in the Vancouver area.
Nobody, myself included, has ever said it better.
Insite
A Chair Missing Three of Its Legs
By Christina Larsen
Teacher: Mrs. Sharpe
November 8, 2009
Outline
I.Introduction
Thesis- The Safe Injection Site (Insite) in Vancouver uses money to supply a clean and safe environment for drug addicts to inject themselves with illegal substances. The money used to run this facility would be better spent on treatment.
II.Downtown East Side
A.History
B.Why Downtown East Side?
i)The Addictions
III.The Health of Drug Addicts
A.Physical Effects
i)Internal Damage
ii)Tolerance Building
B.Emotional Effects
i)Brain Chemical Imbalances
ii)Emotional Cycles
IV.Criticisms of Insite
A.What is Insite?
B.Unsuitable Way of Treatment
C.The Failed Four Pillars Approach
D.The Budget for Insite
V.Conclusion
Most people pay taxes, and others have jobs. Most people are responsible, contributing citizens of society. Drug addicts however, are not like most people. They have addictions that are so strong that it consumes their entire life. It does not matter if they once had jobs or have families. All that matters is the drug that is slowly killing them. Every waking second is about their next fix. Drugs are poisons that are derived from plant defence mechanisms called psychoactive alkaloids.[i] These were used to ward off the herbivores. When the herbivore eats the plant, they experience the “high” and stay away from it. Yet addicts want this feeling, they need it to dull the pain and the loneliness they feel. It is illogical and unnatural, but it is an issue around the world, especially in the Downtown East Side in Vancouver. The Safe Injection Site (Insite) in Vancouver uses money to supply a clean and safe environment for drug addicts to inject themselves with illegal substances. The money used to run this facility would be better spent on treatment.
Originally, Gastown was a thriving industrial community complete with sawmills, great transportation, a main library, a city hall, banks, hotels and theatres. But, like all good things, it came to an end:in the late 60’s businesses re-located, decreasing the economy’s productivity. When less and less people walked through the Downtown East Side, the other community centers like the library and the theatres followed suit. The following decade, most people with mental health issues could not afford housing anywhere else but the Downtown East Side due to supply and demand. Soon after, many drug addicts and dealers called the Downtown East Side their home. In the late 80’s heroin, the drug of choice at the time, changed to cocaine, a highly addictive drug. Drug addicts living in the Downtown East Side had to support their habit somehow, and they did this by stealing. Due to the increase in robberies, the only businesses that made a profit were second hand shops that bought the stolen items. This made legitimate businesses hard to come by. In the 90`s, almost all of the businesses had moved elsewhere, leaving a poor, poverty-stricken, highly unemployed, and addicted Downtown East Side behind.
The problems in downtown Vancouver did not get any better, nor did the health of the drug addicts residing there. The health of drug addicts who use cocaine and methamphetamines ranges from ear, nose and throat problems such as bronchitis, bleeding, sinusitis and coughing up mucus and blood to unhealthy weight loss due to higher than normal metabolisms, and everything in between.[ii] Drug addicts either sleep too much or too little, have periods when they feel they have extreme strength which could cause injuries, teeth problems, vomiting, seizures, irregular breathing, haemorrhaging (bleeding of the brain), and the list goes on. What makes the addictions maintain in severity is tolerance building. This occurs as an addict needs more and more of their drug of choice to feel `normal`. However, drugs do not limit themselves to destroying the physical health of the user, they affect the mental health as well.
Drugs change responses of brain chemicals called nero-transmitters. They do this by causing the brain to release too much or too little of these chemicals.[iii] Vital nero- transmitters that are affected by drugs are as follows; norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. Norepinephrine and dopamine is adrenaline, and too much of it that is released can result in a more violent behaviour. Serotonin, also called 5-hydroxytryptamine is responsible for the high. This nero- transmitter constricts the blood vessels, making the user feel ‘happy’. Acetylcholine or ACH relays information between nerve cells in the brain, effecting the physical movement. Drugs that take a shorter time to affect the brain do so because they are similar size and shape to the normal brain`s nero-transmitters. The ingested drugs take about twenty to thirty minutes, whereas injected drugs take only fifteen to thirty seconds. A marijuana high can last up to several hours, whereas a cocaine high, lasts about an hour. While all of the brain chemical changes are taking place, the drug addict feels euphoric. He or she thinks that they are on top of the world, can do anything they want. Any pain or loneliness they feel, diminishes. Unfortunately for the addict, that joy comes to an end, and is followed by extreme depression. Wanting to feel that sense of euphoria again, the addict buys more drugs and shoots up. This vicious cycle continues to occur until the addict can get their next fix, until he/she can feel happy again, until he/she walks across the street, opens the door the Safe Injection Site, sits in a comfortable cubby, is supplied a clean needle, and is able to shoot up while a nurse is watching him to make sure he is safe so he/she can do it all over again the next day.
The Safe Injection Site opened its doors in June of 2003, when Health Canada granted Vancouver Coastal Health an exemption from section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). This led to North America`s first Supervised Injection Site, otherwise known as Insite. It is located on 139 Hastings Street in the Downtown East Side. Insite is open from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon, seven days a week. Around 650 drug addicts use Insite each day. This means 650 human beings who desperately need support and help continue to shoot up, easily forgetting about what they really need, which is treatment. The high they experience is more important than anything else; it makes them feel good, so why should they stop? They are getting what they want, which is their drug of choice and the ability to use it. Insite only provides the ability to use the drugs safely.
Insite is only focussed on harm reduction. It is quite clear that Insite does not provide the four pillars approach. It has failed to supply the other three key pillars; prevention, treatment, and enforcement. Insite itself is the complete opposite of prevention. By letting addicts shoot up, they are allowing this behaviour. As for enforcement, making it legal to use drugs in Insite is most definitely not enforcing the law. As for treatment, that`s a big one. Drug specialists say that the best way for someone to get clean is to take the temptation away. Again, Insite is doing the exact opposite by enabling drug addicts to use without any consequences or second guesses.
Tony Cement, Canada`s former Health Minister is against Insite. He said ``Advocates have given an overly rosy picture of the Vancouver facility, which focuses on `harm reduction` by letting addicts shoot up and receive medical help in a safe, clean environment.`` He said that treatment is key in the solving the issue. Clement continued by saying ``The best way to reduce harm is to get addicts off drugs and to provide supports for that addict.``[iv] Due to the fact that Insite was so controversial, Tony Clement had a committee issue a study. This committee found that Insite only had five percent of the Downtown East Side`s addicts actually using it.[v] This concludes that Insite is not helping most of the addicts living in the Downtown East Side to kick their habit.
Addicts can have a moment of wanting treatment, but when they hear it can take anywhere from one week to four weeks for a detox bed, the moment often vanishes. It does not make any sense that while an addict has to wait for treatment, they can go shoot up at Insite any time. Insite makes it easier for addicts to continue to use because if they were caught on the streets using drugs, then they would be either fined or arrested, whereas in the safety of Insite, drug addicts are free to use without any consequences. The whole point of making something illegal is to make people not want to do it, or at least make it harder for them to do it. The drug addict using Insite may not think of his/her addiction as big a deal that needs fixing, but instead a normal way of life.
If the four pillars approach clearly states that treatment is part of it, then why would a drug addict have to wait for treatment? Because most of the funding is being put towards Insite, leaving little for treatment facilities and detox beds. So little in fact, that British Columbia, with 8,000 addicts,[vi] has only one hundred detox beds. Patti Smith, a worker at Vancouver Native Health said; ``We need to be able to respond to these people the minute there is a window. They`re taking responsibility and we need to acknowledge it right away.``[vii]So, prevention, enforcement, and especially treatment are not receiving the attention they deserve. Let`s compare Insite; a clean, chic setting complete with a coffee bar and background music to one of the very few detox beds; a dingy, unwelcoming facility that you have to wait for days to enter. As a drug addict, which would you rather be in? People do what is easiest for them. Why wouldn’t they continue to do something that makes them feel euphoric, at least part of the time, when the alternative would be a dull and boring place? Treatment must be appealing to use. John Turvey, a founder of a needle exchange noted ``They`re jumping all over this Safe Injection Site and forgetting about the treatment programs that were supposed to go with it. What about abstinence and the 12-steps?``
Not only does Insite fail the four pillars approach, but it costs a lot of tax dollars to do it. The budget for Insite is three-point-five to four million dollars a year. This tax money should not go towards allowing and enabling drug addicts to use, but rather to treatment centers. Wasn’t that the whole point of Insite? Once informed of ‘treatment options’ addicts are supposed to go to treatment. But they don’t because there are not many treatment beds available. Insite is giving no hope to those who desperately want to overcome their addiction, but cannot because of the lack of funding.The main purpose of Insite is to decrease the amount of sharing needles. Yet 40% of regular Insite users who have AIDS still share needles.[viii] Money being put towards Insite for that purpose is being wasted, because the addicts who are informed about the dangers of needle-sharing do not get the message.
It is very surprising that despite Insite`s many problems, it continues to run to this day. Giving needles to drug addicts is like putting out a forest fire with a garden hose. It just will not work. The prioritizing of the four pillars approach is all wrong, and shows that we as a community accept drug use. Insite seems to be more about sustaining the addicts’ lifestyle, than about ending their addictions. Addicts will not own up or admit they need help, especially when a neighbourhood sets up a place where they can shoot up. These addicts need help, but it should not come in the form of a free needle. Some addicts will continue to use this debilitating program until they die. Mahatma Gandhi put it well when he said; `` Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless man who you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he be able to gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?``[ix] This quote can be applied to drug addicts. They are some of the poorest and most helpless of people, due to their overwhelming and negatively life-altering addictions. We offer Insite, but users will not gain anything by continuing to use drugs, and supplying them with needles to do so will not give them control over their life. The bottom line is that no matter how clean a needle is, it is still a needle that injects drugs into a person, continuing a deadly cycle that keeps their addiction, an addiction. Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what everyone wants for these people?
[i] Munoz, Mercedes and Courtwright, David. What Causes Addiction? California:Thomson Gale, 2005.
The Washington Post's Mensa invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are the 2009 winners:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12.. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido : All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your Bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
And the winners are:
1. Coffee , n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate , v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade , v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly , adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph , v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence , n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle , n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon , n.. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism , n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of jockey shorts worn by Jewish men.
He insisted that he had only $10,000 as he was trying to drive into Canada last month.
Turns out he had considerably more than that - about $900,000 in gold coins and other currencies.
He also had an odd and damning array of other goodies in his possession. Read the full story for all the details.
Khaled Nawaya is in custody and he is innocent of any charges until proven otherwise.
He may be the Danny Kaye of border crossers - a goofy naive dupe.
Or he may be a terrorist.
Being a pilot and a certified flying instructor trying to drive into Canada with a cargo of oddities doesn't help.
The border guards were justified in stopping Nawaya and the Canadian government is justified in holding on to him until all can rest assured that he is just a nice guy with peculiar tastes in memorabilia.
Every year, just before November 11th, some bright light urinates on or topples a war monument.
This time it is Fredericton, where vandals have crashed part of a monument with names of those Canadian soldiers killed in wars.
Some of these acts of sheer stupidity or outright hatred can be assigned to drunks who care about nothing, for whom nothing ever was or ever will be honorable, let alone sacred.
But some are committed by misbegotten fools who believe that they are making a plea for peace.
Yes, we get it.
We all know war is hell and war is dreadful and we'd all like to sit in our gardens and sip tea.
We also know that wars are often fought for all of the wrong reasons and that millions have died needlessly.
None of those home truths however change the fact that those who have fought and died did their best to serve.
Honoring the dead is not approving of war.
Like any Canadian, I mourn the loss of any soldier's life in Afghanistan, even while decrying our very presence there.
The desecration of monuments to dead soldiers is about as detestable an act as can be imagined.
