If you're reading this, you are probably not homeless and very, very cold.
That's Gratitude #1.
If you're reading this, you're probably not Barack Obama or Tiger Woods, so you don't have to deal with the weight of the entire world or what may feel like the weight of the entire world.
G2.
If you're reading this from almost anywhere in Canada, you may have noticed the great absence of mortal shells, skuds or other flying materiel.
G3.
If in Vancouver, it is a sunny, sunny morning, some flowers are still in bloom, some Christmas cacti are already showing the red, some hardy birds are still fluttering about and two or three of the NFL games today are really worth watching.
G4.
Then there's 1001 coffee shops with great espresso and not-too-fattening munchies, beaches to stroll and hills to climb, if strolling and beaches are still in your repertoire.
Your eyes and/or your glasses are apparently working, and if you listen to The Stones in a minute, so are your ears.
I am very lucky to live in co-op housing. We pay less than $1200 per month for a three bedroom townhome (near schools, parks and amenities) plus utilities. The city property tax is included in our housing charge.
This co-op was partially financed through funding from the CHMC around 30 years ago (in the early 1980'). It has provided safe, affordable housing and a community of mixed incomes (from subsidized members paying 30% of their gross income to working and lower professional classes paying the regular rate - which is still much lower than true market rates).
The members of our co-op are a stable bunch. We know each other and participate in our own community and the community at large.
This is in stark contrast to most townhomes/condos where there are so many units sitting empty (pied de terres for out-of-towners and speculative buys for property investors).
There are members who have young children who were young children living here with their own parents when the co-op was first opened. How is that for a stable neighbourhood!!
As we are paying hundreds of dollars less per month than we would on either market rents or the high costs of regular home ownership - we have more money to spend to stimulate the economy or invest for our retirements or children's higher education.
Keep in mind - this is not "social housing" in the sense that it is only for low income. This co-op is made of a mix of people - the way a healthy neighbourhood SHOULD be. Most members pay full price for their units and others have degrees of subsidy - depending on their individual circumstances. We manage our own property and stay within budget each year.
There needs to be more of this type of housing in Vancouver so that singles, families and seniors can live, work and participate in the city. With more affordable housing options. It is horrifying to hear of working people having to avail themselves of shelters and other emergency housing because of the dismal lack of options.
In an excellent editorial yesterday, the Sun's Daphne Bramham, captures the way we ignore and disrespect our own history here in the greatest place on earth.
Writing about the dislocation of the BC Sports Hall of Fame, she points out the half a BILLION dollars that will go into the new roof at La Grande Mushroom vs. the $20 Million needed over the next few years to honor our best.
Read the piece and ask if we shouldn't rename this important and soon-to-be displaced institution The BC Hall of (Gordon Campbell) Shame.
By the way, the new Sea-to-Sky Highway gets considerable coverage in today's Globe. The road cost about one BILLION.
"The murder of the four officers in Lakewood, Washington is no longer on the
front pages, but it has stayed with me". "It haunts me"!
Well David it haunts me as well. Every day.
That morning in Lakewood I lost 4 Members of my extended family. I wore an
R.C.M.P. Uniform for several years in the 90's. We are "Members" because
it is a family, and you can never really separate yourself from family. During my Training I was taught that "it is not YOU, it is the UNIFORM" that
some people will turn on. I was also taught, "when you are in UNIFORM, you
are a target".
Well David, no truer words have been spoken. I experienced that so many times, and the 4 Members in Lakewood experienced the ultimate example.
Back in the olden days, when I had hair, there was a group of our peers chanting the Mantra "question Authority"! I, and perhaps you, was taught in our formative years that if you wanted a slap or a grounding, just march into your parents kitchen and "question Authority"! You wouldn't like the response!
In light of that upbringing, I had a "problem" with the "Question Authority” crowd. However, in light of how "Authority" had run amuck, and acquired a lust for Power, by any means, I came to the conclusion that Authority should be held to account. I instilled this in our daughter, and my Son.
Being "held to account" first of all meant, that no matter the Authority figure, he/she
puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. NEVER be intimidated!
Secondly it meant to give respect, to get respect. This eliminated questioning Authority by spitting on them, threatening their families, chucking beer bottles at them, and other such idiotic actions.
I experienced those actions escalating David when I was in Uniform, from verbal
taunts, to spitting, to throwing rocks, bottles etc., to ground fighting, and now in our new Millennium, shooting Authority Figures in cold blood.
I Posted on your Blog this morning David, that "the Rules have changed". Back
in the day, the perps had a Code of their own. You didn't hit on women or children, you didn't steal from the Sally Ann, if and when you were detained you complied................ Not today.
As you alluded to the fact that if one doesn't feel safe in a Public place with Members present, when can we? It reminds me of the hand wringing and sobs that I see on the 6 o'clock News every night. Someone has been shot/raped/kidnapped, take your pick, and some lunatic is braying, "It's such a quiet neighbourhood, I can't believe it happened here"! Like bad guys have no access to "quiet neighbourhoods"? It's all I can do, to refrain from throwing the TV out the window, when EVERY night I hear this nonsense.
In the REAL world, I remember a fellow Member saying to me one evening, that if the good folks in our small rural Gulf Island Community knew what is out there at night,
"they wouldn't walk alone". My response is always, "yup, here's Breaking News, our
Ferry transports BAD GUYS too! Go figure David! But alas, many people don't or
won't.
Anyway, I won't bore you any longer David. I seem to have gotten off the Topic a
bit. I just really wanted to share with you, that "it haunts me", as well.
The murder of the four officers in Lakewood, Washington is no longer on the front pages, but it has stayed with me.
It haunts me.
I have been asking myself why I have felt so impacted by this gruesome tale.
I am not sure of the answer, but here is something.
These four people were sitting at a booth in a popular coffee shop, each writing on his and her laptops.
I spend considerable time doing exactly this - sitting in cafes, writing on my laptop.
I love the new cafe culture.
Dozens of people of all ages, colors, ethnicities, and inclinations are drinking coffee and eating snacks and writing on their laptops.
And...
Oddly enough, interacting.
Little hellos and chats sometime wander into full discussions about life or the affairs of the day or the arcane minutia that make the day interesting.
In short, these places have the air and feeling of civility.
Everyone likes to bandy about notions of the civilized society and what we aught to do to get there.
I find that these little WiFi cyber cafes have spontaneously become the best example of the civilized society.
They are comfortable and friendly and interactive, even with people staring down their computer screens.
Now...
The idea of some mad man crashing through this sense of local community and safety and neighbourliness by firing a gun and murdering people sitting in a booth working on their laptops ... my god, it's just horrifying.
To make it worse, the victims are young people, in their 30's and 40's. Trust me, that's young.
To make it even worse, they are police officers.
If ever one should feel safe, it is in a cafe with four police officers near by.
But no.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
Clemmons, the killer, killed four real human beings.
And he has caused dreadful unimaginable pain for the surviving families of these four officers.
But he has also punched a great gaping torn hole in basic notions of civilization and community.
The geniuses who run something called The B.C. Review Board have decreed that this fellow will be set free next month - his crimes occurred last year - on only 10 conditions.
These conditions include, among other impossibilities, you must not drink.
Did I mention that he is an alcoholic?
My first question is this:
Who will be following this Living Danger around to monitor his Good Boy behaviour?
The parole and probation people no longer leave their offices. They spend all day filling out forms.
My second question is this:
Who reviews the Review Board?
These people are irresponsible in the extreme and when this lunatic kills his next innocent victims will Barry Long, Garnet Warrian and Lily Chow - the three members of the Review Board who have set free this walking time bomb -will they be held responsible? Will they even attend the funerals of Crazy Guy's next victims?
And my last question is this:
How do I get me appointed to this B.C. Review Board?
Whom do I have to know or blow?
I am sure there is a pleasant little remuneration attached to these duties.
But that's not the main reason I want this appointment.
The main reason I want the assignment is so that I can say, "NO!" over and over and over again to all the dangerous nut bars who think they should be walking around in my neighbourhood.
I want to sing "NO!"
I want to shout, "NO!"
I want to dance, "NO!" in a dizzying array of languages.
As a follow-up to yesterday's story in this space about 200 care workers being fired after they voted to join a union, I recommend that you read Justine Hunter's first-rate analysis of the entire Seniors Care game here in SuperNatural British Columbia.
It comes down to two familiar phrases: underfunding and contracting out.
The people who will suffer will, of course, be the elderly and their families.
Another well-managed file from the good folks in the funny old building behind the lawn in Victoria.
The news that 200 workers at a seniors' care home had been fired just after they voted to join HEU would not even be noteworthy if we had not noticed which particular care home is in question here.
Completed in June 2008, the privately owned Sunridge Place facility was built to replace Cowichan Lodge, a government-run care home that served the Cowichan Valley for close to 80 years.
Despite a strong community effort to save Cowichan Lodge, the last patients were moved to Sunridge Place about a year ago.
The closing of Cowichan in favor of this new private facility was just one of many similar initiatives by Gordon Campbell.
This case was particularly galling because of how much the local community enjoyed the staff and services of Cowichan Lodge over such a long period of service.
Now, with private contractors happily in business under the Gordo banner, closing s and labour strife are the norm.
Jon Ferry was my editor at the Vancouver Province.
In fact, he was the fellow who so kindly surprised me with an invitation to write columns for the paper.
I enjoyed that assignment immensely and the often vigorous parry-and-thrust with Jon over what was written and what needed to be written.
I was equally disappointed, when a little over a year later, the editor in chief called to tell me that my assignment had ended.
I was one of 500+ folks summarily dismissed across the country as Canwest Global attempted once again to scotch the bleeding.
Ah, well. Such is life...
Thus, imagine my delight yesterday at Jon giving me another three minutes of fame by using one of my blog entries ("Armed & Dangerous - An Entire Country" posted on Monday, November 30/09) as his starting point for a column of his own.
More laws and anti-U.S. bigotry are no answers for gun violence
By Jon Ferry, The Province
It's a good one and a riot and well worth the read if you missed it.
I don't feel the need to defend my position or re-hash the argument other than to say that America is a gun culture in a way that Canada is not.
I haven't forgotten for a moment the six people executed in Surrey or the four mounties or the victims of Mark Lapine.
But here is the telling difference.
I know many, many people across Canada.
And I don't really know very many who own a gun of any kind or calibre.
Almost everyone in the USA is packing.
I am not familiar with thousands of strip mall and corner stores in Canada who sell ammo and Uzis.
Canada and America are very similar, and in this regard in particular, very different.
To point out bad public policy is not America Bashing.
"We think there's a good story to tell about what we've done in B.C. for homelessness, mental health, drug addiction," Housing Minister Rich Coleman said.
Then, not satisfied, Coleman removed his Hush Puppy from his mouth and added: "We're not going to hide that we have a bit of homelessness," he said.
Corporal Monty Robinson may not be the best poster boy these days for the RCMP.
He is known as the one who gave the order to taser Robert Dziekanski.
He is also responsible for the death of a motorcyclist, Orion Hutchinson.
The RCMP have him on suspension with pay.
Yesterday Robinson was charged with obstruction, but not impaired driving.
While Robinson may have considerable to answer for in the coming months, so does the AG's office in the handling of this case and the RCMP in its handling of the good officer.
Whatever happened at the burned out mansion at Laurier and Granville, it is not good.
But what happened on the late news the night it happened was a tiny little tragedy in itself.
The young lady posing and acting as a news anchor - she is qualified by her blond hair, blue eyes and Nordic good looks - called Low-Ree-Ay...Lore=EE-er.
