AS I WAS SAYING...Thanks, Mo!

SMALL MERCIES

No longer can life be considered brutal and short.

There is clear evidence of a loving God.

So many have been feeling disenfranchised, powerless. Nobody listens.

And so it has seemed for so long.

But now, a kind and thoughtful deity has given us this.

Better yet, event this.

Will the Blessings never cease?

Now, melancholy and separation are forever vanished.

"I'm gtng a pepC. U?"

Forget drugs. Every teenage girl in the Western world is addicted, attached and enthralled. And so are her mother and her sister and her aunt and even a few million alleged guys.

Not since the Coca-Cola has there been such a successful marketing campaign.

Playing directly into every sorry sap's urgent need to be needed, this clever toy - the hand-held computer-phone-camera - is now issued at birth.

As we speak, some clever sod, toiling in a suburban garage in Sherman Oaks no doubt, is perfecting the gun feature to make this instrument complete and perfect.

Imagine being a teacher in a classroom today! Yikes! I take back every harsh word I have uttered about the BCTF. Teachers are my new heroes. Who in his or her right mind would dare interrupt the flow of creativity from one of his or her charges who are supposed to be studying mathematics.

And speaking of flow...Have you noticed how texters can walk through rush hour traffic without harm.

Just more evidence of Divine Attention, I say.

WHAT ME, WORRY?

It's been a year since the Stanley Cup riot and, despite its laid-back reputation, Vancouver still seems like such an angry city. If people aren't angry about bike lanes, they're angry about roads, cars, motorcycles with loud pipes, the June weather, the economy, oil tankers, housing prices, Asian investors, the rich, the homeless, store clerks, Gregor Robertson ... especially the bike lanes.

 Just ask businessman Rob Macdonald, who was campaign fundraising chairman for former Vancouver councillor Suzanne Anton, beaten soundly by Robertson in last fall's mayoralty election. Macdonald, a big supporter of cycling in B.C., says the downtown folks he talks to are very angry with the way the bicycle lanes have been introduced and the harmful impact they're having on downtown Vancouver.

"There's unhappiness with the civic government," Macdonald said "And then, of course, there's a feeling of impending doom for the downtown business community of the NDP, the socialists, taking over again."
Indeed, he himself gets angrier by the minute as he talks about the poor design of the bike lanes, their lack of safety and the serious accidents he says they've caused: "The City of Vancouver should be charged with f------ manslaughter."

So should this newspaper columnist, according to those who take issue with my mildly expressed opinion on the possible risks of marijuana smoking and use it to indulge in an orgy of name-calling. Forget mellow yellow, Vancouver has to have the world's angriest pot smokers ... in addition to its angriest hockey fans.

 We in Terminal City love to make mountains out of molehills. We're the Charlie Sheen, if not Mel Gibson, of anger management ... or lack of it.

Veteran Vancouver broadcaster David Berner points out that Vancouver is a divided city. Every day, he says, he meets people who are very sweet and kind. And every day, whether as a pedestrian or a driver, he meets people who are simply "deranged."

 Berner told me he used to joke on the radio that Vancouver is the only city that sells new cars without turn signals:

 "I mean, people are so unkind. I've actually had people drive almost over me, and then give me the finger for daring to walk across ... at marked intersections." 


 The reason for this anger, he added, is that Vancouver has an adolescent culture: "This is not Venice or Paris where people are used to having a glass of wine. This is still a frontier town where every 70-year-old wants to wear designer blue jeans." I completely agree, especially about the blue jeans. 

Sports writer Jim Taylor, though, says Vancouverites have every right to be angry about last year's riot: "You'd have to be brain-dead not to be angry about that."

 And Tourism Vancouver boss Rick Antonson insists that Vancouver is a passionate and spirited city, not an angry one. "The last thing you'd want to be is a robot city," he added. Antonson is absolutely right. A bunch of angry robots is the last thing we need to have to worry — or get angry — about.

jferry@theprovince.com

© Copyright (c) The Province

PETE NAILS IT

Housing activists stalk a 'gentrifier' at his West Van home

By Pete McMartin, Vancouver SunJune 13, 2012

On the premise that a man's home is his castle, a group of "housing activists" - whatever that means - swarmed out of the Downtown Eastside Monday night, crossed the other side of the tracks and invaded West Vancouver, where a man's castle is his home.

They then laid siege to developer Steven Lippman. They picketed his place and, according to The Sun's story, were "brandishing signs and pitching tents nearby."

Pitched tents? In West Vancouver? Canada's toniest municipality hadn't seen such civil disobedience since 2006, when angry residents railed against the construction of the Eagleridge Bluffs bypass, while lunching on brie and lattes.

Lippman's crime? He buys rundown properties in the Downtown Eastside and fixes them up. He does this with the intent of making a profit. Imagine. Most recently, this includes the expected purchase of the single-room occupancy Wonder and Palace hotels, the court-ordered sales of which are scheduled in B.C. Supreme Court today.

Fighting this sale is an organization called the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council. The council, the storied history of which goes all the way back to, oh, 2010, branded Lippman as "a notorious gentrifier," and believes the 72 rooms of the Wonder and Palace hotels will be renovated, and then have their rents raised beyond the means of welfare recipients and senior citizens on government pension. Thus, the Council's following call to action:

"Come embarrass Lippman on his own turf," the council's website urged, "and call for him to cancel his plans to buy the Wonder and Palace hotels with a family friendly picket line in front of his swanky West Van home. Tell him that these hotels are 72 peoples [sic] homes, not investment properties!"
Aside from the hilarious detail of a "family friendly picket line" (kids get arrested free!) and the use of the word "swanky," which I believe was last uttered in a Bowery Boys movie, I was most struck by the assumption that these hotels, by virtue of their hyper-politicized location, were exempt from the usual rules of capitalism. They're not investment properties! They're Downtown Eastside homes! And Downtown Eastside homes are never for sale, unless, of course, the government buys them for social housing. And then it's okay.

But it's not okay any more. Decades of social experimentation have only perpetuated the Downtown Eastside's problems, not solved them. Its concentration of social housing has created a ghetto, not a neighbourhood.

And there are signs that the people who live there and want it to be a true neighbourhood have had it up to here.

Last year, the Strathcona Business Improvement Association, the Ray-Cam Community Association and the Inner City Safety Society compiled a report entitled Vancouver's Downtown Eastside: A Com-munity in Need of Balance. In essence, it suggests that the hundreds of millions of tax dollars the social welfare system pumps into their neighbour-hood is not only not the solution, it may be the problem.
"Maintaining the Downtown Eastside as a high or special needs social housing enclave," it states, "will not help to stabilize either the community or the city as a whole. The term 'vulnerability' now describes not only a majority of community residents but also the neighbourhood itself. Continued expansion or concentration of vulnerable individuals into already adverse social conditions will lead to neither their safety and health nor that of the neighbourhood.

"The vast majority of social housing units - both those newly built and renovated - have been targeted to the highest risk, street-involved individuals and have deliberately excluded others within the low-income population who face fewer obvious challenges, seriously unbalancing what was a stable albeit poor neighbourhood."

In other words, enough already. The Downtown East-side has its problems, yes, but efforts to solve those problems have been targeted overwhelmingly at high-risk individuals. And when government does that, it doesn't result in fewer high-risk individuals, it results in more. Government policies in the Downtown Eastside have been a magnet for them, to the point where they have over-whelmed the neighbourhood's ability to deal with them.

"Area families, seniors, working people, schools, community centres and business argue that no neighbourhood can remain healthy when populated by an over-abundance of high-risk or high-impact individuals. These individuals also fail to receive the support they need in a community where capacity is already compromised and over-whelmed by existing needs."

There needs to be more private investment in the Down-town Eastside, not less. There needs to be less social housing in the Downtown Eastside, not more. And if there is a growing need for social housing in the future, the rest of Metro Vancouver should do its duty and shoulder its fair share.

May I suggest West Vancouver might be a good place to start?

pmcmartin@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

The End of Books?

NOT ANOTHER POLITICIAN? PULEEESE...

Let me join the throngs of outraged West Coasters who have properly decried the nutty little mandarin decision to close the Kitsilano coast guard station.

Now we have the embarrassing sight of a Maple Ridge MP making a public spectacle of himself by defending this idiocy. Like they've got lots of oceans in Maple Ridge...

The man's name is Randy Kamp, and I hope he's got a back-up plan for after the next election.

RANCH DRESSING, PLEASE

SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows.

You give one to your neighbour.



COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows

The State takes both and gives you some milk.



FASCISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and sells you some milk.



BUREAUCRATISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.



TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.

You sell them and retire on the income.



VENTURE CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.

The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.



AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.



A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.



AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.

You decide to have lunch.



A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you.

You charge the owners for storing them.



A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them.

You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity.

You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.



AN INDIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You worship them.



A BRITISH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Both are mad.



AN IRAQI CORPORATION

Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.

You tell them that you have none.

Nobody believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.

You still have no cows but at least you are now a Democracy.



AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Business seems pretty good.

You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.



A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION

You have two cows.

The one on the left looks very attractive.



A GREEK CORPORATION

You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks.

You eat both of them.

The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF.

The IMF loans you two cows.

You eat both of them.

The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk.

You are out getting a haircut.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

THE TIME IS HERE

Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first president in U.S. history to personally endorse same-sex marriage, putting one of the most socially and culturally divisive issues in American politics at the forefront of his campaign for re-election.

After several years in which his personal views on gay marriage had been "evolving," Obama said he felt it was "important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

Those first two paragraphs are a direct quote from this morning's Vancouver Sun.

Yes, there are more pressing issues at hand in the current U.S. election. The American economy and the American sense of pride are both wobbly. Jobs, productivity, immigration, the role of government, all of these and more have huge daily impact on the lives of all our neighbours south  of the border.

But this matter of equal rights and opportunities for gays is also important, and President Obama's forthright declaration is courageous, righteous and historic.

This is called progress and all the  agencies that call themselves Family Somnethingorother and exist only to hate a tiny segment of the community are whistling in the wind.

I have attended two gay marriage ceremonies in recent years, one in Toronto and one in New Westminster. Both events were beautiful and both couples are doing just fine, thanks for asking.

NOW, AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH?

The following two paragraphs were sent to me in a private email from an old and dear friend who knows whereof she speaks; she might also have added that soon we will be giving smokers free cigarettes:

VANDU overtook Vancouver city council chambers for a couple of days protesting the gentrification of the DTES and mightily objecting to the loss of their open air drug market as they claim that the police are rousting out the drug dealers and they wish to be able to have their drugs available as they have for years.  They object to the increased police presence as they claim it will cause drug wars and they will have to go in search of their drugs if it is not available in their neighbourhood.  Preposterous and unbelievable.  One might ask, what is next, criminals objecting to rapists being captured and arrested, drunks objecting to road blocks and road checks as this might prevent them from committing their crimes of carnage with their death machine cars.

 

The DTES continues to practice the circus of the absurd and governments continue to aid and abet the twisted demented performance by funding and providing resources into the big vast pit of misery.

 

We Care Deeply About Students?

My son has a long time friend who is now a school principal.

Mr. P. is furious.  He should be. And so should you.

He now has to fill in for the teachers at his school who will not coach teams or referee or help with the school play or grad ceremonies.

I am so tired of this almost annual sham of teachers going on strike just as exams, report cards, inter-mural sports and graduations all come to a spring and summer boil.

The BC Teachers' Federation claims a 73% vote in favour of this cheesy carry-on at the expense of children and parents.

I know dozens of teachers who would love to do these volunteer assignments, but are constrained from doing so because of the Fed.

There is a very profound disconnect here.

The teachers and their union no doubt have some legitimate complaints about an equally scurrilous government, but is it really necessary to be so sophomoronic and hurtful to the very people they are charged with helping?

Yes, she was a certifiable movie star - & it didn't hurt that she partnered with Astaire & Kelly

METRO TANGO

EXPECTATIONS

PASS THE TEA

Every day something ridiculous happens.

We react, and we chatter about it over coffee and we declare the world gone mad and we make dinner and watch Seinfeld re-runs and forget about it.

Then the next day, something even more outrageous happens.

And we recoil in horror, declaim solemnly over coffee and declare Life as a constant re-enactment of Alice's Mad Tea Party, make dinner, watch Seinfeld and so on.

But then there was yesterday.

A headline so lunatic, so twisted, so incomprehensible, we knew with certainty that The End Is Upon Us.

Here it is:

Condo building protested as threat to ‘drug market’ 

Pardon me while I laugh hysterically just to clear my nostrils.

OK.

Now the piece in the Globe informs us that someone wants to build some housing downtown. Pretty good stuff so far, Yes.

 

But soft, forsooth!

 

This proposed project happens to be across the street from Vancouver's single greatest cultural contribution to the world - our famous "safe" injection office, the ironically named, Insite.

 

Now you need to know that there exists in this community a non-profit society which goes by the handle VANDU. Or Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. This is a group of active heroin users who not only believe that they have the well-born Charter right to do nothing all day but steal money and property from taxpayers so that they can use heroin, but who have so successfully convinced the wooly-headed at Vancouver City Council and the Province of BC of this right, that these austere and wise bodies annually give these suffering addicts hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars to pursue this right.

 

But I can tell you are now way ahead of this story.

 

VANDU doesn't want a fancy gussied up living place across from their free shooting place because - are you sitting down? - gentrification will upset the drug market!!!

 

Bad condo people. Bad investors in housing. Bad planners.

 

How dare you interrupt the flow of poison in our streets just to give people a place to live? Where are your values?

 

Coffee and dinner and Seinfeld re-runs may not suffice today. 

 

I may have to drink whiskey or shoot heroin or sniff cocaine to absorb this one.

 

Who needs the PNE?

I live in Vancouver. I live in a city in which one is privileged to spend every day on a circus ride, upside down and careening to the next candy-flossed madhouse distraction.

CALL OF THE WILD

Walter Stewart, great Canadian journalist of yore, used to speak of "sweet reasonableness."

He was usually asking where it had gone.

And he never met the BC Teachers' Federation or the provincial government.

Today, we learn that "a major track-and-field meet for Surrey high school students has been cancelled and other sporting events risk the same fate as more B.C. teachers withdraw from voluntary activities, including coaching, to protest a law intended to end their contract dispute."

Oh yes.

The teachers are always quick to tell us how much they care about children.

And the government's chorus rings out, "We are Family!"

 

Sorry, folks, no cred.

When will these two adolescent bodies end their dysfunctional relationship and ADULT UP?

Gone, MIke Wallace, age 93

ALMOST FREE ENTERPRISE - ONLY IN CANADA, YOU SAY?

So, one of the conditions the Feds are imposing on Target in order for it to open stores in Canada is that it sell more Canadian authors in its book section. Oh goodie. Another store where I can walk past Margaret Atwood remainders without pausing.

But it gets worse ( or better I suppose for Canadian culture weenies). The government says that Target can circumvent this if they sell foreign books through Canadian-owned bookstores.

So, a recent immigrant from Botswana, not yet naturalized, can sell Australian novels in his bookstore because it builds Canadian culture, don't ya know.

Since January of this year, 14 temporary foreign agricultural workers died in horrific car accidents in Canada. They lived in hovels and made chump change in order to work at jobs Canadians won't do. Foreign slave labour in Canada is OK, foreign books, not so much.

This commentary was sent to me this morning from my old buddy, Victor.

ON THE LABOUR FRONT

Get the Story Right, Please

The Vancouver Sun should be given full points for writing an editorial this morning about the overdiagnosing of ADHD.

And full demerits for completely, totally, utterly missing the point.

The piece correctly points out the shocking and destructive rise in alleged cases being reported worldwide.

"U.S. doctors’ office visits for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder rose by 66 per cent between 2000 and 2010.

Yet as dramatic as that figure is, it’s dwarfed by one from Europe: According to one German study, the number of ADHD diagnoses between 1989 and 2001 increased by an astonishing 381 per cent."

 

The editorial then blathers on for several more paragraphs without ever once paying head to Basic Rule of Journalism 104 - FOLLOW THE MONEY!

Can you say Big Pharma, boys & Girls? Can you say Novartis?

 

This story is as old as the hills and twice as deadly. 

 

Ever since some guy in a striped suit has been hawking his Dr. Winkler's Magic Elixir from cow town to cow town on the back of a covered wagon (not to mention on the Appian Way a few centuries earlier), the fearful rubes have been buying up this swamp water and feeding it to the kids.

This story is all about RITALIN, its manufacturers, it multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and the sops, gifts and kickbacks that doctors have been enjoying these last few years.

 

Money is the driver here - forget about the health of children.