Michael Vick - Another Wizard of Oz

We know nothing about people in public life.

We may know that they smile or have breasts or can hit a golf ball or throw a 50-yard spiralling football like a laser beam. We may know that they can sing or play the bass or win elections.

We may see every one of their marvelous movies.

The last thing we know or have a chance of ever knowing is their true natures.

After all, most of these famous people are masters of deception to begin with. And their entire enterprise - the Corporation of ME - is structured around the Illusion in which we, the desperate, gullible public, believe.

Thus...

If it is true that Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons gifted and very rich quarterback is guilty of running a pit bull farm and pit bull fighting games, why should we be surprised.?

Disappointed, yes. Horrified, absolutely. ("According to documents, losing dogs were sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gunshot, electrocution, or body slamming them to the ground.")

But we have no right to be surprised.

Michael Vick, like Julia Roberts and Phil Mickleson, is a streaking phantom.

We pay him immense amounts of money to do supra-human things that we cannot do. We pay him so we can lie on the couch and dream.

Here is the entire disgusting story.

Read it, but don't say you're surprised. Confess only that you must now find a new hero.

The First Victim of Treaty Settlements is The Truth

Last night was the second evening of THE LANGARA DIALOGUES.

This is a monthly series held on Wednesday evenings in the Alice MacKay Room at the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

The event is a debate, followed by an audience Q&A, on a matter of urgent public policy.

Last night's resolution was: Resolved - The UBC Golf Course Property Should be Returned to the First Nation's Musqueam Band.

Arguing the Affirmative was former Musqueam Band Chief, Gail Sparrow.

Arguing the Negative was Marty Zlotnick, a petitioner with the Save the Course Group.

It was an amazing evening.

Both speakers were dynamic and well-informed.

But what made the evening so unusual and fascinating was a) that the debaters were largely in agreement that this is a stupid deal, and b) that Ms. Sparrow is the only Native Leader I have ever heard who denounced Treaty Settlements.

Referring again and again to her grandfather and her parents and the way she was taught to be self-reliant and conciliatory, Sparrow harshly labelled Treaties as Prisons that further enslave people in dependencies.

Without using the word "corrupt," she decried the back room deal between Premier Gordon Campbell and current Musqueam Chief Ernie Campbell as one shrouded in secrecy and motivated by the optics of 2010!

She said repeatedly that while the Musqueam urgently need more land for housing and economic development, there were other lands nearer that would be more appropriate. Zlotnick agreed, suggesting that a parcel from Pacific Spirit Park would be suitable.

The evening was really a revelation, largely because of Chief Sparrow's wonderful and thoughtful, and in many ways, radical presentation.

We are Robots

Welcome to the New World.

Here is raw footage of the gas main blast in NYC.

What is amazing is that someone bothered to take this instead of running the hell out of there, and that everyone else is taking pictures with their cell phones!

Natural instincts (survival, fear...) have been replaced by the Cyber People for the Cyber People of the Cyber People.