Victor Nails It Again - for the common good

A certain bloated talk show host is waxing troubled because city employees took other jobs during the strike. The same bloated talk show host has a morning radio show, does the nightly tv news and writes a magazine column while young journalism grads are working at Tim Hortons for lack of jobs.
Victor

Taser Death - An Unexplained Epidemic

The taser death at YVR raises some serious questions. Pardon my cynicism if I don't expect many useful answers.

The simple fact is that, across North America, "death by taser" has become almost commonplace. Jurisdiction after jurisdiction show the same results. Police attempt to subdue some fool who is "out of control," and not long after the sorry soul is dead.

Why? Is it the taser shock(s) itself? Is it the way the suspect is pinned against the floor or otherwise confined?

I don't know. But will you and I ever know?

America, the Has Been

In the August 27th edition of the New Yorker Magazine, in house writer Adam Gopnik, who spent many years living in Paris and writing about France contributed an excellent piece on Nicolas Sarkozy, the current President.

That article is worth reading entirely on its own merit. But it is especially revealing in its final paragraphs, where Gopnik comments on the current view held Europeans of America.

He argues with calm persuasion that the old days of loving (Blair) or hating (Chirac) the USA are over.

Rather, he suggests that America has fatally shot itself in the foot on so many fronts (economic, political, cultural) that Europeans by and large just don't care any more. They look to China and Arabia and India for financial interests and elsewhere for almost everything else. In short, America is not the power it was even 10 years ago, or five, and that may be a good thing.

He also higjlights the dreadful experience that most everyone who is not a US citizen now has when arriving at JFK, an experience that seems to be echoing here at YVR. The assumption that if you are not a National, there is a high likelihood that you are a terrorist.

The whole article is available here.

Brady Uber Alles

While the extraordinary run of the Colorado Rockies is compelling - especially for local fans with 20-year old Jeff Francis, a UBC physics grad pitching strikeouts - the hottest game in ages was yesterday afternoon's drubbing of the hated Dallas Cowboys by the New England Patriots.

Brady and his front line and his rejuvenated core of receivers were sensational.

The final score, 48-27, doesn't really indicate how thorough was this pasting. It could have been 92-12.

The shame will be at the end of the season when the two best teams in football, New England and Indianapolis and the two premier quarterbacks of this era, Brady and Peyton Manning, slug it out for the AFC title, the winner going on to bury whoever is the NFC sacrificial goat.

The NY Times full coverage can be enjoyed here.

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