Priorities

The people of Ashcroft have got it right.

The Campbell government is drunk on Olympics and SkyTrains and convention centres.

It is too drunk to notice the exit of doctors.

Two over-worked and beloved doctors are leaving the town of Ashcroft and its exhausted hospital because they have been slaving 100+ hours a week.

The CEO of the Interior Health Authority says, of course, "No problem."

Andrew Neuner is no doubt a $300,000 a year man.

Nothing is a problem for him.

And asking him to care about the problems of the sick and the elderly in his jurisdiction is apparently unseemly.

Let the Name-Calling Begin

It is as predictable as rain in Vancouver.

The moment I write a piece in the Province decrying harm seduction policies and the garbage can called Insite and asking for more money for real treatment, the hate mail arrives in 100-lb. bags.

I'm arrogant. I'm an a-hole. I'm ignorant. I know nothing about the issues.

So be it.

And watch for more columns and more posts and more articles in the same drug-free vein.

The Skinny on the Two Skinnies

Frances Bula has left her City Hall beat at the Vancouver Sun and moved to Vancouver Magazine.

Her piece this month called "Next Mayor" is first-rate.

She gives us just about everything we could ever stand to know about Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson - to start with not the two most exciting guys in the neighbourhood.

If you are going to vote this November, you owe it to yourself to read this.

Strike Up the Band

The officially endorsed Culture of Failure rolls on.

The City is on a big orgy of self-congratulation because it is buying a slew of single rooms in the DTES.

But Mark Hasiuk, writing in the Courier today, nails this mistake for exactly what it is - a further concentration of failure.

Read it here.

Michael York & Liza Minelli - Maybe This Time