HEE-HAW

Let me see if I've got this right.

John van Dongen is the Solicitor-General of the Province of British Columbia.

He is responsible for the police, the courts and ICBC, among other small matters.

In short, he is Top Cop.

And he cannot drive a car these days because

a)he has speeding tickets;

and b)he has unpaid speeding tickets.

And the Premier, Gordon Campbell in defending this idiocy, casually downgrades the speeding tickets to parking tickets, a cute little bit of verbal jujitsu if there ever was one.

Let's begin by pointing out to the fellow who wants to be your premier for the 3d unbearable time that parking tickets arrive on your windshield when you leave your car somewhere it doesn't belong at that time. A relatively innocuous offense against obscure and usually nonsensical taxing laws that can barely be justified at the best of times.

Whereas, your Honour, speeding tickets come about when you are madly racing through public corridors at dangerous high velocities way in excess of what may be good for the common weal.

One would think that if anyone should know the wrongness of such behaviour, it would be Mr. Top Cop.

Oh, but wait.

We forgot. He is special. He is John van Donkey, Special person.

And his deep need to catch the ferry boat and get back to his little life in Abbotsford far precludes all other community needs, like say, life and limb.

The Premier Personage says this will all blow over and that van Donkey should be congratulated for braying loudly and publicly what a bad boy he is.

I, like many of you, am of a different mind.

I think that this selfish fool should be denied the opportunity to disgrace another government portfolio after May 12th.

I don't hold out much hope for this to transpire. No doubt the good and faithful of Abbotsford are forgiving and forgetful souls and The Donkey will ride again.

Good Investments

A million human beings face starvation in Sudan, in Darfur. Aid workers have been expelled from the country.

There is hardly a greater testimony to the painful failures of the United Nations to even begin to approach its forming ideals.

Of course, you cannot say, "Stop. This billion dollar farce is taking us nowhere, except the best lunch rooms in Manhattan."

But cannot some men and women of good will strip this body back to its essentials and make it something effective and praise-worthy?

Yesterday, we are told by full page ads in papers across the nation, was WORLD MALARIA DAY.

Every 30 seconds, a child in Africa dies of malaria. A $10 bed net will help. Here's the web address for your donation.

So many billions of taxpayers dollars in America, Canada, the UK, Germany are going to bolster wars and skirmishes in countries around the world. Cannot we not divert some of these questionable investments in healthy children and families in suffering regions?

RIP Bea Arthur