NEWMAKER OF THE YEAR

The clear and offensive dereliction of duty by our mayor and our police chief make the Stanley Cup Riot the hat-trick winner as the Vancouver Newsmaker 2011.

First shot: The riot was predictable. This is a young and sophomoric town. We are not a world-class city, not by several blue lines. We are scrappy adolescents proud of our grubby denims and hoodies. Too many bicycles and chickens will make you miss this important point.

Second shot: Total bewilderment from our leaders.

The clincher: The Great Stall. Just as Gordon Campbell did with Basi-Virk and Jean Chrétien did with the sponsorships, Mayor Gregor Robertson and VPD Chief Jim Chu continue to drag out the charges or arrests or punishments for this detestable mayhem.

The riot was not an aberration and it said way more about our culture than we care to face.

—David Berner, a journalist and executive director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada

Read more: http://www.vancourier.com/news/Contributors+choose+their+Vancouver+newsmakers+2011/5867532/story.html#ixzz1gujuj2td

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

LET ME SEE YOU - THIS IS CANADA

When was the last time I praised or even mildly agreed with a politician? I honestly can't remember.

But today I go all out in saluting Canadian Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney.

He has banned the wearing of niqabs and burkas at citizenship ceremonies.

This is not a guy who has come out of some frozen right wing nowhere to make this declaration.

Kenney has over the years been building trust and communications with Indian and Chinese voters across the country.

Can you imagine a Liberal or an NDP politician having the balls to get off the politically correct wagon to stand up in public and do what Kenney has done?

I have written in the past in these spaces about my feelings about women covered head to foot in cotton.

I hate it.

This is the age of terrorism.

I don`t want anyone around me who is concealed in almost every possible way.

A Muslim woman declares in a separate article "WE ARE NOT A THREAT."

Well, I have news for Minna Ella.

She may be a wonderful mother and wife and person.

But if she moves through my vision as a floating tent, she is a threat. She is a bank robber or a bomber or at the very least a part of culture that see women as chattel and cattle.

Sorry, not acceptable in Canada.

Bravo Mr. Kenney.

Twists and Turns

People think that the best sports in B.C. are hockey, fishing, skiing and playing games on their iPhones.

But no.

The very best gamer, bar none, is watching bureaucrats, mandarins, elected officilas and all the other agents of the devil play with words.

It's called The Spin Cycle.

The name of the game is to take the obvious and verbally twist it into something unrecognizable, although usually risible.

Prime example from yesterday's headlines:

Doctor on leave after scans reviewed

Sechelt hospital retests nearly 200 people since last year

Pretty straight forward, yes?

Just hold onto your bowler, Bunky.

We've only just begun.

This medical wizard has been performing colonoscopies of late. Over 600 little visits up the backsides of local patients in recent years. Only problem is Doc doesn't really know how to do this little bit of plumbing and the intruding equipment is not really getting to the final resting place it should. Result - confusion and a sore butt for nothing.

Now, here's the spokesperson for VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH (I put that in caps and bold font because around these parts, this body is akin to the emperor or the ayatollah... as in, what we say, goes, Brother!):

"There was never any evidence that anything was done wrong but possibly it wasn't done thoroughly," Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D'Angelo said,

Now, here s my problem, Kids.

I'm a bit of a language freak.

And from the little log cabin in the woods that I was a-larnin', doing something wrong and not doing it thoroughly ARE THE SAME THING!

But it's OK.

Our Angel of Public Deception says that sticking tubes and camera and stuff up the public's ass for four years and getting no useful information is just a minor glitch.

And if she had to suffer this indignity and come away none the wiser, would she still be spouting this drivel?

Probably.

She's well compensated for the bull.

CARING ABOUT FAMILIES...but not if it costs us too much

Why would WorkSafeBC, whose mandate and mission are explained in its monicker, go out of its way to make life more dangerous for late night and over night workers?

As always, follow the money.

The BC Federation of Labour and others petitioned long and hard to have the government pass "Grant's Law," in honor of the young man who was dragged to his death when he tried to stop a punk pulling a "gas & dash" at an all-night gas station.

Now, two years later, the government is bowing to the whining from business owners who claim that keeping their employees safe is too costly. Now WorkSafeBC is pulling a vanilla on the rules.

Where is the "Families First" premier?

Hello?

THROUGH A STUDENT'S EYES

MURDER

On the weekend, the Sun published a review of a new non-fiction book about a woman who married a murderer.

The woman knew that this man had murdered a woman who refused his sexual advances. She knew that the man she fell in love with and married was on life parole.

Shortly after she married this man, he kidnapped and raped two women at knife point. He is back in jail.

The book is about the woman's experience and it holds little interest for me.

What does interest me is the complete failure of what passes for a criminal justice system in this country.

The murderer had been out in the community for five years, living in a half-way house and holding down a job when this lady met him.

He was given these opportunities after murdering a woman 20 years his senior because she wouldn't fuck him.

A whole bunch of well-meaning, totally naive and ignorant social workers, psychiatrists, prison and parole officials then conspired to have two other women viciously attacked and almost murdered as well.

Why aren't these women suing all of these fools and the corrupt and blind system that employs them?

Men who murder women and kidnap women and rape women are not the same as your average Sunday dope fiend, bank robber, bunko artist or car thief.

Men who murder women and kidnap women and rape women are nonredeemable.

They cannot be rehabilitated. I know of no such case.

These men are hard-wired to perform and perform again and then again these hideous melodramas of rage and revenge.

Would it be a terrible thing for us to face this fact?

A few days before this book review was published, the Sun printed a debate about psychopaths.

The argument went something like this.

If it's true that psychopaths can't help themselves, maybe we shouldn't be so hard on them when it comes to punishment.

OMG!

Could we please remove psychiatry from the court room and the parole hearing? Please?

The criminal laws are not about Personality.

They are about BEHAVIOUR.

It is not a sin or a crime or against any of the known commandments to be a not nice person. Or even to think funny.

But killing and raping are on the books.

An 18 year old who kills a 38 year old woman because she refuses his dopey advances should, once caught, remain in prison for life. To return this time bomb to the community is the height of social irresponsibility. It doesn't matter how charming the s.o.b. appears to be. He is an out-of-control lunatic and a danger to your children.

All of the people who let this particular nut free to strike again went to University.

What did they learn?

What did we?

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER