Chairman of the Board

I Was So Much Older Then

My life has changed so much in the past decade.

Most, I suspect, has to do with aging and its attendant wonders.

But the rest I can lay squarely on the peculiarities of an evolving culture.

If culture is what we can call it.

Here are some of the basic upheavals.

I rarely go to the movies.

Seems like a small thing, I realize.

But not for a guy who can quote you chapter and verse of a few thousand flicks, who sat in movie houses through what used to be called "double bills" at least three times a week from the age of 4 to the age of 14.

I no longer like an experience I used to love.

People are noisy and rude and stupid and they are celling and texting and talking out loud.

And the movies themselves are more often than not juvenile nonsense.

So like many of you, I rent movies, I buy DVD's and I watch TV.

Moreover, the movies I rent are often from France and Italy and South Korea.

At best, I'll see a different point of view, a different sensibility.

At the very least, a travelogue.

If on occasion, there's another "Lawrence of Arabia" that demands the Big Screen experience, I'll sneak in on a Tuesday afternoon in the hope that the public mayhem is at a minimum.

But when is there another "Lawrence of Arabia?"

"Avatar?"

I don't think so.

I rarely go to the theatre.

No doubt I am missing the occasional treasure.

But I am also saving myself from hours of watching radio plays played out by wooden poseurs with no compelling life force in them.

I skip through the section of the newspaper I used to jump on - the movies and entertainment.

I don't know who the stars are and I can't seem to care.

No doubt there are some darn fine young talents and no doubt I'll stumble upon one or two in the coming days, but my searchlights are no longer on high beam.

Hahahaha...

I am increasingly a homebody.

A cocooner.

The phrase "crotchety old fart" rushes to mind.

That's O.K.

I don't tweet and I don't facebook or linkin.

On the other hand...

I still listen to music. I still sing. I still watch movies - at home. I still swim and play tennis. My cooking repertoire is building up and my cholesterol is going down.

Life is different for sure.

Friends and family remain the bedrocks.

And little bits and pieces of good work.

Sshhhh! And Turn Up the Volume

Marcel Marceau - the world's most famous mime.

And VANOC's favorite performer.

Let's dig the poor fellow out of his grave and have him pretend to do practically everything at the opening and closing ceremonies.

Good idea. Won't that be fun?

Fun for everyone except Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Kudos and Bravos to Bramwell who didn't really want to be the Sym-PHONY Orchestra de jour and pre-record their music only to have it be conducted by Milli Vanilli or someone rescued from the DTES.

Bramwell said quite rightly to VANOC, "Thanks, but we'll pass."

VSO refuses to play for Olympics

Vanoc wanted orchestra to let others pretend to play its music, conductor says

It's like the wizards at VANOC are going out of their way to embarrass themselves.

Excuse me for a moment, folks.

I have to practice my beloved routine of walking silently into an enormous head wind while wearing snow shoes and leading a 90-piece band of cute forest creatures.

Hiding in Full Sight

Here was the plan.

Go into the high school.

Get the staff in the office to order all the students into the auditorium and then shoot everyone.

Then drive to the University of Manitoba and shoot more people until we get tired or the police shoot us.

The preparations included collecting guns, ammo and Molotov cocktails.

For this little piece of adolescent mischief, the 17-year old boy and the 18-year old girl have been given two years in jail.

Their handlers have already reported that while they in custody "they have made strides."

Oy.

Now, let's not worry about all of that.

Let's have a look at this small concern.

Bonny and Clyde cannot be identified under court order, because of their age.

Even though they have been tried as adults.

I understand.

I get it.

I really do.

We don't want to identify young people lest their youthful indiscretions brand them for life.

Right.

I understand.

Like for stealing a car or giving their classmate a wedgie or for spitting on the sidewalk.

But do I not have a right to be protected from harm?

Does the state not have a solemn obligation to do its best to protect me from harm?

Should I not be allowed to know who these two sick lunatics are in case I run into them at Blenz shortly after they are released after serving way less than the two years because of time in custody, good behaviour and mandatory parole?

Arming yourself in preparation for mass murder is not necessarily what anyone had in mind when they determined years ago with nothing but goodness in their mistaken silly hearts that youngsters in crime should remain unidentified.

Excuse me.

I want to know the names and photos of these two wretched souls.

I want the freedom to avoid them like the plague, to run screaming from public places that crazy people are about.

Then I want to sit down with the law makers and the nut cases who think these two have "made strides" and have a good old fashioned jawing with them.

Disgrace and Neglect

Turns out that the Richard Colvin warnings and claims about the torture of Afghan detainees was only the proverbial tip of the berg.

Seems that the entire Canadian mission in Afghanistan has been without direction or clarity from the beginning.

The revelations now surfacing are shocking, but they shouldn't;t be.

Disarray has been the norm on this front, with no one in charge and assignments spread across numrous desks with little or no communication between funtionairies.

Read the whole mess and weep for the soldiers who have been treated with such disregard by bureaucrats.

Highly paid bureaucrats.

Faceless and highly paid.

Canadian soldiers have died because of the sloppiness of the command that is supposed to be standing on guard for them.

Fire Sale

There are bargains and then there are Bargoons.

It's not even Boxing Day and the Biggest Give-Away is already being offered by The Harper Department Store.

Line-up early kids for your chance to buy a Candu nuclear reactor.

Shades of the Avro Arrow?

Baby with bath water?

It was only yesterday that I raised the question of when governments should sell assets.

Now, Harper Inc. has lifted the bar on this debate very high into the sky.

Bad move, Steve.

You Can't Get There From Here

Francis Bula has done a nice job as usual of covering the current deliberations of Vancouver City Council.

How to hold the line on expenditures without cutting back on all services.

Yes, how?

Of course, this City Council like all councils before it and no doubt all that will follow, is taking exactly the wrong approach.

Here's what they are considering:

Close the Bloedel Observatory and the Petting Zoo.

Reduce Community Centre hours and Library hours.

Close Libraries.

Reduce street-cleaning.

No.

The truth is that Vancouver City Hall, like all other City Halls across the nation, around the world is a bloating inflated bureaucracy with dozens of frivolous unneeded departments and hundreds if not thousands of useless money-sucking jobs.

The social planning and arts divisions alone are charter members of the What Do You Folks Actually Do Club?

Did I just say that social planning and arts are either not important or not within the purview of a city's responsibilities?

No, I did not.

I am saying that these departments - and they are only two examples - are over-staffed and under worked and cannot in any measurable way justify the money spent.

The City would be wise to hold budgets.

But closing libraries and community centres and local treasures is not the answer.

House cleaning is.

Smoke

Across the globe, more than 1.2 billion people smoke - and one billion of them are more or less poor.

Tobacco taxes are poverty taxes.

This is the gist of a fascinating column by Neil Reynolds in today's Globe.

While governments everywhere are having a lot of fun suing Bog Tobacco for health costs, the governments are raking in 50 cents on every dollar spent on cigarettes.

And this money is spent more often by poor people.

The reasons for this are complicated and very interesting.

BAGS

Canadians are feeling ashamed to be Canadian.

Apparently, Copenhagen and Afghan detainees are spurring on a recent fit of self-loathing.

Not me.

I am happy to be Canadian.

While this is not the best of all possible worlds, it is pretty darn good in most ways.

A strange absence of mortal shells zinging over head is a good start.

Then there's our universal health care and our glorious physical beauty and warm and friendly neighbourliness - everywhere except Vancouver, of course.

That goes without saying.

Or saying very loudly.

In public.

O.K.

But this morning there is one thing that made me feel downright queasy about being Canadian.

It's that full-page ad in the morning paper from Roots.

Many, many, many leather goods - bags, wallets, purses, pouches - all adorned with the Canadian flag.

There is something creepy about this kind of cheap and phony patriotism.

How does putting the national flag on a shoulder bag make me or you or the shoulder bag any more attractive or superior or pious?

Can I start selling products stitched with the Maple Leaf on them, or is this an exclusive deal for the Roots people?

From whence comes this special dispensation?

And why?

99% of everything we wear in Canada is made in China.

Does Roots get flags because it is the rare exception?

Are Roots products secretly made you know where?

If you are carrying such a bag, please don't stop and say Hello.

In any event, I live in Vancouver and I don't know how to say Hello back.

What Price is Right?

Privatization.

Wanna start a good fight in a bar?

There's a word that'll get the fists flying.

The Ontario government is considering turning over to the private sector their Hydro, Gaming and Liquor exclusives.

And this is not mere conjecture.

They have asked two major banks for assistance in this initiative.

This matter always seems to bring out the North and South in us all.

Turning government crown corporations over to the wheelhouses of the free market is always the best idea or the worst evil imaginable.

But I don't settle in either of those camps.

I would prefer governments to NOT be in many businesses IF AND ONLY IF they ever bothered to provide some safeguards and protections for the public good during the dumping process.

Did the Campbell government do that with B.C. Ferries?

I don't think so.

Was the sale of BC Rail a good clean kosher deal?

If the Basi-Virk trial ever begins or ends, we might find out.

The Globe has written an excellent editorial this morning on exactly this dilemma.

"As governments assess which services they should and should not provide, they need to decide when owning a company is in the public interest. A sale may make sense if it can satisfy four conditions: It should give the government an immediate upfront cash benefit; it should allow the public to continue to share in the profit the company makes; it should preserve the priority of the public good; and it should not harm vital public-policy interests."

All of this, is, of course, sound theory.

Practice is so very different, isn't it?

We Are Safe

“We have all the manuals, but we haven't had the opportunity to do the training.”

Thus spake Oak Bay Police Chief Ron Gaudet two years after Peter Lee murdered his family in the good chief's jurisdiction.

But not to worry.

The chief's all over it.

Chief Gaudet promised his members will complete a mandatory, one-day online training program by next spring.

Let's pause a moment and think about that.

The police in leafy old Oak Bay, B.C. by the Sea have had two years to get their act together long enough to do a one-day training course on domestic violence.

Think about that phrase.

A one-day training course on domestic violence.

Oh yes, that'll really bring everyone up to speed.

Now look again at the description of this potential life-saver.

Not only is it all of one day, but it is...wait for it...online!

Yes, indeed.

You can really get a feel for the subtleties of human interactions from an ONEFFINGLINE course on domestic violence.

Then, when all of these treasures are considered, consider this.

The police in the Lee case had asked the Crown to hold Mr. Lee after he'd already almost killed his wife.

But it was the Crown who saw fit to let this time bomb out on bail.

Will the Freuds and Jungs down at Crown Counsel be taking this one day on line course too?

Oh, we are in good hands all right.

Equity

Jim Sinclair, the President of the B.C. Federation of Labour is a good friend.

Once again, Sinclair has called for a $10 minimum wage.

Quebec just raised its minimum to $9.50.

Ours has been frozen at $8 since 2001.

As you all know, not much has changed in the world economy since then.

Right.

Oh.

Except for Premier Gordon Campbell's take home.

It's only gone up more than 100%.

New Bird in the Sky

Carbon laminates.

Carbon sandwich.

Titanium.

Not only that but it carries 270 people, has larger tinted windows and costs one-third less to operate (read burn fuel) than previous conventional aluminum bodied jetliners.

Which is why the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner is being hailed as "a game changer."

While the Punch 'n Judy Show is holding every one's attention in Copenhagen, scientists and engineers have been doing at least one right thing about reducing some one's "footprint."

I admit it.

I am an airplane nut.

And I am excited to see this baby being released for public viewing.

Although two years late in being brought forth, it is expected to be in full production and on your flight schedules within the year.

I can't wait.

Get Serious

I don't care who built that thing beside the Burrard Street Bridge.

It is ugly and visually offensive.

If it was built by Chassidic Rabbis, Scottish railroad barons, Chinese labourers or land owners, retired show business executives or my Aunt Tilly, it sucks big time.

I drove over the Bridge twice yesterday and twice I was almost shocked by the billboard's aesthetic incongruity.

This perfectly Vancouver scene of rain and grey skies and English Bay and some bare trees and the occasional apartment block suddenly banged into the background by REDS AND BLUES IN ELECTRONIC TECHNOWARP.

Baaaaaaaaad move, folks.

By the way, no file photo that I can find to date does this desecration justice.

I may have to go take my own pic and show it to those of you who have opinions based on theory and not on seeing the full enormity of this garbage.

Traitor

I have a Rabbi friend who really likes Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.

He feels that Lieberman is an orthodox Jew who is committed to his faith.

That may or may not be so.

But in my books the good senator, an Independent who sits with the Democrats and who seems to change his values as often as Jerry Lewis changes his socks, is a poseur and an unprincipled camera-hogging turncoat.

His latest stunt of almost killing the President's health care reform bill has been disgusting to witness.

Of all things, he has been resisting the "public option" clause.

Yes, god forbid that the 45 million uninsured Americans could have a medical plan like we have in Canada or others have in Sweden, Denmark, France and the U.K.

Once again, to get his whiny kvetchy voice on the air, Lieberman has played cheap political games with people's lives at stake.

Pick a party, Joe.

Pick an idea.

Try sticking with it for longer than lunch.

Caring? Not Much

Victoria police were so concerned that Peter Lee would be a danger to his family that they met with Crown counsel to ask that he be denied bail.

Of course, the Crown knew better than the police.

Lee was released on bail and promptly butchered his entire family including his young son.

On Sept. 6, 2007, Peter Lee, 38, killed his estranged wife, Sunny Park, their son Christian, 6, and Park's elderly parents before committing suicide.

Now, as a coroner's inquest continues into this case, the simple truth emerges and is driven home -

No budget for domestic violence, Peter Lee inquest told

System could respond better, but only with more funding, probe into Oak Bay slayings hears

But we have our priorities.

Yesterday morning I pulled over to park in the 500 block East Broadway.

The new temporary signs are already up.

NO PARKING

February 4 - March 2

Huh?

Broadway and Fraser?

This is a major corridor to a Games event?

O.K.

Whatever.

In the meantime...

We have no budget for domestic violence.

All of which will of course evaporate in the swill of happiness and euphoria that descends upon us all from the glories of THE GAMES.

Family discord will come to an end.

Marital disputes will resolve spontaneously.

Peace on earth will prevail.

Right after the luge.

For What?

I suppose with all the bad economic turns in the journalism game not many reporters are flying these days.

How else to explain the "news" that senators and MP's fly business class a lot?

I routinely file past government freeloaders with their heavy black legal cases on the empty leather seat beside them as I head to the back of the plane for my apple box and cookie.

The good news is that I can usually find a chiropractor wherever I'm going to help scrunch the flight out of my bones.

On the other hand...

What is really news - and we have to ask why isn't it on the front page? - is that the Senate has quietly voted itself another travel perk.

Free international flights!

Liberal senator Lillian Dyck (write your own jokes, please) went to China last month on your money to visit her family's ancestral home.

I am feeling warm and cozy for her.

Now get this.

MPs and senators alike are each allotted 64 travel points a year, each point representing one free round-trip flight. They're allowed to use up to four points to visit Washington, but the rest are to be used strictly within Canada.

That would mean that Larry Campbell can fly free 64 times across the dominion.

Free, as in you pay for his privilege.

The senate should not be elected.

It should be closed down.

A start

Old bad joke:

What do you call 45 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start.

So the news that Transclunk has dumped 3 of their 28 highly well compensated executives is just that - a good start.

A headline like this every morning...

TransLink announces last stop for three well-paid VPs

Execs turfed after watchdog's critical report on spending

might make for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Lord, will miracles never cease?

Will the day come to pass when the turnstiles are finally installed and people actually have to PAY FOR their rides?

Now, let's look forward to seeing the City drop entire departments and stick to some core activities that have something to do with civic responsibility.

Jungle bells, jingle bells...

Letter to a Friend About Hope & Cagney

These were two great creative performing geniuses.

There is almost nothing they could not do.

Cagney's performance as George M. Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" is absolutely in every way possible beautiful and unforgettable. The moment of his father's death is heartbreaking.

I was thinking about the range of people like this when I was watching a few scenes from "Whit Christmas" last night.

Danny Kaye, known of course as a great comic and song-and-dance man was so powerful in a made-for-TV movie that came out in the '80's. Based on a real life story, the movie is called "Skokie" and it is about a Jewish man who protests a neo-Nazi march in suburban Chicago in modern times. Slowly he reveals that he is a concentration camp survivor. The film and Kaye are devastating.

So many people cheered when the "studio system" was dismantled, but it was the studio system of teaching and learning and covering all bases that allowed already gifted people to shine even brighter as they polished one skill after another.

We had a small taste of that right here on Hamilton Street when the CBC was cooking on all cylinders.

Of course, we will always have great performers emerging to the front lines, but I doubt that we will ever again see the likes of such triple-threat stars as Hope and Cagney, Crosby, Sinatra, Garland, Mickey Rooney. I saw Rooney on stage in "Sugar Babies" with Ann Miller in San Fransisco about 25 years ago. Rooney was an encyclopedia of performance art.

Two Performance Geniuses at Play