HOW GORGEOUS IS PENELOPE CRUZ?

How gorgeous is Penelope Cruz?

Penelope Cruz is SO gorgeous that a gay friend of mine says he loves her breasts!!!

Now that's gorgeous.

JOURNALISM OR OBSENITY?

Yesterday, I thought the world had come to an end. The Headline in the Vancouver Sun newspaper was so bold and so large and so simple, I thought it was the return of the Plague. "DAY ONE" was the trumpet announcement.

This morning we found this: "He murdered them, he butchered them and he disposed of their remains."

Now clearly the trial of a man who is alleged to have killed 6 women, and who most of us believe has killed at least 30, is worthy of coverage. It is big, it is expensive, it is full of lurid and horrible detail. And the job of a newspaper is to report on exactly such atrocities in our communities.

But this?

Page after page of photos and diagrams.

SOON I WILL ADD A DAILY POLL FUNCTION TO THE BLOG.

But, until then, you tell me: The Sun coverage is 1) excellent? 2) way over the top? 3) beyond hysterical? 4) appropriate? or 5) an abandonment of all reason.

NOT ONLY THAT, BUT ALSO....

In this morning's rant on The Nutty Professor, I forgot to mention how Mayor Sam has not only been deceiving us, which is, of course, required for a politician, but in the matter of addictions, he has taken to deceiving himelf as well!

You see, Sam would be the first to tell us that he is a stone cold realist. It is a central part of how he has heroically and admirably dealt with his quardaplegia. He rose from a hospital bed to be the holder of some 50 patents for devices to aid the disabled. He is the founder and executive of a dozen organizations to enable the disabled. He sails and sleeps at the top of mountains.

Yet, somehow, in this one peculiar area of addictions, crime and homelessness, he suffers from MAGIC THINKING.

Is it realistic to believe that in one fell swoop you can cure the community of these hydra-headed ills? When did social change ever occur on such a monumental scale? Human progress, like football games, is measured in inches. We fix a little here; we move the marble along the path a little there.

Maybe Chairman Mao, maybe FDR's New Deal, maybe the founding of the State of Isreal, maybe the formation of the United States, maybe The Simpsons.

But this? Give yer head a shake, young feller...

MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN TOWN

He's delusional.

Listen to this:

"I'm reluctant to go aggressively on enforcement issues until we have dealt with the social side of things. In the next while, I intend to prepare the police for their role in that."

I am sure that Police Chief Jamie Graham will be heartened to learn that the Mayor will soon be teaching his men and women on the beat a thing or two about how to do their jobs. Who even knew that Sam was a police instructor?

In The Nutty Professor's latest public pronouncement - Thank God, somewhat secod-fiddled to the Vancouver Sun's screeching 90-point front pager on a certain criminal trial - we learn that He, in his Infinite Wisdom will eliminate drug addiction, crime and homelessness, and all before the opening ceremonies in Ripped Roof Hall.

The core of N. Prof's Massive Solution is to provide "at least" 700 cocaine and crystal-meth addicts with some kind of substitute drugs. Which "substitute drugs" are among the many details not made clear by Sullivan.

But, let me ask you this, dear friends and defenders of the last fading shards of sanity and reasonableness. Are you prepared to give drunks free and cheap scotch? Are you prepared to add that expense to your tax rolls? Are you standing in line to provide child molesters with the names, addresses and cell numbers of adorable young children? Are Ford and Toyota participating in a Give-Away program for chronic car thieves?

What is at the centre of Sam's horribly misguided vision is not only a moral issue. The key is that he and so many other like him utterly do not understand the basic dynamics of addictions.

Fine. Give dope to dope fiends. Good luck.

If you have even the most passing knowledge of the issue, then you know that what addicts want is MORE. More drugs, more sex, more doctors, more social workers, more kneedles, pizzas, beer, housing, you name it. There simply is never enough. You can give Jack or Jane Junkie their supervised fix at 11 am, and by 12:15, he/she is in the alley scoring and shooting MORE.

Your aged Aunt Agnes, 73 and ailing, must pay for her needles to inject the insulin she needs to combat the diabetes she as after a lifetime of raising 2 generations of family, paying taxes and driving kids to soccer practice and orchestra rehearsal.

But I should pay for Senor Dope Fiend to have free needles, drugs and rooming?

I would ask you to think again, Sam, if, in fact, thinking on this subject is something of which you are capable.

BROWNBACK MOUNTAIN???

The following paragraph is a direct quote from the New York Times online this Sunday morning.

"Mr. Brownback, an evangelical Protestant turned Roman Catholic and a former Kansas agriculture secretary, said he would focus on reviving faith and families in America; combating abortion, poverty and wasteful government spending; opposing same-sex marriage; and revamping Social Security and the federal tax system. "

The perfectly named Mr. Brownback - after whom no mountains are currently named - was greeted with cheers from an adoring throng.

You can't write material like this. Reality is always funnier.

And you think you have to watch Science Fiction to scare yourself?

CITY IN SELF-DESTRUCT MODE

My friend, Barry Gilpin, has been operating 4 consignment stores in Vancouver's West Side for almost 20 years. The Stores are called "Cheapskates."

You bring in your old bike. He takes your name, address, phone number and your old bike. He puts a tag on the bike and he puts the bike in the store. Let's say, the price begins at $300.00. A week later, it's $275, and then, another week later, $250, and so on.

I brought him a heavy, old and serviceable mountain bike for which I had originally paid $135.00 at Canadian Tire. I rode the bike for almost 12 years, gave it to Barry and bought a new, much lighter and very expensive bike at fancy new bike store.

A few weeks later, Cheapskates sent me a cheque for $35. I was happy and so were they.

What's the problem?

The problem is that Barry will soon close down all 4 stores, which have been happily supplying used hockey equipment, tennis racquets, bicycles and nameit to cash-strapped families for over 19 years now. Why?

The City of Vancouver in its infinite wisdom has created a new city by-law designed (badly, as usual) to stop the sale of stolen goods. The police want Barry and other second-hand store owners to do 2 new things: 1) Store all new goods for 35 days so that the police will have time to check on their legitimacy. This will only add $10,000/month to the costs of doing business for what is essentially a mom-and-pop shop selling goalie gloves. 2) Record every consignor's eye color, hair color, height, weight and race.

Has anybody at City Hall ever heard of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Eye color and race? Are these bureaucrats completely mad?

FINDING BROTHER SOUL

James Brown died on Christmas Day. Until this morning, I hated him.

That all changed while taking my daily Heart Walk and listening, as I do most Saturday mornings to Robert Harris on CBC-FM. As he did a few weeks ago, with a masterly hour on the overlooked genius of Doris Day (the great, great, great jazz singer and not the movie star), Mr. Harris worked his magic on me. So did James Brown. And now, several weeks after Mr. Brown's death and a lifetime of my detesting his music, his guns, his smashed pickup trucks, his police chases and his domestic "disturbances," I have become one of his legion of fans. Finally, I have come to understand why the music world and a large part of the rest of humanity stopped still in their tracks to honour The Godfather of Soul.

I can imagine those of you who are much hipper than me - and that is a constituency of almost everyone - saying, "Oh, Berner. You are so White, such a Jew. You like your blacks chocolate and smooth. You adore Johnny Mathis and Denzel and Sidney. The Man was just too, too black for you, right? That pompadour, all that sweat, the giant gnashing smile."

It may be true. I saw James Brown on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver in the late sixties. He was hot and famous and the hall was packed. From the opening repeated blasts of the saxophone section to the hidden announcer's boast, "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business," I hated this guy. Hardest Working Man, etc. So what? You could say that about Tony Danza or Shecky Greene and I wouldn't cross the boulevard to see either of those guys either.

I left after 3 numbers.

Now understand where I'm coming from. I am a Jew, born in 1942 and brought up in an Orthodox grandparent's home in the North End of Winnipeg. My family comes from Russia and Germany. I am part of the great wave of Eastern European settlement in the New World. My musical heroes and my great loves are all of a piece: the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hart, Jerome Kern. The first movie I ever saw was The Jolson Story. I still have a VHS copy of that and the sequel, "Jolson Sings Again."

This is music that marries the folk melodies and symphonies of the schtetl with the rhythms of Black America, resulting in "Old Man River," and "Someone to Watch Over Me."

Now, along comes James Brown, this local genius, a black kid from South Carolina, who discards Europe, highlights Africa and makes a new kind of American music that is all rhythm. "Please, Please, Please," and "I Feel Good," are Gospel Funk raised to the nth dimension. It's a call and Answer and the sax pumps between phrases are downright sexual. Yow!

O.K. Itook 40 years, but I 'm starting to get it. James Brown. May he rest in peace. May we dance joyously on to his holy sounds.

WIRED TO LOSE

A comprehensive examination of How to make the problems of Addictions Even Worse
PART THREE


In the first installment of this series I showed you how the Mayor of Vancouver reached his conclusions about the nature of addictions and how we should respond to them. In the second, I described my own positions and how I came by them. Today, in the final installment, we look at current efforts to provide Treatment and the roadblocks that prevent any real progress.


People have tried. But governments, one after another, year after year, have resisted. Drug treatment just isn’t sexy.

I’ll show you.

The Vancouver Sun newspaper reported recently that the City of Victoria has one treatment bed for young crystal meth addicts. One.

A parents group called “From Grief to Action” has cried out publicly for several years now that there are no facilities for their addicted children. The home base of this group is Kerrisdale. For those who can afford it, the children are often sent to centres in America.

We are told repeatedly by the politicians and the Poverty Pimps that we enjoy in this province “Four Pillars” of response to the problem: Harm Reduction, Enforcement, Prevention and Treatment. But it is abundantly clear to even the most rosy-eyed believer among us that what we have is One Pillar and Three MatchSticks. Harm Reduction, in the form of safe injection sights, needle exchanges, and free heroin programs, rule. Enforcement, prevention and treatment are given short shrift and even less money.

Thank God then for the entrepreneurial spirit.

Three very wealthy people have, in recent years, tried to launch treatment programs for young addicts in this province. They have put their own considerable financial resources behind their goals. They have put their money where their mouths are and where your mouth is and where the mouths of citizens are.

That’s the Good News.

Here’s the Bad News. Two have walked away, frustrated and empty-handed. The third has folded his tent and moved to another, more accommodating district.

The first man is a multi-millionaire. His project for a Vancouver-based treatment centre for upwards of one hundred addicted youth was taken off the table after several years of impossible negotiations with Vancouver City Hall. Now, I happen to know this fellow and this plan very well. While it’s true that his project had some planning problems and inconsistencies in its original design, it was more than salvageable. Had City Hall been a little more flexible, this program would be up and running today and serving Vancouver youth in an important way. Instead, the program is slowly finding its feet in Surrey.

The second man is the Mayor of Maple Ridge. His name is Gord Robson. He promised that, if he were elected, he would open, with his own money, a treatment program for five meth-addicted youth. On November 19, 2005, Mr. Robson became Mayor and, true to his election promise (How rare is this?), the very next day he opened a small house in Maple Ridge staffed with a Clinical Psychologist and 4 staff members. All paid for by Mr. Robson.

But before they could admit a single client, the Letter arrived.

The Letter came from the Fraser Health Authority, and it advised all concerned that their little house was not licensed as a “Community Care Facility.” The hallways were too narrow; the doors weren’t equipped with emergency push bars.

Not wishing to begin his term in public office as a criminal, Mr. Robson closed the doors of his little house.

The third individual who tried to help is a woman. A very smart and a very rich woman. She examined the landscape thoroughly before she made her move. After considerable travel, research and study, she settled on a treatment model that has proven, over 40 years now, to be effective and affordable.

She went to City Hall. And then she went to City Hall again. Then she went again. And again. She was putting her own money on the table, her own persuasive energies.

When I had coffee with her a few weeks ago, she sighed and told me that it is over. She has moved on. The irritations of dealing with petty mandarins have driven her to seek bigger, greener pastures. Vancouver’s young addicts lose again.

Now in these tales lie several issues. The first is how narrow is the view of regional health authorities and municipal planning committees that they cannot see past their petty rule books and see that their communities are drowning in the tears of parents begging for treatment options. They cannot or will not grasp the larger picture. We have an epidemic of drug problems. Someone is willing to help. What can we do to help the helper? Instead they reach for the tape measures and building code bibles. Blindness.

You think this is theory or cant? A recovered addict has been running two recovery homes in South Vancouver. All of his resident clients are clean and sober. You might think he’d be given the Key to the City. Instead, he had one of his homes shut down last year because it had an extra sink in the basement. He put ten people back on the street. Blindness.

The second issue is that the Circle has been locked. At this point in our collective history, all of the social agencies, all of the levels of government, all of the hospitals, all of the invested parties have joined hands. They want mastery over these issues, they want control and they have it. After all, what if something goes wrong? The only problem is they are not doing anything recognizably useful. The City of Victoria, the capital city of the province of British Columbia, has one bed for young meth addicts, one! The document known as The Vancouver Agreement, which every politico and his cousin will praise as if it is Holy Writ, has bound every bureaucrat in a dance of liasing, interfacing, conferencing and god know what social intercourse to no known end.

The treatment programs that I created 40 years ago right here in Vancouver could easily be repeated, but they could never be built in the same way. In those days, before the Noose of Inaction tightened, we simply opened houses, began businesses and started programs without asking permission. We did the Right Thing and dealt with the fallout afterwards. The result is a legacy of reversed lives, lives lived clean and sober and drug free.

Today, we argue pointlessly about the merits of Harm Reduction initiatives like the safe injection site. Some believe this is enabling addicts to remain addicts. Others believe this is a reasonable first step, while we prepare the addict for treatment. But it is a dead argument, because there is no treatment.

Some contend that treatment is the most expensive of the four pillars and that it is, quite simply, too expensive. And they are right if you believe in the Medical Model, if you believe that treatment centres are mini-hospitals staffed by doctors and nurses. Yet anyone who knows the slightest thing about addiction recovery can show you over and over again that the best, the most effective treatment centres are those run by recovering addicts themselves! And these programs are cheap and affordable at any level of government. The very same moneys that go into welfare and similar payments can be utilized, per person, to pay for this kind of meaningful and lasting recovery.

If, like the Mayor of Vancouver, you believe that addicts and prostitutes are hopeless, then give them more drugs and keep them oppressed and stupid. Wrap yourself in flags, and, in an almost perverse form of passive-aggressive behavior, chain the addicted to their chemical wheelchairs.

If, on the other hand, you recognize that addicts are your children, your brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts, then, please, write your MLA, write your MP, write your City Council member and demand Treatment. Demand a New Beginning, demand some political courage, and demand hard-nosed compassion and old-fashioned common sense.

THE SPORTS METAPHOR

It's me! It's me! It's me!

Sports as metaphor for life so often demonstrates the most tired and trite abandonment of the imagination. But every once in a blue moon, the obvious becomes the extraordinary.

This evening, we were priveleged to watch one of those moments on tape delay from The Australian Open, the first of the annual four Grand Slams of professional tennis.

Serena Williams, one of the best of the best, has been barely herself in recent years. After an amazing run, in which she and her older sister, Venus, dominated women's tennis, playing each other, as their father, Richard, had predicted, in one final after another, Serena has been plagued with injury upon injury. Here she was, an unseeded player, being dominated by the Russian, Nadia Petrova, who took the first set, 6-1.

In the second set, Williams ran off the first three games handily. Then, Petrova, a streaky and moody performer at best, charged back with 5 straight games herself, creating what looked to all like the end of the road for Ms. Williams.

Then came the moment.

One could almost see Serena turn away and ask herself the question, "Who am I? Am I not the girl from California with 6, SIX, Grand Slam titles, not to mention the Serena Slam of all 4 grand slams in one successive 12-month period?" "I mean, who are you, girl?"

And you could almost see the answer above the scoreboard at Rod Laver Arena:

"It's me! It's me! It's me!"

Serena went on to win the match 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. She had effectively raised her performance and destroyed the opponent's confidence by an act of sheer will and focus.

I mention all this because it is truly the second time I have witnessed this extraordinary phenomenon. An athlete, clearly on the losing slope of some terrible psychic slide, draws mysteriously and magically from the hidden resources of the internal well, and - presto-change-o - The game is turned.

The first time I witnessed this was Boris Becker, doing exactly the same thing in Rome at the Italian Open some 8 years ago against a barely ranked local hero named Gaudenzi. Boris, sucked it up - on red clay, his least favorite surface - blew the poor felow out 7-1 in the first set tie-breaker and went on to demolish him 6-0 in the second for the match.

Sports are a much-overworked poem for real life. But every so often...

HOW I LEARNED ABOUT ADDICTIONS

AS PROMISED YESTERDAY, HERE IS THE 2ND OF A 3-PARTER, PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY ON APRIL 17, 2006 ON www.thetyee.ca. THIS ONE EXPLAINS WHY I CLAIM TO HAVE OR BE AN "AUTHORITY" ON THE SUBJECT OF ADDICTIONS.


WIRED TO LOSE

A comprehensive examination of How to make the problems of Addictions Even Worse
PART TWO



Last week I showed you the Mayor of Vancouver’s central beliefs about drugs, alcohol, prostitution and addiction. Now I’ll show you mine.

In 1967, by a series of comic accidents, I became the founder and executive director of a residential treatment centre for addicts, alcoholics, ex-cons and others. I was 24 years old. I was playing the saxophone, writing poetry, playing tennis and driving a taxi.

Lester Pearson was the Prime Minister of Canada. Mr. Pearson created a kind of domestic Peace Corps, modeled after Vista in America. The idea was to engage educated urban youth in the pressing social issues of the day – poverty, crime, the elderly, native problems. The program was called The Company of Young Canadians, and I was steered in its direction by my late friend, Bob Hunter, who only a few years later would become one of the original founders of Greenpeace.

I began by meeting a group of Native Indians in the B.C. Pen. The recidivism rate at that time for aboriginals was around 97%, and these fellows said they wanted to get out and stay out. They believed the answer lay in having their own halfway house, one that was entirely self-governing and self-financed.

On January 5, 1967, I met a native inmate named Richard, who had served his time and was being released from the Pen. He was a killer, and I was an underachieving Russian-Jewish Canadian from the North End of Winnipeg. Together we set out to change the world. Ha!

A year later, and with the help of Vancouver City Savings and the Lions’ Club, about a dozen of us moved into a house in Fairview Slopes. There were both men and women and most were native, although we had already admitted a few non-native heroin addicts.

The program was simple. Two rules: No chemicals of any kind at any time, and No violence or threats of violence. Break the rules and say goodbye. Yes, you could try again tomorrow, but there was no discussion about today; if you broke one of these cardinal rules, you were gone.

The following year we bought a mansion in Lower Shaughnessy. Now there were 20 and 30 and 40 people, men, women and children. And, although the Two Rules were still inviolate, the program was no longer simple.

We owned and operated a Shell Gas Station, a women’s Beauty Salon, a Pizza restaurant and a specialties advertising company. Resident members were engaged in almost hectic activity 24 hours a day, 9 days a week: seminars, schooling, group therapy, individual counselling, cooking, music making, football, billiards, softball, concerts. Every weekday, recovering addicts spoke openly and passionately about their lives to school kids, churches, business and community groups.

Within four years from our beginnings, the program had grown to over 125 people in residence and a budget in excess of $1Million. The fifth year, we duplicated the program in Winnipeg. That program continues to thrive today in a modified and much expanded version, serving courts, aboriginals, women, children and the original target group of alcoholics, addicts and ex-convicts.

I spent 10 years at this work and I saw hundreds of addicts – let me say it again, hundreds – stop using, change their behavior, never return to jail and live significantly new and different lives. The work was, literally, self-help. No doctors, no shrinks, no social workers. In fact, when we were asked about these kinds of professionals, we used to say, “Oh, we help them too!”

I never saw a heroin addict take more than 48 hours to kick a habit. I never saw anyone have a fit, swallow their own tongue, or walk through walls.

Were we able to help everyone? Of course not. Our success rate remained constant at around 25%. But there are three important things to remember about that number: 1) According to basic Judeo-Christian belief, “If you save one human soul, you save the world!” 2) A batting average of 250 will get you into Cooperstown (Baseball hall of Fame) and a return of 25 cents on the dollar will make you Canada’s next billionaire. 3) Our per bed costs were comically low, less than $20,000 per annum, because this was not a “Medical Model.”

This program used the same basic tenets as Alcoholics Anonymous and all of the subsequent 12-Step Programs. The tone was always Tough Love. The message was, “You’re not sick. You’re stupid. Get smart. Make some new and better choices. We know that’s easier said than done; but we’ve done it and we’re right here beside you.”

My primary interest in the endless Addiction Debates is Treatment, Treatment and more Treatment. I know from personal experience that Treatment is possible and affordable. I have known every Mayor of Vancouver and Premier of British Columbia for the past 40 years. Even though Treatment is touted as one of the Four Famous Pillars, I have yet to meet one Mayor or Premier who is prepared to invest in Treatment.

Gordon Campbell’s highly promoted $8Million for meth treatment is a cruel illusion. Once the money is divided amongst the many Health Authorities, once the administrators therein are covered, and once the advertising and Public Relations initiatives are paid for, this stunt amounts to a spit in the ocean.

Parents in B.C. are in tears.


In the third and final installment in this series, I will introduce you to some people who have tried to create Treatment options for addicted youth. I will also demonstrate how they have been discouraged and defeated by unwieldy bureaucracies and wrongly invested politicians, who mouth “Treatment,” but who are clearly unwilling to pay for it.

THIS, THE FIRST OF 3 ARTICLES, WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS "MAYOR WIMPS OUT ON DRUG TREATMENT" ON APRIL 16, 2006 ON www.thetyee.ca. THE NEXT DAY, AND THE DAY AFTER THAT, 2 MORE ARTICLES FOLLOWED EXPLAINING FIRST, HOW I CAME TO MY POSITION ON THESE MATTERS, AND FINALLY, ON WHAT TO DO ABOUT ADDICTIONS IN OUR COMMUNITIES.

I AM RE-RUNNING THESE PIECES TODAY, TOMORROW AND FRIDAY A) BECAUSE THE PROBLEMS ARE STILL OVERWHELMINGLY BEFORE US; AND B) THE MAYOR IS ABOUT TO UNLEASH YET ANOTHER NUTTY PLAN.

YOUR COMMENTS WILL BE APPRECIATED. LEAVE YOUR URL AFTER YOUR SIGNATURE.


WIRED TO LOSE

A comprehensive examination of How to make the problems of Addictions Even Worse
The first in a three-part series.



Love the guy. Helped get him elected. But, let’s be honest. On this subject, at least, he’s on the other side of the moon. He’s so far out that one day they’ll name a new planet after him.

I speak of the Mayor of Vancouver, Sam Sullivan. And I speak of Addictions. Drugs and alcohol. Heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, booze. Even his handlers have told him to be quiet on this topic. How do I know this? I know because they have told me so.

Nobody in the known world shares the good mayor’s unique perspective. How could they? No one else is in a wheelchair. No one else believes that the wheelchair is the best metaphor for understanding addictions.

And how do I know this? Because I have had this exact discussion with His Honor many times over many years. The last time was on the phone recently when I was verifying my notes taken in his office on the third floor of City hall just before Torino. The first time was in an annoyingly pretentious and mediocre restaurant on West 10th Avenue about five years ago. On that first occasion, I became so angry that I actually jumped up at the table and started hollering. Sam loved this. There is the perennial teenager about him that just gets such a kick out of seeing grown men turn stupid. These days I am calm in the face of his nuttiness. I love the guy. I tell him he’s wrong. And he tells me that one day I will see that he’s right.

Here’s what the Mayor of Vancouver believes about addictions.

“I am in a wheelchair. When I was 19, I did something stupid on the ski slopes and I broke my neck. For quite a while I lay in a hospital bed and bemoaned the fact that now I was a quadriplegic. Eventually, I tired of that. I asked myself “What can I do now?” Here I am years later, the Mayor of Vancouver. It would have been unbearably cruel for someone to suggest that one day I would walk again. I had to face up to my reality and deal with it. And I have.

Now, addicts are like me. They have a disability. And they will always have this disability. It is a waste of time and money to pretend to them and to ourselves that they will ever change. So what we should do is make them more comfortable! Remove the criminality, give them their drugs and let them choose what they do want to do next.”

I told him about The Sobels. Of course, he hadn’t heard of them. But anyone with an even passing interest in the subject of addictions should know the story of Dr. and Mrs. Sobel.

The Sobels were a husband-and-wife team of clinical psychologists practicing at the University of Toronto in the 1980’s. The wanted to prove that they could teach alcoholics how to become “social drinkers.” Their dedication and passion convinced the University to build a “bar” in the department, in spite of the fact that the U of T is smack in the middle of one of the liveliest downtown neighbourhoods in the western world, replete with many a lively joint.

The Sobels spent two years teaching hundreds of drunks to “sip.” Finally they were on the cover of Time Magazine. But not for any of the reasons that they or you or Mayor Sam may have predicted. After two years of work, hundreds of thousands of Canadian tax dollars spent, and much wringing of hands, the Sobels confessed that their work was 1) a complete failure, 2) misguided from the beginning, and finally, amoral!

They said, in effect, “We were wrong to do this. We hurt people. We’re sorry.”

The Mayor was unmoved.

The gist of my discussions with the mayor is this. I want to know if we, in the City of Vancouver, are actively and rigorously working to create Treatment for drug addicts. The Mayor, who clearly believes that Treatment is usually expensive and most often ineffective, dodges and weaves in his answers. What becomes clear is that he has a bias and No Plan.

“I believe we should ask the addict what he needs from Society. The cocaine addict will tell you that if he could chew cocoa leaves, he would get just enough of a fix to keep him from stealing.” This is what the Mayor of Vancouver told me.

When you ask the Mayor to get away from theory and abstractions and tell you in plain English if he is committed to Treatment, if he supports Treatment, if the City has plans for Treatment, if Treatment is high on his agenda, he says the following.

“There are several types of addictions. Some are emotional, some are physical. For some people, this problem will heal itself. In time. Meanwhile, we should keep them healthy, so that when they’re ready they can get back to life.”

So you ask the Mayor again to please be specific and tell us if he has any real plans for treatment. He says, “Give people the tools to manage. Some can do it with abstinence and counselling. Others seem to require a low maintenance amount of drugs.”

You try again to get a comment on Public Policy. Is Treatment high on your agenda as Mayor of Vancouver?

“Yes, but it shouldn’t be paid for by property tax-payers. Drug treatment is not for tax payers.” Huh?

“There are long term problems you can manage,” the Mayor continues, “and problems you can fix.”

But are you putting money into Treatment? How much treatment? What kind of treatment?

“Oh, we’re moving with Coastal health to get more beds, but this is clearly a provincial responsibility.”

Are you vigorously pursuing Gordon Campbell to create Treatment in Vancouver?

“Well, there are many options we should look at.”

In David Lean’s epic movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” there is this wonderful exchange between Arthur Kennedy playing a journalist and Omar Sharif as a Saudi Prince:

“Did I answer well,” asks the warrior prince.
“You answered without saying anything – that’s politics,” says the writer.

Before leaving for the Winter Games in Torino, the Mayor was heading downtown to meet with five prostitutes. He wants to give them free heroin. Well, nothing’s free, is it? You’ll pay for this, and your grandmother who has to pay for her own needles to inject her insulin will pay for this.

So I say to the Mayor, “Let’s say I agree with this scheme – which, as you know, I decidedly do not – but, let’s say I do. Then what? You’ll give the girls dope, and that will lead to breaking the whole cycle of their street whore culture, jobs, schools, what?”

“Not my concern,” he says. “People gave me the wheelchair. What I did with my life was my problem.”

The Mayor knows that in his case, the notion of “Hope” would be an ugly illusion. He has now projected this idea onto all people with addictions, and for them, he abandons Hope. He offers instead what he considers a comfort.

Cold comfort, indeed.

The Mayor believes that prostitutes’ problems and addict’s problems are insoluble and that these problems should be managed. The Mayor is enshrining slavery.

In the next installment in this series, I will explain how I came to my own position on these issues. In the third and concluding piece, I will outline how some people are trying to help, and how they are hindered at every turn by unwieldy bureaucracies and plain, flat ignorance.

Martin Luther King

Here's the whole story...

I have a Dream Speech

REVISIT THE ONE GREAT AND TRUE HERO OF THE RECENT AMERICAN REPUBLIC...AND THEN PONDER THE INTRACTABLE STUPIDITY OF THE SOVEREIGN STATE OF UTAH, WHICH DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THIS DAY.

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY

As you can see above, the "I have a Dream" videos have been now been posted not once, but twice. Enjoy, and Remember to Remeember.

I thought I had up-loaded Dr. King's unforgettable "I have A Dream" speech. But, such is the learning curve for the novice blogster. Apologies. These kinks will in time iron themselves out.

What is more important is to remember to remember one of the great Heroes of the Last Century. In spite of the FBI compiling rooms full of specious "evidence" to damn this great man, and in spite of the murderous piece of irrelevance who killed him, Dr. King remains for many of us an astonishing beacon of Light and Hope. How urgently we are need of more of him. How desperately do we all need to pull ourselves up to his level of commitment and humanity.

And great Shame on the soveriegn state of Utah, who in their whiteness, have chosen NOT to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. With straight, pale faces, their legislators went to work today. And these are people who boast of their religious integrity.

What if they had stayed home and talked to their children about the drama and thrust of Dr. King's work?

We were all blesssed that he lived within our time. Our sadness at his passing and at what he might still have accomplished continues undiminished.

BEATING THE VALENTINE'S DAY RUSH

LOVE IS ... an early Valentine's consideration


“Love is funny or it’s sad,
It’s a good thing or it’s bad.
It’s a heartache or it’s mad,
But beautiful…”

Really?

What do I know of love?

I am mean and selfish. Many of my friends and family want little to do with me. I am vain, argumentative, arrogant, small-minded, petty, impatient, intolerant, increasingly agoraphobic and utterly self-serving.

I can’t and won’t wait in line to collect a $24Million Lotto prize let alone to pay for a loaf of bread, register at a resort hotel or pay my property taxes.

I’m the guy who yells at people in the cinema and at the Orpheum to “Shut Up!”

I cut off old friends like some people cut toenails. My son has a list of “People Who Are Not Welcome at my Funeral.” If you’re reading this, you’re probably at the top of this list.

I don’t love myself. I disappoint me. I’m not a movie star, James Joyce or a great singer. What the hell have I been doing all these years?

I know for sure what love isn’t.

It isn’t a gushy, mushy feeling of relentless goo. It isn’t Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman on the silver screen. Rock was gay, and, by all reports, Ms. Wyman, the first of Ronald Reagan’s wives, was a tough customer who could easily go a few rounds with Mike Tyson. Love isn’t all us lucky souls in the anonymous millions who have been told, “I love you,” by Michael Jackson and the last 125 Oscar winners. It isn’t puppy dog tails, although it may possibly be carrying small plastic bags in your pocket to pick up their lovely steaming leavings. That could be some form of love, for sure.

It isn’t the plans of politicians to conquer homelessness, spread democracy or discover new sources of energy. If anyone has a lock on being prime residents outside the Mist of Love, it’s politicians.

Love isn’t the revelations shared by actors, musicians or athletes on their amazing, mysterious processes that allow them to do those things that no one else can do and that they, themselves, surely don’t comprehend.



The only people I know personally who lay claim to the Truth About Love are clergy. Whether pastors or rabbis, celibate or resplendent with progeny, gay or straight, bearded or apple-cheeked, these guys can go on for weeks about Love. Jesus’ love, God’s love, man’s love for woman, love of humankind, you name it. And lest I sound even more cynical than you in your worst moments, understand that often these sermons and lectures bring sentimental, sloppy me to tears. (For the record, I don’t know any Imams or leaders in any other, no doubt worthy, disciplines. And being the hate-based, fear-based jerk that I am, and so far along in Life’s glorious path, I am not really open to meeting any.)

Wait. There is another category of person who claims expertise on the subject of Love, and that is the psychiatrists and psychologists. The only problem is that, from my personal experience with this bowling team, they are almost all universally certifiable. Show me shrink and I’ll show you a major wacko.

That leaves the poets.

And the songwriters and lyricists. These are the guys who truly get it, whatever it is. They can’t explain it or paint it or skate it or climb it, but somehow in skirting round and round the glow of the issue, they get us close to it. And that may be the best we can hope for.

Now, Bob Dylan, America’s Great Troubadour, is not someone to whom I customarily turn for solace or wisdom or even reduced rent. But he did say something a few years back that has stayed with me, or at least returned from the shores of the subconscious, somewhat dripping in seaweed and with definite sand in its pants.

Two or three love affairs back, I began to get this tiny shard of an iota of a hint of a shadow of an inkling about Love. “You gotta serve somebody!”

This is what Dylan told us, and you know what? He’s right.

If Love is anything comprehensible it is that willingness to help the other, to want to make the other person’s burden a little less today, to ring forth some small shard of kindness on the ones we claim to love, or even, on some days, a total stranger.

Two or three lovers back, I actually started to cotton on to this notion. Heck, I was only in my fifties by then. It’s never too late. What if I inconvenienced myself today and did some small unasked for thing for this dear person, something that would ease the afternoon or make the night a more inviting place? I could make the dinner or pick you up after work or take the garbage out or check to see when the swimming pool is open. Imagine that.

Imagine the ten thousand tiny ways we can say, “I love you,” in deeds remembered or forgotten. That doesn’t matter. What is important in Love is that they are done.

ADVICE TO BUSH - WATCH MORE MOVIES

Mr. Idiotpants has ordered a fresh round of American death flesh, 21,000 young men to be exact. In addition, many thousands of soldiers scheduled to leave Iraq for the home shores have been told to forget it, suck it up and die a little more.

It now seems clearly impossible to impress on this dangerous fool what most of us have known for a long time - THIS IS THE WRONG WAR BEING FOUGHT THE WRONG WAY.

Every good student of insurgency and counter-insurgency - and that includes no end of dirt-in-the-crotch military experts as well as academics and think-tankers - has stressed that this is a war of hearts and minds. Never has the adage KNOW THY ENEMY been more salient.

For Mr. Bushleague, we prescribe a steady diet of David Lean's great epic movie, "Lawrence of Arabia." Of course, it's a great film, but that's hardly the point.

Perhaps, if Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice and their deranged, misguided lot, were to watch this entertainment, say, a biblical seven days and seven nights, they might latch on to one of the story's central themes: While the British military in Cairo built squash courts and shot billiards in the officers' mess, T. E. Lawrence went into the desert, met the dazzling array of Arab tribes, ate their food, rode the camels and, in time, led the Arab revolt against the conquering Turks.

The American embassy in Baghdad, one thousand strong we are told, has precisely 6 people who speak the local language.

All the guns and grenades in the world will not do the trick in Iraq. More boys from Iowa dying in the dust will not speed the peace.

God help us all.

Lawrence of Arabia Photos

Lawrence of Arabia Photos

Fred and Alex Kreklau have been married for 60 years. They are devoted to each other.

Now, the compassionate geniuses at British Columbia's Interior Health Authority have separated this loving couple. The official story is that there is "No Room at the Inn." The mandarins claim they cannot find an accomodation for the two elderly people in one tiny suite in the care homes to which they have now been sent.

This is pathetic bullshit.

It demonstrates the cruelty and incompetence that makes one question the country and time in which we are living.

To make matters worse, this is an exact repeat of an identical situation that took place right here in B.C. 2 years ago. After the media rose an unholy stink about that circumstance, the premier intervened and promised this would never happen again.

Hello?

We cannot find a double bed or a set of twin beds for an elderly couple, but you can bet your ski boots that every perk and luxury will be on full display for the Olympics.

Write your MLA and your Premier. Demand a better British Columbia.

A MILLION SHADES OF GREY - HOW FOXNEWS IS WILLFULLY COLOR BLIND

What solace it must be to the management, writers and broadcasters at FOX NEWS (www.foxnews.com) that the world appears only in the stark and reassuring hues of black and white. No reds (especially)and greens (abhorrently)for these ghouls. That would only complicate matters. When life is simple, why Guss it up with the daily details the rest of know as a reality?

DENNIS MILLER, one of the great Public Ranters of our time - comedian, actor, monologist and, for a time, part of the legendary Monday Night Football Holy Three - was featured on FOX recently cheering on the Saddam hanging. He smiled, he laughed, he howled. He called those of us who questioned the fact or the method pussies...or equivalents. No consideration in Mr. Miller's 4 minutes that one American state after another continues to wrestle mightily with its own conscience over the issue of capital punishment. No thought about international bodies, such as they are, and the role they might have held in the Hussein trial and execution. No idea how America has never in its history been held in such low regard outside its borders.

I'm not sure when gloating over death is ever on point, but the execution of even the worst amongst us continues to miss my happy button. Good for Dennis Miller that his pleasure centre is so easily aroused.

BILL O'REILLY, the home run hitter for FOX News, is equally confident about his President's position on Iraq. The new Congess and House are self-evidently pussies. Witness the speaker! (Bringing children to the opening day! Sheesh! What next?) Asking for a new direction in Iraq or a timetable of withdrawal is to Mr. O'Reilly and his fans, tantamount to sedition. The war in Iraq is simple to Simple Bill. It's like that great American metaphor, the football game. You win or you lose. Any problem with that, Bunkie?

Well, actually, yes. A thousand and one problems. You see, this so-called war on terrorism IS THE WRONG WAR BEING FOUGHT IN THE WRONG WAY. FAILURE IS GUARANTEED.

Terrorism is not a universal club. It is local. Village to village, family to family, my uncle, your cousin. The sad fools who tie bombs to their belts may be married to Allah, but they are first the brother and nephew of someone with whom they have had a thousand dinners.

The American embassy in Baghdad currently pays about one thousand visiting Americans for their services. Six speak Arabic. Six.

Apparently, there were another 25 or so who could speak the local language and might therefore help America understand the people with whom they deal every day, but they were gay, so they were "de-commissioned."

But, you see this is the same Bush government, committed to some fundamentalist religious fantasy of "abstinence," who are letting women die of cervical cancer rather than vaccinate young girls.

Bill and Dennis, like George and the George before him, live in a comfortable world. Complex issues, once reduced to White Hat and Black Hat, are easily understood.

I think it was Chuck Knoll, the long-time coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who after winning his 4th Super Bowl, said, "Football is a comfortable thing. There's a measurable outcome; a score. Someone wins, someone loses. It's nice. It just doesn;t have anything to do with real life."

When FOX stops calling Politics and Life and International Affairs as a College Bowl game, they might have some claim to being a news organization.

Over to you, Chet...

MISSING IN ACTION: CANADA, THE "B" MOVIE

WHAT KIND OF "COLLEGE" GOES OUT OF ITS WAY TO KEEP PEOPLE OUT?

WHY "PROFESSIONAL COLLEGES," OF COURSE.

Currently there is a fight making the front pages in Vancouver between the professional veterinarians' association and an Indo-Canadian group of vets. While that melodrama has its moments, what is much more interesting is how this struggle highlights an on-going problem in the workforce these days across Canada.

Every province in the country is crying for more doctors, nurses, teachers and other highly skilled and crucial workers.

Yet, there are thousands of apparently qualified doctors, nurses, teachers and others sorting vegetables, waiting tables and driving cabs in Vancouver, Toronto and every other Canadian population centre. You see, these people are immigrants. They come mostly from Asia - China, India, the Philippines.

One friend of mine comes from Shanghai. He is an oncologist and a practitioner of Chinese medicine. He has been here for several years and is now a proud, if underemployed, Canadian citizen. You see, he still hasn't qualified to be a doctor in Canada. And believe me, he has tried. He has jumped through all the known hoops.

Tell me something. In this age of DNA, the Internet, the fax machine, YouTube, MySpace, and the universal telephone number, how long should it take to determine if Alex Chang (fictitious name)is or is not really a doctor? One day? One hour?

What is keeping us from adding these wonderful human resources to our professional rosters? The College of Physicians and Surgeons, the College of Nurses, the College of Teachers, that's what. Each of these moribund institutions claims that it exists for the benefit of the public. "We are here to guard and guarantee public safety," is their mantra.

The truth is that they exist entirely to guard the status quo, that they are a sure impediment to progress, and that governments across the land should either regulate them or disband them.

Either these "Colleges" will find creative ways to expedite the integration of highly skilled immigrants into the Canadian workforce or they should go the way of the Dodo Bird.

Your thoughts?