THEATRICAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: Two

I will be performing Mark Leiren-Young's brilliant and award-winning one-man show, "Shylock," in Victoria next month. The presentation is a fund-raiser for Positively Africa, a unique and wonderful AIDS in Africa project run by Peter and Peggy Bardon, who literally take the monies raised to the Africa location where it will do the most good. Both the playwright and I are donating our services.

I was honored to present the world premiere of "Shylock" at Vancouver's Bard on the Beach in August 1996. I have since played this 90 minutes piece dozens of times in so many different settings, including an unforgettable night in Venice, Italy in 2001.

The play is controversial, thought-provoking, outrageously funny, and, in the end, poignant, moving and powerful.

Please come over to Victoria and join us, as follows:

Alix Gooldin Hall

907 Pandora Avenue, Victoria

Friday and Saturday, March 16 & 17

Curtain: Sharp at 7:30

Doors open at 6:45

Tix: at the door, at Munro's Books, Ivy's Bookshop & Lyle's Place, all in Victoria

Enquiries: 1-250-893-7094

THEATRICAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: One

I'm delighted to announce that -no, I have not become Olivier's Ghost - I will be playing Claudius, the King, in the following production.

May 11- May 26, 2007

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARKby William Shakespeare

Independent production of The Centre Creative Initiatives

Does Hamlet's mother Gertrude share in uncle Claudius' guilt? Does Hamlet continue to love Ophelia even as he spurns her? Is her death a suicide or an accident? Does the ghost of Hamlet's father offer reliable knowledge, or does it seek to deceive and tempt Hamlet? Is Hamlet morally justified in taking revenge on his uncle? Are Hamlet's actions just? Does he have the right to act as he does? The stakes riding on these questions are enormous, as the actions of the characters can bring disaster upon an entire kingdom. Looks like modern politics, yes?
"What is there about Shakespeare that would interest a contemporary American?" Visitors send me this question from time to time.If being a "contemporary American" means being focused on dirty TV sitcoms, greed, casual sex, big-money sports, shout-and-pout grievance-group politics, televangelism, professional wrestling, crybabies, slot machines, postmodernism, political action committees, and "war on drugs" profiteering... then the answer is probably "Nothing." If a contemporary American can still ask: "Is life worth living in a world full of wrong? And can I live well?" -- then the answer is maybe that "Shakespeare deals with basic human issues."

Director Irina Templeton
Casting Director Adam Lolacher
Producer Luke Day Production Dates: May11 - May 26th, preview night May 10th.Location: Jericho Arts Centre

The Conspiracy of the Status Quo

O.K. I'm starting to sound like a completely marginalized, left-wing, unrepentant hippie nut case. Starting? Maybe just coming full circle.

Anyway...

Yesterday, the local rag gave the Premier a full voice on the Op Ed page. Today, it's the Finance Minister waving her illusory social housing package. Like these people need a platform? They can't get headlines and a TV camera every time they burp?

Then the editorial continued the Official Message: This Heartfelt Government is going ga-ga on social housing.

This, of course, is pre-digested drivel. See my post below.

But when the rag and the tube and the net and the airwaves all come from the same BIG, BIG, BIG house, what would you expect? Criticism? Thought? Discussion? A little bit of a shard of a hope of a whisper of a rumour of the truth? Dream on, Dear Bloggists.

Transparencie$ - Budget Smoke & Mirror$

We are to believe that the new Provincial Budget has set aside $250 Million for new housing. We are also to believe that we will win the Lotto, beat cancer, live forever and star in many award-winning shows. Okay.

This is simple.

What has been set aside for new housing is in fact the interest on $250 Million, which amounts to about $10 Million.

Now let's get in touch with reality.

Last week, a house in my neighbourhood was sold. Standard 33 X 120 foot lot. The house is a tiny, 80 year old, 2-bedroom, one-bath shack. A tear-down, a piece of burnable garbage. BUT. Because the house is on the north side of the street and the street below it is very below it, the view potential is fantaaaaastic! Mountains, water and city forever.

Price? A steal at $1.2 Million. Gone in under a week.

So Carole Taylor's much trumpeted bold new initiative on housing will result in exactly...what?

Gross Negligence an Accident

Here is a snapshot of modern life at its best.

A Calgary woman leaves her 6 year old and 2 year old alone in a running SUV while she dashes inside an office building for some terribly important mission.

Can we stop the film right there?

Try to list the hideous things that could now happen. Car rolls down a hill. Kidnapper kidnaps the kids. Kids suffocate.

Have you done this? Will you? Are you completely nuts?

Yet people do this every day. People who are in a hurry. People who believe that they are immune to life's tragedies. People who are stupid selfish children disguised as responsible adults.

Last year I came across exactly such a situation and called the police, who appeared about 5 minutes later. In the interim the stupid, selfish mother materialized form a Tanning Salon. Of course, an argument ensued. One policeman thought I was funny. One policeman thought the woman was an idiot. I guess it was a draw.

In Calgary, the result of this mother abandoning her children in a running SUV was that her daughter suffocated herself on the automatic window. (HEY, LADY, IT'S GOT ALL THE BELLS AND WHISTLES. THIS IS THE ONE YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE.)

The woman is so selfish and stupid that she simply got in the car and drove away, dropping her older child first at school. Then she noticed that - oops - her daughter was - oops - like, dead.

Punchline? This has been called "a tragic accident."

No. This is gross negligence bordering on manslaughter bordering on murder approaching madness.

This is a telling tale of modern life. We have everything. We know everything. We are busy and totally self-absorbed. Nothing can happen to me. I'm in a wide-screen technicolor movie.

I would never, ever, ever, ever leave a child alone in a car for a millibreath of a nano-second. Would you?

By the way, she was part of the SUV Nation - a Chevy Blazer pictured herein.

$$$ Follow the Money $$$

Ah, the ironies.

Finance Minister Carole Taylor is shown smiling her unquestionably beautiful smile with her lovely red Wizard of Oz budget shoes. The next story in this morning's Sun tells of 5 women being arrested for protesting social service cuts.

The women appeared at Ms. Taylor's constituency office and chained themselves together. It took police hours to disentangle the women, who now may be charged with "mischief."

But it is Ms. Taylor, the Premier and Stan Hagen, who was previously the Minister entirely not responsible for Children and Families, who should be charged with mischief, for it is they who have consistently abandoned the neediest and most vulnerable amongst us, while towering monuments are being built.

Ms. Taylor says of these women, whom I applaud, that "it's the kind of demonstration that should be condemned in British Columbia."

No.

Rather, it is governments that ignore the suffering of Children and Families, that slash day care funding and built castles in the sand that should be condemned.

Castles in the sand? Hagen?

Yesterday I carried on about the ever expanding costs of the Trade & Convention Centre Expansion, predicting that it will cross the finish line late and over a Billion Dollars.

Today, Vaughn Palmer continued the story in the Vancouver Sun on page A3.

You Know His Name...

The New Bond Video is a Scream!

EUROPE THREATENS PRIVACY

An astonishing little piece appeared in the New York Times this morning. It regards plans to monitor every phone call and internet usage in the European union. Read the story here.

THE FRONT PAGE

The three stories featured on the front page of the morning Vancouver Sun have curious and circuitous links.

1)Some parents are angry about the new gay-friendly material that will appear in public schools.

2)An Iranian refugee was arrested in a local church sanctuary.

3)Former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer is advising the Prime Minister to stop trying to influence judges.

What makes these stories so interesting, and what at the same time, connects them is that they are again about Your Rights vs. My Rights in the context of a self-advertised multi-cultural society, and that all sides of all the arguments are reasonably defensible.

1)In a perfect world, toward which we may continually strive, people wouldn't hate or discriminate against gays, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, Haitians and Rosicrucians. On the other hand (as Tevye, the Milkman, would say), if I am a parent, I have a right to take my child out of classes that I think are inappropriate for or offensive to me or my child.

2)Illegal refugee claimants who are hiding should and can be arrested. On the other hand, while it is not written into law, the notion of church sanctuary has long been an accepted practice, and, frankly, there is something disturbing to me about the police "invading" the quiet of a church to arrest someone.

3)The process of appointing people to the Supreme Court is deeply flawed and needs a modern overhaul. On the other hand, the Prime Minister, although he may be a bit wooden-clogged in his approach, is right to say what so many other and reasonable Canadians are saying. "Let's think a little more about the safety of the community in sentencing and not quite so much about the alleged rehabilitation of the convicted criminal."

Each of these stories id worthy of lengthy debate. The commentary below is OPEN and will have to do until places for discussion of public policy - once at the core of radio, television and print media -are returned.

LEMONADE STAND EXPLODES!

If you ran a little neighbourhood coffee house - well, you couldn't, of course, because the taxes and red tape would kill you - and your expenses went up 40%, what would you do? I mean, besides fold your tent and get a job with the post office?

Well, if your little coffee shop is a government flagship and it's timed for unveiling at the famous Olympics, then hang the cost! Hey, it's only the hard-earned money of teachers and postal workers and doctors and street cleaners known otherwise and so cavalierly as TAXPAYERS.

So the Trade & Convention Centre expansion, tagged originally at a mere $565 Million is now going to cost tree pruners and dog trimmers and history professors and hospital cafeteria staff more like $800 Million. "Big deal," says Victoria.

And you can bet your SUV or your hybrid that the real cost will easily exceed a Billion Dollars when all is said and done.

Welcome to the ancient honorable world of Politics and Public Spending. And we've learned from history...exactly, what?

FRIENDLY SKIES?

There are some headlines you need to read 5 or 6 times, and even then you're not quite sure you are dreaming or reading the morning paper. Here's one of the best and the latest: "AIR CANADA TO HALT ALL FLIGHTS TO INDIA."

Huh?

Canada's official airline claims it needs all its aircraft now for service to China.

This is an "either/or" proposition?

Let me see if I understand this. I don't; but let's try.

Every flight I have taken in recent years from Europe back to Canada, whether through Heathrow or Frankfurt has been more than 50% occupied by Indians from India. My October 2006 flight was at least 80% so occupied.

So...people from India only want to come here? And people from here don't want to go to India? No. I don't think so.

India is the second most populous country in the world - second, of course, to China. It's very nice that Air Canada has woken up and realized that it should provide steady service to the major centres of China. But to do that by cutting off service to India??? What part of mismanagement do I not understand?

The aircraft pictured herein is for hire. Call me at 1-800-I-FLY-INDIA.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Dr. Strangelove is calling his latest madness a "Treatment " program. He is raising private money and hiring various unemployed political sycophants to promote the doomed notion of giving addicts substitute pills.

He is phoning people at home in the evenings (Did he once have a job as a telemarketer for Telus or Mastercard?) to argue the divine inspiration of his new cause. The imbalance of the City's tax system, the growing impossibility of running a small business, the grid-lock and inefficiencies of our transit system, these are of little concern to S.S. He's got a bone and he's damn well gonna chew it. Stand back, Unbelievers.

You need only remind S.S. that the Conspiracy of Get Nowhere, known as the Four Pillars Coalition, trumpets around the world Harm Reduction, Treatment, Enforcement and Prevention and he will tell you that giving substitute drugs to drug addicts is a "Treatment Program."

What's in a name?

Call it treatment and therefore, it's treatment.

Of course, this pathetic, ill-conceived and headed-straight-for-the-wastebasket day dream is clearly a Harm Reduction strategy. The formula is rock solid, if you'll pardon the pun. We give, they take - harm is reduced. So goes the theory and the model. Watch: We give needles, they take - HIV is reduced. Nice theory; indications are the opposite. We give "safe" injection site, they take - shooting in the alley and stealing are reduced. Not.

So now we are to give addicts pills, they will take - no stealing. Dream on, S.S.

What is so comical, so tragic, so downright smelly is the arrogance, the lack of understanding of human nature, the desire to be held aloft as the Saviour of Vancouver. Not having the practical wisdom to understand that human progress is made in tiny steps - a little here, a little there - Dr. Strangelove (Look at the hair across the forehead. All he needs is a leather glove and a moustache.) believes he will make one grand sweeping gesture and Vancouver will become drug-free, crime-free, homeless-free, not-nice-free.

Make no mistake, Taxpayers, this is an obsession.

He calls meetings to order, spends three minutes on other business and then pontificates for half an hour on this silliness while the gathered stare in silent disbelief and embarrassment.

He openly tells people that he doesn't want the police involved in drug matters, that prevention programs don't work and that abstinence treatment is an expensive failure. In other words, he doesn't support the Four Pillars strategy at all. He wants only harm reduction and to sell it to the suckers he calls it treatment.

But that's the Way of the Emperor, isn't it? If I say it is so, then it is so.

GUNG HAY FAT CHOY

Health and prosperity to all.

HELL is an UNHINGED Mayor

What follows is 2 versions of the same report. The first is very personal and subjective. I scrubbed it in favor of the second, which I submitted to The Vancouver Sun Op Ed page for publication. As I haven't heard from them, I've decided to publish these pieces herein.

What you have to understand is that the Mayor is now phoning people and telling them that he wants to hand out pills to addicts on street corners. He always argues that if you disagree with him - as so many of us decidedly do, you just don't understand. Apparently the Mayor has been gifted a form of intelligence not known to most of us.

I URGE YOU TO WRITE OR E-MAIL PRIME MINISTER HARPER TO TRUST HIS BEST INSTINCTS AND REFUSE TO ALLOW THE EXEMPTION THAT WOULD BE REQUIRED FOR THIS DANGEROUS AND ANTI-HUMAN, ANTI-HOPE NOTION TO PROCEED.

FIRST VERSION

The most pernicious and misguided program in recent memory is now flowing like alluvial sludge from the office of Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan.

On the afternoon of Thursday, February 8, Mayor Sullivan called my home. He identified himself as “the guy in the wheel chair.” How weird is that?

He asked me to attend a discussion he was having with 20 or so people on Friday morning about his new drug initiative. I wondered aloud why he would want me there, as he is well aware that I think his ideas on this subject are batty and dangerous. He gave me some over-flattering excuse and I said I would be there.

Coffee, tea, croissants and apples were served. At each seat, there was a short agenda and a 6-page document on City of Vancouver letterhead titled, CAST, or Chronic Addiction Substitution Treatment, which took about 15 seconds to read and comprehend. It was delivered in bullet and comic book fashion, meant clearly for the kindergarten class that the Mayor and his stooges took us to be.

Stooge One is Don MacPherson, the head of the city’s drug directorate, during whose tenure of the last several years not one known addict has moved on in life, not one treatment bed has opened. Mr. MacPherson introduced Mayor Sam who spoke for about 10 minutes.

Stooge Two is David Holztman, who is now the City Authority on all matters relating to addictions, medicine and law and order. Mr. H. is steering CAST. He spent 20 minutes giving us a power point rendition of the comic book we had already absorbed in the first 15 seconds at the table.

The gist of this “exciting and progressive new” initiative is that we will give coke and meth heads free pills as substitutes for their poisons of choice. This stroke of genius is coming from a man – Mr. H. – who also praised the “alcohol maintenance” program now being run in Ottawa. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, “alcohol maintenance” means that you give an old sot a free shot of scotch every morning.

You think that we are making these things up, but we are not. This is how your tax dollars are being spent.

When the floor was opened for discussion, a man sitting next to me asked a very good question. “If we give these pills to all these addicts, how long will we be doing that?” I answered loudly, “Forever, of course. Don’t you get it?” (Later that day, Mr. H. appeared on a CBC radio program and admitted fully that “some people need to be on maintenance for life.) Then the mayor tried to deflect the question by talking about his Civil Society.

At that point I spoke up and this is what I said.


“This detestable concept reveals a fundamental refusal or inability to understand the most basic mechanics of addictions. What do addicts want? They want more. Not more children, more love, affection, books, opera or hockey tickets, housing or cars. They want more drugs. That is their singular focus. So you can give them free substitute pills at 9 in the morning all you want. But I guarantee you that by 2:15, they’ll be on the street stealing and hustling and breaking and entering just like they did yesterday. Most of you here are part of a bureaucratic agreement to accomplish nothing real, but you will spend a lot of taxpayers’ money doing it.”

At that point, I stood up, picked up my raincoat, pointed my finger at His Worship and said, “And Sam, don’t ever call me again.”

Sam smiled. He loves to get people upset. It’s just about his favourite thing on earth. That, and talking to junkies and hookers.

SECOND VERSION

The most pernicious and misguided program in recent memory is now flowing like alluvial sludge from the office of Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan.

The program is called CAST, or Chronic Addiction Substitution Treatment.

The gist of this “exciting and progressive new” initiative is that we will give coke and meth heads free pills as substitutes for their poisons of choice. David Holtzman has been employed by His Worship to promote this and other grand ideas. In a meeting I attended recently, Holtzman also praised the “alcohol maintenance” program now being run in Ottawa. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, “alcohol maintenance” means that you give an old sot a free shot of scotch every morning.

You think that we are making these things up, but we are not. This is how your tax dollars are being spent.

When I suggested to Mayor Sam, Holtzman and a room full of devotees that there was a fundamental flaw in this notion, Holtzman replied that people didn’t understand Rick Hansen when he set out as well. I answered that I understood their idea perfectly, I just didn’t agree with it. But that’s how the bureaucratic, arrogant mind works – if you don’t agree with their hot box of the day, certainly you must not understand it. And to compare giving addicts free pills with the work of Rick Hansen?

Here’s why this dreadful notion cannot work.

What do addicts want? They want more. More what? Not more children, diapers, food, homes, cars, books, affection, love, fame, opera or hockey tickets. No. They want more drugs. Period. End of story.

So, give them substitute pills at 9 am. At 2:15, they’ll be in the back alley stealing and breaking and entering and hustling just like they were yesterday. All the trumped up bar graphs and statistics will not prove otherwise. The program cannot and will not work.

Can you be proud of yourself knowing that you would willingly help a human being to remain stupid and entrapped and limited and less than human? Wouldn’t you want to try to help someone escape the cycle? Even if you don’t always succeed?

The Mayor and friends, who actively dislike and attempt to debunk, treatment programs will tell you that 75% of treatment doesn’t work. They are right. But 25% succeed and those are real people who live and breathe and raise children and pay taxes and contribute to a community they used to drain. Batting 250 will get you into Cooperstown, Sam.

And how does the Mayor explain the millions of alcoholics who “manage” their disability by staying clean and sober and attending a meeting once or twice a week? He doesn’t, because it doesn’t fit his plan.

Please stay out of the addictions business, Mr. Mayor. You and your bureaucrats don’t understand the fundamentals and all you can possibly do is add to the harm.

Civil Disobedience is Always Unfashionable

When in 1849, Henry David Thoreau published his landmark essay on Civil Disobedience, he could hardly have envisioned a tiny set-to on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery. And what would the man who wrote, "I heartily accept the motto - That government is best which governs least," have made of governments spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars for Greco-Roman competitions and revelry?

I wasn't there the other morning when various protesters interrupted the launching of the Olympic Clock, so I'll have to take everyone's word for it, that some got out of hand and downright unruly. Various of these frightening hooligans - for this is the designation given them by the press - have now been charged with mischief. (Imagine the real list of offenders who should be charged with "mischief": Sam Sullivan, Henry Kissinger, Montel.)

What is so unsettling is how quickly the press has rushed to condemn the few who have opposed the Games and how quick the press has been to enumerate the many marvels of compassion for the poor and homeless emanating from Victoria and City Hall.

I am a life long Contrarian. There is little in the majority opinion that has ever appealed to me, and much that offends.

So I am almost always delighted to see a healthy minority opposition to the Myth of the Day. Of course, rocks and pushing and storming the barricades are unnecessary and inappropriate and counter-productive in a milieu as sleepy and disconnected from the human heart as Vancouver, Canada.

Nevertheless, you have to wonder why the police and the press react so swiftly and so over-the-top themselves to what is a necessary and essential part of the democratic soup - small voices shouting loudly against the pleasant bleeting and mooing of the herd.

Carole, We Hardly Knew Ya...

Provincial NDP leader, Carole James, moments after criticizing the Liberal government's new Green Plan, admitted that she drove a honking great SUV. With a straight face, she claimed, "Well, my family and I go off road in the summer."

Is this the height of hypocrisy?

Mr. Campbells' Global Warming initiatives may or may not, in time, prove to be legitimate or effective.

But if we can't be responsible for our own contributions, should the world have to accept our foul air?

Carole, you shame yourself.

We Know How You Feel, Harry

But be not deceived.

Harry, a Dandie Dinmont Terrier, shown here at New York's annual Westminster Dog Show, won 56 Best-in-Shows last year.

GREAT COMMENT

Please check out the contribution from Eric Lee, a local engineer who is actively involved in alternate energy systems, to my blog of Saturday, February 3, 2007 on Global Warming and Climate Change.

Scroll down to the 4th Comment, folks; it's well worth your time.

This is one of the best commentaries we've received to date. Many thanks, Eric.

PRIORITIES

The Sun and the province - that is The Vancouver Sun newspaper and the Province of British Columbia - have like priorities.

Today, The Sun ran a story at the bottom of Page B2 headed, "Cuts will Force Victoria Child Care Program to Close." The gist, quoting directly form the paper, is this: "Less than 3 weeks ago, the Victoria Child Care Resource and Referral Program celebrated the grand opening of its new downtown storefront facility. By September, the program will be closed. Cuts - from the current $14 Million a year to $9 Million starting April 1 and to $3 million by September 1 - mean 46 such programs across B.C. will be shutting down."

While that important story was relatively obscured by its location and short word count, the Front Page trumpeted, with a foto and red headlines, the Olympic Countdown.

On page B2, above the quiet, little piece about $11 Million being cut from Child Care funding - lunch money by Provincial Budget standards - was a double page spread about all the wondrous and sundry Olympic venues and their progress and preparations for the Big Event.

Some examples:

Athletes' Village, Original cost, $167 Million, Update, $315 Million, or double

Vancouver Training Venues, Orig, $5M, update, $27 M, or X 5

Richmond Speedskating Oval, Orig. $60 M, update $200 M +, or X 3.

So, let's make this simple, kids.

Hundreds of millions of taxpayers' hard earned dollars are assigned and re-assigned and re-assessed and increased with nary a blink of the politicians' eye or public's outcry for 2 weeks of sport.

Child Care Funding - pennies compared to the Big Party - is slashed and goes unnoticed.

We are poor little sheep who have lost our way...

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Pow! You're dead.

Mikhail Kalishnikov invented the AK-47 combat submachine gun. In some countries this wonderfully cheap and effective killing machine can be bought for less than the price of a chicken...make that a live chicken.

Mr. Kalishinkov is now 85 years old. In 2002, he told the Guardian newspaper, "I wish I had invented a lawnmower."