Eyesore, Plain and Simple

One cannot argue with the self-evident and urgent need for aboriginal people to get a leg up wherever reasonable and possible.

And it is particularly encouraging to see native groups creating economic opportunities that are based on sound business models.

But, please.

The new electric billboard built by the Squamish Nation at the south foot of the Burrard Bridge is a bad idea badly executed.

It is big and flashy.

And it is flat ugly.

All over town local governments have actively discouraged bill boarding.

Our late good friend Larry Zelmer fought for years to maintain the billboard high atop the Lee Building at Main and Broadway.

He lost.

That sign was barely visible except to anyone but the cormorants compared to the garish glare of this new distraction amidst the trees and mountain and water views off the Burrard Bridge.

This is reverse discrimination of the most offensive kind.

Why this group and no others?

No doubt there are many great ways for the Squamish Nation to develop business opportunities that will serve everyone well.

This is not one of them.

Smoooooooth...

Comfort in the Cold

Names

B.C. has renamed the Queen Charlotte Islands.

The new name is Haida Gwaii.

This is fine with me.

But I admit I am a little nervous that sooner or later, someone will figure out that Captain Vancouver was sailing the ship "Tiger Woods," and may not have been the best fellow after whom cities should be named.

The only thing is will I ever learn how to say 'lyxwuwuwhakqulatchi-;ploutz?

Arrested Development

When will the border patrols, U.S. and Canadian, figure out the difference between vocal protesters and terrorists?

The latter are quiet and sneaky and under cover. They don't want you to know them until after the bomb goes off.

The protesters are right out there.

When will the border patrols, both sides, understand that protest and dissent are a central part of what makes a modern liberal democracy superior to fascism and its many cousins?

Or is all of this too much to ask of people who are "just doing their jobs?"

Olympic critic denied entry to U.S.; says she was interrogated for hours

Marla Renn was heading south to speak at anti-Olympic events

Oy.

Qualifications

Gary Mason, always readable, has contributed an interesting piece this morning about Carole Taylor possibly being the replacement for His Meanness.

With alternatives like Rich Coleman and Kevin Falcon, two bulldozers cut from the same cruel cloth as the Preem, you bet!

Mason offers that Taylor is the kind of fiscal conservative that the corporate community loves. He adds that "she was also seen as a left leaning democrat on social justice issues."

I resist these kinds of categorizations.

For my money, it' simply this.

Carole Taylor is blessed with a drop or two of the milk of human kindness.

Which makes her distinctly different from the current Iceman in charge, who most days seems by his decisions and his priorities to lack even something approaching decency.

Art Two

Last Monday, I wrote in this pace about my two favorite all-time art hoaxes - video and installations.

Now I am pleased to introduce you to one of the richest and most successful pullers of the wool of all time.

His name is Michael Snow and his entire oeuvre (OUCH! Dat hoits!) is video and installation.

In a review this morning, a gushing wet-panties writer tells us that "the crowning achievement in Michael Snow's new show is a 45-minute film of a curtain blowing in the wind. And believe it or not, you'll want to sit and watch the whole thing."

Well, I have a shocker for you, Sarah.

No.

I won't.

I'll be watching my own 46-minute film of a cat named Billy licking his paws.

The odd thing is I can't seem to get any of my friends to sit down with me and watch it.

I've offered popcorn.

Hot...buttered...

It's not Copenhagen

Crush

What would happen if Vancouver and VANOC and the IOC and the province all had the grace and self-confidence that should come with having that much power?

Perhaps they could find the chutzpah to just ignore little things that they don't like.

No.

Instead they must go tromping around, grinding their heels into any little oddity that doesn't quite fit in with the Big Plan.

Our weenie is bigger than yours.

That's all it comes down to.

Case in point, the piece of art shown above which has been hanging outside a local gallery.

The city has demanded it come down.

The city has called it "graffiti."

The decision maker here on what is art and what is graffiti is a nameless, faceless city inspector.

We pay this boob's salary.

How about inspecting farm vehicles with 17 worker-passengers and no seat belts? [SEE BELOW]

Now, this is odd behaviour from the City of Vancouver because Mayor Gregor Robertson has publicly declared that the city's “commitment has always been the protection of people's Charter Rights and Freedoms.”

O.K. Gregor.

Get on your bike.

Go down to your favorite 'hood, the DTES, and put the painting back on the wall.

The mid-town sillies are so busy celebrating the past ( A hint of Woodward's old food floor has returned to the new re-development. Man, you would think this was the only city in the world that had a big old food department downtown.) that they are not noticing the present and the future being sold for a down-hill run.

KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid

Here's the basic idea.

After numerous failed attempts to reduce crime among their youth, native leaders and communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are proposing aboriginal school boards, a controversial idea even among first nations.

Some argue that this will get native kids up and moving and away from street crime.

Others suggest this will be a return to the nightmares of residential schools.

This polarization is not helping.

The truth and part of the solution to an ongoing tragedy in our midst lies, as it often does, somewhere in the middle.

Here and there, a few individual projects have been showing some glimmers of hope.

Winnipeg's Children of the Earth is a high school that seems to be helping aboriginal young people do better work.

Good.

If it's working support it. Fund it.

But do not leap to the conclusion that we now need a network or consortium or government institution of encrusted aboriginal separate schools.

The last thing that will possibly help alleviate what is and should be seen as a national disgrace (Have you visited Manitoba or Saskatchewan lately?) is a new bureacracy of any kind, let alone native education.

Look not for silver bullets and big sweeping changes, but for many modest LOCAL solutions.

Where aboriginal students are succeeding integrated into public schools, great.

Where they are not and someone is prepared to put together an alternative that may do a better job, fine.

But please do not go off madly re-inventing the wheel.

Scabby Parks, Shabby Leader

Writing in yesterday's Province, Ethan Baron has added fuel to my post of yesterday about the Premier's charming lack of regrets.

Something stinks in our provincial parks, and it isn't just the toilets

Liberals spend more on PR than people

By Ethan Baron, The Province

The thrust of the column is this:

B.C.'s crown jewel — our provincial park system — has fallen into a disgraceful state, victim of funding cuts by a government that spends more on its own spin machine than it does on parks.

Read it and get clear about your politics.

Shame

Are some women in the Canadian labour force still treated like slaves?

Yes.

Are they still disposable?

Yes.

Crash that killed three farm workers ruled 'accidental' by coroner's jury

By Darah Hansen, Vancouver SunDecember 10, 2009

In 2008, police recommended 33 criminal charges be laid against both the driver of the vehicle involved in the crash, Harwinder Gill, and her husband, Ranjit Gill. But the charges were not approved by Crown counsel. Instead, Harwinder Gill pleaded guilty to four lesser charges under the Motor Vehicle Act and was fined $2,000.

“It was literally a slap on the wrist,” Jim Sayre, lawyer for the victim’s families, said Thursday.

“It was a demonstration of disrespect in their view for the lives of their loved ones. That that was all those lives were worth,” he said.

The Gills were also fined $69,000 following an investigation by WorkSafeBC. But that fine was never paid.

The jury heard earlier in the inquest there were 17 people inside the van at the time of the crash. Only two had seatbelts, including the driver and a frontseat passenger. Gill was not properly licenced to drive the vehicle. Meanwhile, the van itself was in poor working condition with balding and inadequately inflated tires.

* * *

The day after this sickening and completely avoidable tragedy, my friend, Jim Sinclair, BC Fed President went out to the Gills' farm and watched as more indentured poor were badgered into unsafe vans without seat belts.

Lay all of the blame here at the provincial and municipal governments who refuse to pay inspectors in adequate numbers to police and enforce even the most basic working conditions - like drinking water and sanitation.

When it comes to some areas we are not "the greatest place on earth."

We are a corrupt and self-indulgent third-world slum.

Oh.

And, by the way.

Gord has no regrets.

Main Reason to be Scared, Truly Scared

Non, je ne regret rien.

No Edith Piaf, he.

But Gordon Campbell tells us that he has no regrets.

“You never have difficulty sleeping when you think you’ve made the right choices.”

His modesty is exemplary...and touching.

He means, of course, "when you know you've made the right choices."

Let's see now.

The Monumental Premier has spent billions on one road and one event, while cutting schools, libraries, the arts, social programs, and health care programs among others.

He has been consistent and insistent in helping the Big Guys and shutting out the little and the ones who have little.

But he has no regrets.

And he has no regrets.

We could line up on the legislature lawn and sing out our regrets all in a minor key.

But let's save the time and energy and simplify for the hard of hearing.

Our regret, sir, is you.

We will welcome a new administration whomever it may be and as soon as it may thankfully arrive.

71

That's the new number of former Canadian ambassadors and other diplomats who are lining up to make clear to Mr. Harper and Mr. MacKay that if you keep shooting the messenger, you might not get much mail.

One.

That's the number and the position of Canada's top soldier who has reversed yesterday's testimony and now made clear that yes, a prisoner taken into custody was in fact abused by Afghan authorities.

What is so disappointing about all of this is not that torture and abuse occurred. That is to be expected in war, even if it may violate international understandings.

No.

It is the hysterical denials and counter-accusations and POSING, POSING, POSING by the sitting government of the day.

Why not just face the bad news and accept that untoward things have happened and we are dealing with it.

We must be driven optimists.

We keep expecting more from leaders and the elected who keep impostering themselves as grown-ups.

Everything is Political - Even The Law

The Conservative government wants to toughen up crime legislation.

There are those among us who watch way too many movies and are convinced that this will result of thousand of more prisons and prisoners.

Some such have found their way into the Senate, who have changed several key elements in the government's new bill.

This is, of course, and for the next few minutes at least, a Liberal Senate so they must score political points while they can, spurious though those points may be.

The Red Chamber wants to remove the minimum six-month mandatory sentence for some drug crimes, including running a grow-op with 200 or fewer marijuana plants.

This, in spite of the clear fact that most grow-ops - even those with fewer than 200 plants - are illegal commercial enterprises aimed at selling Mary Jane to school kids, financed by criminal gangs and controlled by guns and violence.

Somehow, the chowder heads in Ottawa have to get over the fantasy of cute couples and their dog, Brewster, growing a few in Nelson, B.C. and playing folk songs.

Of course, the chamber is peopled with deep thinkers like Larry Campbell. Nuff said?

The Senate also wants the exemption of aboriginal offenders from mandatory minimum sentences.

This is the worst kind of muddle-headed sentimental non-thinking.

Do I get a pass from criminal prosecution if I am a Jew, Scot or Filipino?

Come on, kids.

Now, an amusing sidebar to this story is the one about the Liberal Senator who is:

a) under indictment for fraud and obstruction of justice, and

b) on leave from the Senate, but still drawing his considerable salary.

The fool's name is Raymond Lavigne and his crimes are too cheesy and pathetic to write about here when you can read the sordid little tale for yourself.

What is so entertaining and sad is that he had an assistant, a grown man, who would sort Lavigne's mail in the morning then, drive across the river to Quebec and cut down trees on a property to prepare it for a new house.

The assistant's quote is a classic:

"I would have jumped in front of a car for him."

For this loyalty, Daniel Cote was payed $55,000 a year.

And what?

Oral sex?

A quick snapshot of how your tax money is being so creatvely used day in and day out on the hill.

Request

Where do I get me one of these?

Candian Tire is all out.

I asked.

Smoke

The B.C. government is suing Big Tobacco for causing billions of dollars in health costs over the years.

Idiotic.

What now makes it worse is that the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled that the partner of Big Tobacco is the Federal Government.

So basically, the B.C. government is now suing the Federal Government and Bog Tobacco for billions of dollars.

Which means that if it wins its spurious but winnable case, we the taxpayers will be paying again.

The Lawyer and the Witch

For many people, these terms are synonymous and interchangeable, I know.

But in this particular and hysterically funny case, a Toronto Lawyer has been bilked out of many a fine dollar by a woman who "posed" as a witch.

Now, I realize that fraud is a legitimate criminal charge.

But can anyone really be "guilty" of being a witch, or "posing" therein.

Dare we count the many, many witches with whom we interact almost daily?

And the dozens who proudly claim their witchiness or wiccadom or whatever it may be.

Let us not bring back to mind the countless homes we've visited only to find the hair of a dog, leg of a frog and eye of a newt quietly simmering on the kitchen stove.

How else do you think we developed our well-known skills as a fine runner?

Now, the best part of this true-life story is where the writer tells us about how the lawyer and the witch first met and he "started to mentor her."

He mentored her to the tune of about a hundred grand in the first year.

Of course, many a fellow throughout history has been known to mentor many a gal for less.

Whisperers Speaking Up

Diplomats are not generally known for being...well...not to be too tautological about it...undiplomatic.

So the sight of Canadian diplomats in great numbers (35-50) joining a massive conga line in protest against their own government is noteworthy.

These formerly quiet, discrete servants of the powers that be are nailing Peter MacKay for his public attacks on whistle-blower Richard Colvin in the detainees-abuse matter.

Amidst cries for his resignation - which I suspect MacKay will ignore - the Defense Minister has changed his tune and admitted that torture may have been possible.

Really?

Oh, by the way.

Knowingly transferring a prisoner to torture or abuse is a Geneva-Conventions-grade war crime.

If we have been engaged in such, perhpas we might want to re-think what we are doing in Afghanistan and other hot spots where we are similarly engaged.

Life on the Street

Last week, old friends of mine, who run a well-known late-night cafe told me that their yearly property taxes are now $70,000.

Yesterday, the dry cleaning lady in my neighbourhood told me that when the 12% HST soon cuts in, she doesn't know how she will continue.