Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 39
May 11, 2016
Meeting Rusty
RustyMinden Times Column This WeekSo, here I am in California getting to know Rusty.
He was withdrawn and wary at our first meeting. That’s understandable considering he spent his earliest days in the mean neighbourhoods of Los Angeles. Now he is enjoying a stable and loving life in the San Francisco area.
Rusty is my newest granddog. He joined my daughter’s family about a year ago and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to meet him.
He is a fine looking fellow. Medium size, light reddish brown in colour with fine rusty blond leg and belly feathers. Amber eyes. He looks a bit like an Irish setter but his face is too long and pointed for that breed.
He didn’t look this good when my daughter’s family adopted him from a dog rescue organization in Palo Alto. He had a cut on his head, was missing a tooth, had kennel cough and had lost the hair around his eyes.
The rescue group believes he was an LA backyard dog - dogs left on their own by owners who do not look after them. He doesn’t like loud voices, indicating he must have been kept by people who shouted at him a lot.
He was very tentative with me, watching me out of the corner of his eye and moving away whenever I came near. He is getting to trust me now and even brings me his ball to throw.
Rusty is my third California granddog. The first was Koona, a half Huskie, half Malamute my daughter brought with her from Canada when she moved here roughly 20 years ago. Koona lived to a ripe old age – 14 – for an Arctic breed.
Then came Ozzie, a pure-bred Malamute from a breeder who lived in the mountains near the California-Nevada border. Ozzie, a gorgeous big dog, died unexpectedly at four.
Both were among the most intelligent dogs I have known. They vocalized a lot, a trait of the Malamute. They were loving guys, but fiercely independent.
Rusty doesn’t talk. He communicates with body language. He is loving but more laid back that Koona or Ozzie. He likes to be around other dogs, and people once he gets to know them.
He joins a long list of Poling granddogs who have graced our lives - Diesel, Memphis, Emma, Chase, Tasha, Molly and others whose names I might have forgotten.
The only other living granddog is Georgia, a Great Dane Harlequin who lives with another daughter in Mississauga. Georgia is so large that she rides in vehicles with her head protruding through an open sunroof.
Rusty filled a huge emotional void left when Ozzie died unexpectedly. When a cherished pet passes it is difficult to think about getting another.
The day she adopted him, my daughter took Rusty for a get acquainted walk. Not long into the walk they came across five white feathers laying in their path.
There is a belief in some parts of society that a white feather fallen from the sky is sent by the spirit of a loved one who has passed on. It is a sign that all is fine and life should be carried on without them.
I don’t know about that, but I do know that native Americans believe a white feather signifies rebirth and new beginnings.
Rusty has a new beginning here thanks to an animal rescue group and a family that has given him a loving home.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
May 5, 2016
The Shoal Lake Caper
It is remarkable how small events often mark major change. There was such an event last week.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent last Thursday at the Shoal Lake First Nation in Manitoba, which has been under a boil water advisory for 19 years. (Yes, 19, almost two decades). He was there for the day, talking with elders, visiting young people at school and taking part in community activities, including delivering jugs of imported water and attending a hockey game.
Trudeau being there was not remarkable in itself. He has indicated his commitment to improving the Third World living conditions of Canada’s native people.
And, perhaps it is a case of the son making amends for the sins of the father. Pierre Trudeau’s wrong-headed 1969 White Paper on aboriginal affairs proposed assimilation of native people into white society, and abolishing all previous legal documents pertaining to them, including treaties.
The reaction to the White Paper was so angry and explosive that the elder Trudeau was forced to withdraw it, incredibly saying: “We’ll keep them in the ghetto as long as they want.” The quote was so shocking that it earned a place in the Canadian Encyclopedia.
The new Trudeau obviously does not favour the continuing existence of the “ghettos”. Hopefully he sees that assimilating all native people into an urban culture is not the answer to improving their living conditions. No government should force any people to abandon their culture.
The most remarkable change signalled by the Shoal Lake visit concerned the news media. The only media accompanying Trudeau to Shoal Lake was Vice Media, the gonzo digital news and information newcomer that sometimes blurs the lines between news and advertising.
The howling outrage from the national media was loud and immediate. Trudeau was showing disdain for the traditional media by leaving them out of the visit. Such an important story needed coverage by important media, not a wild and wet-behind-the-ears pup like Vice.
By taking along Vice, and not the big girls and boys like the Globe and Mail and CBC, Trudeau signalled just how less important traditional media have become. People increasingly get their national news from non-traditional sources such as Vice.
Vice, which started in the 90s as a counter culture magazine in Montreal, now is an international media conglomerate with various websites said to attract 60 million viewers a month.
The Shoal Lake visit showed how new media operations are years ahead of traditional media in terms of creativity and initiative. The prime minister did not invite Vice to come with him to Shoal Lake. Vice invited him.
Last fall Vice produced a documentary on the lack of clean drinking water in many native communities. (My last count was 85 communities). It planned to do more on this issue, so when Trudeau was elected, Vice suggested the new prime minister accompany a Vice crew to a remote reserve to see problems first hand. Trudeau agreed and picked Shoal Lake as the place to visit.
That’s the kind of initiative and new thinking that traditional news media such as daily newspapers, national television and radio have lacked as they fight to survive in the digital news age. Many have cut, and continue to cut, their journalistic staff. Many have replaced editorial leadership with accountants and soup salesmen who know much about bottom lines, but little about professional news gathering and public service.
Certainly, Vice and other new media lack some good journalism practices needed to deliver news that people can trust. Traditional media have developed and refined those important policies and practices over many decades but need new media type spark to become more relevant.
Some will argue that the Shoal Lake deal with Vice is just another example of Trudeau’s style without substance. More posing for the cameras. Perhaps, but he is showing aggressive new thinking more in tune with younger generations. Time will show if his thinking and style make life better for all Canadians. So the Shoal Lake caper put the national media’s nose out of joint. A suggestion to those once mighty newsrooms: Get over it and get going with fresh thinking. Either that, or get left behind.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
April 28, 2016
Lines on the Road
The last few stubborn patches are gone finally, but in a way it is sad to see the snow go.
Snow covers more than just autumn’s decay. It hides for a few winter months the flaws in our society, one of which is our continuing disrespect for nature.
The melting snow reveals roadsides littered with bottles, cans, coffee cups, cigarette packages and other detritus tossed out vehicle windows. The amount of roadside litter in Haliburton County and elsewhere truly is discouraging. It makes you wonder how we ever will fix the world’s environmental problems when people continue to use our roadsides as garbage cans.
That’s old news, however, and continuing to write about it is beating a dead horse.
A newer concern about the roadways is the deteriorating state of line marking. Many municipalities appear to be delaying, or even giving up, on road marking. Road dividing lines, intersection stop lines, and lane turn markers have faded to almost nothing in some places where I drive. It is a way for some municipalities to save money.
Municipalities have been stretched for money as Ontario governments have continued to download service costs on them. (For instance, check your tax bill and see how it has increased because of downloaded Ontario Provincial Police costs).
Road line marking has been stopped in some areas of Britain. It is an experiment to test whether roads without dividing lines make drivers more cautious. Some data shows that removal of white dividing lines slows the average speed of vehicles by up to 13 per cent.
There is much argument about that. One side argues that self-enforcing schemes such as removing lines are the best way to reduce speeding, especially where policing budgets are cut. Others say there is no proof for this and that clearly marked roads save lives.
Ontario has reviewed the no-line experiments in England and has no plans to change its road marking system, says Bob Nichols, senior media liaison officer for the Ontario transport ministry.
“Pavement markings serve an advisory or warning function, and may be used to complement other traffic control devices,” he told me. “There are concerns that the removal of pavement markings will affect those with ageing visions and impact certain safety technologies in modern cars that rely on pavement markings to warn drivers if they’re drifting across a lane.”
Nichols also said that road painting has not been cut back on roads and highways maintained by the province. Most lines need to be repainted once a year and the province has not changed the frequency of line painting.
Also, there have been rumours that Ontario has stopped using glass beaded pavement paint, but Nichols says this is not true. Glass beads in road paint are the only way to meet minimum reflectivity standards, he says.
Ontario this year began testing AVs (Automated Vehicles), self-driving vehicles that use artificial intelligence, digital gadgets and presumably road markings to keep them on the road. AVs sound a bit scary but they can’t be much more dangerous than some of the lunatics you see behind the wheel these days. The repainting season begins soon, once roads are clean and free of sand and salt residue and the temperature is at least 10 degrees C.
Hopefully this year there will be fewer impatient drivers who insist on passing road painting trucks. They make a lovely mess when they drive over freshly painted lines and don’t seem to mind having yellow or white paint splashed onto their vehicle.
Meanwhile, here’s a little road test question: Is it illegal to cross a solid double centre line?
Not in Ontario, which is the only Canadian province or territory where it is not a traffic offence to pass on a solid double line.
Solid double lines are warnings placed before curves, hills and other highway vision-limited sections where an oncoming vehicle might be met too suddenly to avoid a collision.
So you can pass without fear of being pulled over by police, but it’s a really dumb idea.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Snow covers more than just autumn’s decay. It hides for a few winter months the flaws in our society, one of which is our continuing disrespect for nature.
The melting snow reveals roadsides littered with bottles, cans, coffee cups, cigarette packages and other detritus tossed out vehicle windows. The amount of roadside litter in Haliburton County and elsewhere truly is discouraging. It makes you wonder how we ever will fix the world’s environmental problems when people continue to use our roadsides as garbage cans.
That’s old news, however, and continuing to write about it is beating a dead horse.
A newer concern about the roadways is the deteriorating state of line marking. Many municipalities appear to be delaying, or even giving up, on road marking. Road dividing lines, intersection stop lines, and lane turn markers have faded to almost nothing in some places where I drive. It is a way for some municipalities to save money.
Municipalities have been stretched for money as Ontario governments have continued to download service costs on them. (For instance, check your tax bill and see how it has increased because of downloaded Ontario Provincial Police costs).
Road line marking has been stopped in some areas of Britain. It is an experiment to test whether roads without dividing lines make drivers more cautious. Some data shows that removal of white dividing lines slows the average speed of vehicles by up to 13 per cent.
There is much argument about that. One side argues that self-enforcing schemes such as removing lines are the best way to reduce speeding, especially where policing budgets are cut. Others say there is no proof for this and that clearly marked roads save lives.
Ontario has reviewed the no-line experiments in England and has no plans to change its road marking system, says Bob Nichols, senior media liaison officer for the Ontario transport ministry.
“Pavement markings serve an advisory or warning function, and may be used to complement other traffic control devices,” he told me. “There are concerns that the removal of pavement markings will affect those with ageing visions and impact certain safety technologies in modern cars that rely on pavement markings to warn drivers if they’re drifting across a lane.”
Nichols also said that road painting has not been cut back on roads and highways maintained by the province. Most lines need to be repainted once a year and the province has not changed the frequency of line painting.
Also, there have been rumours that Ontario has stopped using glass beaded pavement paint, but Nichols says this is not true. Glass beads in road paint are the only way to meet minimum reflectivity standards, he says.
Ontario this year began testing AVs (Automated Vehicles), self-driving vehicles that use artificial intelligence, digital gadgets and presumably road markings to keep them on the road. AVs sound a bit scary but they can’t be much more dangerous than some of the lunatics you see behind the wheel these days. The repainting season begins soon, once roads are clean and free of sand and salt residue and the temperature is at least 10 degrees C.
Hopefully this year there will be fewer impatient drivers who insist on passing road painting trucks. They make a lovely mess when they drive over freshly painted lines and don’t seem to mind having yellow or white paint splashed onto their vehicle.
Meanwhile, here’s a little road test question: Is it illegal to cross a solid double centre line?
Not in Ontario, which is the only Canadian province or territory where it is not a traffic offence to pass on a solid double line.
Solid double lines are warnings placed before curves, hills and other highway vision-limited sections where an oncoming vehicle might be met too suddenly to avoid a collision.
So you can pass without fear of being pulled over by police, but it’s a really dumb idea.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
April 21, 2016
The Death of Billy Skead
Billy Skead was buried during the winter but the question continues to prick the conscience of his troubled aboriginal community: Why did he die?
Medical reports say Billy died of an overdose of tuberculosis pills, which he stole from his brother-in-law. He swallowed pills once before but people managed to get him to hospital where doctors and nurses saved his life. This time they couldn’t.
The system counts Billy as just one of countless Indian suicides. People in his community, however, say Billy did not take his own life. They say it was taken by an uncaring system that has sapped the spirit of native people and left them to drift aimlessly like autumn leaves fallen into a stream.
Billy Skead was an intelligent and interesting young man. Too intelligent and too interesting to be dead.
He was born and raised on the reserve, the middle child in an impoverished family of three boys and six girls. When he was nine years old his mother froze to death in a snow bank on the reserve.
He was one of the Indian kids who persevered and got some education. He went to community college and learned the carpentry trade.
He thought a lot about the plight of his people and became an activist intent on changing the system. He took part in a blockade and occupation to protest the social conditions in which his people lived.
He marched in an native protest in Ottawa and was arrested by the RCMP.
After that he returned to the reserve and worked as an education counsellor, helping reserve children with school problems and trying to persuade them not to drop out. He organized children’s sports and tried to help people bridge the gap between reserve life and the foreign culture of city life.
“He was a happy-go-lucky person,” his young widow Rose told me when I talked to her. “He liked all kinds of sports. He liked reading and going to the movies.”
“He was a quiet, normal Indian boy,” Rev. John Fullmer, the Lutheran minister who married Rose and Billy told me in an interview.
“Billy was one of those kids who always had a smile on his face,” said Len Hakenson, director of the Addiction Research Foundation.,
Louis Cameron, an Indian leader and Billy’s uncle and friend, told me that many people wonder why a happy, strong and well-adjusted young man with many friends could kill himself.
“This generation is very sincere and has a lot of deep and urgent messages,” he said. “Sometimes to die in an unnatural way is an omen that something is happening.”
Louis Cameron said that perhaps Billy was frustrated by all the change that is needed, but realized that he could not achieve it.
“We Indian people are living in an acute state of emergency,” he told me.
Billy was not one of the victims of Attawapiskat, the Northern Ontario aboriginal community where five more young people attempted suicide last Friday night. There were eleven attempted suicides the previous weekend in Attawapiskat, and a total of 28 in March.
Politicians and news media are pouring into Attawapiskat, which has declared a state of emergency.
Billy also was not a victim in Davis Inlet, an East Coast community where Innu youth killed themselves by sniffing gasoline.
Nor in Grassy Narrows, Ontario where people didn’t have to gulp pills or sniff gasoline to get sick or to die. A nearby pulp and paper mill did that for them by poisoning their nearby fishing waters with mercury.
And not Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, which descended into a social Hell after construction of the W.A.C. Bennett dam dried up the Peace-Athabasca Delta, destroying the hunting and fishing lands of the native people.
Billy Skead was not even of this century. He committed suicide in 1976 on the Whitefish Bay Reserve near Kenora. The column you are reading is basically the story I wrote for The Canadian Press news agency on April 21, 1976.
That was 40 years ago today.
Some things never change, especially for Canada’s native people.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Medical reports say Billy died of an overdose of tuberculosis pills, which he stole from his brother-in-law. He swallowed pills once before but people managed to get him to hospital where doctors and nurses saved his life. This time they couldn’t.
The system counts Billy as just one of countless Indian suicides. People in his community, however, say Billy did not take his own life. They say it was taken by an uncaring system that has sapped the spirit of native people and left them to drift aimlessly like autumn leaves fallen into a stream.
Billy Skead was an intelligent and interesting young man. Too intelligent and too interesting to be dead.
He was born and raised on the reserve, the middle child in an impoverished family of three boys and six girls. When he was nine years old his mother froze to death in a snow bank on the reserve.
He was one of the Indian kids who persevered and got some education. He went to community college and learned the carpentry trade.
He thought a lot about the plight of his people and became an activist intent on changing the system. He took part in a blockade and occupation to protest the social conditions in which his people lived.
He marched in an native protest in Ottawa and was arrested by the RCMP.
After that he returned to the reserve and worked as an education counsellor, helping reserve children with school problems and trying to persuade them not to drop out. He organized children’s sports and tried to help people bridge the gap between reserve life and the foreign culture of city life.
“He was a happy-go-lucky person,” his young widow Rose told me when I talked to her. “He liked all kinds of sports. He liked reading and going to the movies.”
“He was a quiet, normal Indian boy,” Rev. John Fullmer, the Lutheran minister who married Rose and Billy told me in an interview.
“Billy was one of those kids who always had a smile on his face,” said Len Hakenson, director of the Addiction Research Foundation.,
Louis Cameron, an Indian leader and Billy’s uncle and friend, told me that many people wonder why a happy, strong and well-adjusted young man with many friends could kill himself.
“This generation is very sincere and has a lot of deep and urgent messages,” he said. “Sometimes to die in an unnatural way is an omen that something is happening.”
Louis Cameron said that perhaps Billy was frustrated by all the change that is needed, but realized that he could not achieve it.
“We Indian people are living in an acute state of emergency,” he told me.
Billy was not one of the victims of Attawapiskat, the Northern Ontario aboriginal community where five more young people attempted suicide last Friday night. There were eleven attempted suicides the previous weekend in Attawapiskat, and a total of 28 in March.
Politicians and news media are pouring into Attawapiskat, which has declared a state of emergency.
Billy also was not a victim in Davis Inlet, an East Coast community where Innu youth killed themselves by sniffing gasoline.
Nor in Grassy Narrows, Ontario where people didn’t have to gulp pills or sniff gasoline to get sick or to die. A nearby pulp and paper mill did that for them by poisoning their nearby fishing waters with mercury.
And not Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, which descended into a social Hell after construction of the W.A.C. Bennett dam dried up the Peace-Athabasca Delta, destroying the hunting and fishing lands of the native people.
Billy Skead was not even of this century. He committed suicide in 1976 on the Whitefish Bay Reserve near Kenora. The column you are reading is basically the story I wrote for The Canadian Press news agency on April 21, 1976.
That was 40 years ago today.
Some things never change, especially for Canada’s native people.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
April 14, 2016
Annoying White Noise
It has come to this: If you sat in front of your television set for 10 straight hours (God forbid!) you would be bombarded with roughly three hours of commercials.
In the earlier days of television, commercials offered time to grab a cold one from the fridge. These days, commercial breaks are so long that you have time to go to the beer store. If they get much longer, you’ll have time to brew your own.
In 1960 a typical hour-long show provided 51 minutes of entertainment. Nine minutes out of the hour were set aside for advertisement. Today an average hour of television provides 42 minutes of entertainment and 18 minutes of commercials.
On some channels, notably the so-called super channels such as AMC and Peach, a movie that runs 1:40 to 1:45 lasts three hours because of the commercials. That’s a mind-numbing lot of commercial viewing for anyone tuning into the trillionth broadcast of The Bourne Identity.
To people with calm personalities, TV commercials have become white noise to which they give scant attention. It’s simply there in the background. For the A personalities among us, TV commercials are an enemy that must be eliminated by any means.
The battles against TV ads began with the remote control. When a commercial intruded, we changed channels to watch something else. That battle was lost when some evil ad executive figured out how to have commercials running on your favourite channels at the same time. Flip to another channel to escape a commercial interruption and you run smack into another.
Then came the PVR. Record your favourite program then fast forward through the ads. That was a partial solution to avoid commercial annoyance. However, you had to be quick and nimble with the remote to escape the full messages.
Streaming services such as Netflix are the latest escape from TV ads. So far Netflix is commercial free and available at a reasonable price.
There is no complete escape from TV advertising, however. Many people still want to watch news programs – local and from afar – which are increasingly cluttered with commercials.
ABC World News Tonight is one of the better news operations but its 30-minute broadcast drowns in commercials soon after the15-minute mark. Then viewers are bombarded with drug company pitches for everything from erectile dysfunction to anticoagulants and adult diapers.
Especially repulsive are TV commercials paid with our tax dollars. You know, the one about “if you’ve got pink eye,” or the bridge that magically lengthens to save the life of a guy because the Ontario government now has a pension scheme. Then there’s the Ontario Power Generation agency ad informing us that Ontario stopped using coal for power generation a couple of years ago.
Gee, it’s good to get that kind of information and to know that you are paying for it. For my part, I’d rather have those tax dollars back to help pay my Hydro One bill, which is becoming my largest living expense.
Low-intelligence commercials and fourth-rate programing are driving more viewers away from broadcast and cable TV in favour of streaming services and it’s hurting the TV industry. A study prepared for the Canadian Radio and Television Commission earlier this year predicted that without more revenue, nearly one-half of Canada’s local TV stations will go off the air in the next four years.
Rogers Media announced earlier this year plans to lay off 200 people. Last year it cut 110 jobs from its Omni television stations. Both Shaw and Bell television operations also have cut jobs.
Obviously advertising is necessary in our capitalistic system. Ads pay for the programs and staff to produce them. But must it be so intrusive, so annoying and so omnipresent?
Viewers want fewer commercials and less jamming of shorter ads into commercial slots. They are fed up with ad formats that have seen little innovation in 60 years.
TV networks are starting to get the message. They need to do much work, however, on producing fewer commercials that are less annoying, more intelligent, and which provide viewers really useful information.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
In the earlier days of television, commercials offered time to grab a cold one from the fridge. These days, commercial breaks are so long that you have time to go to the beer store. If they get much longer, you’ll have time to brew your own.
In 1960 a typical hour-long show provided 51 minutes of entertainment. Nine minutes out of the hour were set aside for advertisement. Today an average hour of television provides 42 minutes of entertainment and 18 minutes of commercials.
On some channels, notably the so-called super channels such as AMC and Peach, a movie that runs 1:40 to 1:45 lasts three hours because of the commercials. That’s a mind-numbing lot of commercial viewing for anyone tuning into the trillionth broadcast of The Bourne Identity.
To people with calm personalities, TV commercials have become white noise to which they give scant attention. It’s simply there in the background. For the A personalities among us, TV commercials are an enemy that must be eliminated by any means.
The battles against TV ads began with the remote control. When a commercial intruded, we changed channels to watch something else. That battle was lost when some evil ad executive figured out how to have commercials running on your favourite channels at the same time. Flip to another channel to escape a commercial interruption and you run smack into another.
Then came the PVR. Record your favourite program then fast forward through the ads. That was a partial solution to avoid commercial annoyance. However, you had to be quick and nimble with the remote to escape the full messages.
Streaming services such as Netflix are the latest escape from TV ads. So far Netflix is commercial free and available at a reasonable price.
There is no complete escape from TV advertising, however. Many people still want to watch news programs – local and from afar – which are increasingly cluttered with commercials.
ABC World News Tonight is one of the better news operations but its 30-minute broadcast drowns in commercials soon after the15-minute mark. Then viewers are bombarded with drug company pitches for everything from erectile dysfunction to anticoagulants and adult diapers.
Especially repulsive are TV commercials paid with our tax dollars. You know, the one about “if you’ve got pink eye,” or the bridge that magically lengthens to save the life of a guy because the Ontario government now has a pension scheme. Then there’s the Ontario Power Generation agency ad informing us that Ontario stopped using coal for power generation a couple of years ago.
Gee, it’s good to get that kind of information and to know that you are paying for it. For my part, I’d rather have those tax dollars back to help pay my Hydro One bill, which is becoming my largest living expense.
Low-intelligence commercials and fourth-rate programing are driving more viewers away from broadcast and cable TV in favour of streaming services and it’s hurting the TV industry. A study prepared for the Canadian Radio and Television Commission earlier this year predicted that without more revenue, nearly one-half of Canada’s local TV stations will go off the air in the next four years.
Rogers Media announced earlier this year plans to lay off 200 people. Last year it cut 110 jobs from its Omni television stations. Both Shaw and Bell television operations also have cut jobs.
Obviously advertising is necessary in our capitalistic system. Ads pay for the programs and staff to produce them. But must it be so intrusive, so annoying and so omnipresent?
Viewers want fewer commercials and less jamming of shorter ads into commercial slots. They are fed up with ad formats that have seen little innovation in 60 years.
TV networks are starting to get the message. They need to do much work, however, on producing fewer commercials that are less annoying, more intelligent, and which provide viewers really useful information.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
April 7, 2016
Open Mouth, Insert . . .
I think it is time that Justin the Good sat down for a serious heart to heart with his No. 1 policeman, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson.
The Commish is a political train wreck waiting to happen. He’s been close to running off the rails several times now, causing his political bosses some embarrassment.
His latest public relations disaster was last week in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade where he noted that it is reasonable for the public to expect police officers to be held to a higher standard.
Later, he drew some laughs when he told about vacationing in British Columbia and being stopped for speeding by one of his own officers. B.C. is one of those provinces where RCMP do highway patrol.
He related how shocked the officer was when he realized he had pulled over his boss. Chuckles all around and that was the end of the amusing anecdote - until a reporter asked the obvious question: did he receive a speeding ticket?
“Oh, that was just a story I made up,” the commissioner replied.Questioned further, he reversed himself and said the story was true. Pressed harder on whether he received a ticket, he said he didn’t want to talk about it, then admitted he did not.You have to be awfully dim, or having a really off day, to think that story could be told without anticipating the obvious follow-up questions. It shows bad judgment on the commissioner’s part.Paulson is building quite a history of bad judgment. The news media often refers to his shoot-from-the-lip style. He has been dressed down by three different federal public safety ministers, the department to which he reports, since his appointment in late 2011.In 2012 he apologized and repaid the federal government $912, the cost of having on-duty RCMP honour guard assigned to his wedding.Documents obtained recently by journalists reveal that Paulson had to issue another apology in 2012. The government ordered him to apologize to a subordinate for intimating and demeaning behaviour.Staff Sgt. Tim Chad of B.C. complained to Paulson after the commissioner distributed a video lecture to all detachments on needed improvements and getting rid of the force’s bad apples. "We are not all a bunch of screw-ups but it is evident we are all being lumped into that category and we are not valued and trusted," Chad wrote in an email.
Paulson replied that Chad is “living under a rock” and that his complaints “reveal an ill-informed arrogance” that is “at the heart of what ails us.”
Another B.C. officer then complained that the commissioner’s response to Chad was “aggressive, insulting, arrogant, condescending and immature.”
The government obviously agreed and then-public safety minister Steven Blaney ordered Paulson to apologize.
Ralph Goodale, the latest public safety minister, has said nothing about Paulson’s most recent judgment misadventure, but no doubt is watching closely.
Back in February, Goodale told Paulson that he wants to see a plan to end “toxic workplace behaviour” in the RCMP. That came after reports of alleged bullying, sexual touching and nudity at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa.
Goodale also has asked the RCMP watchdog to take a new look at bullying and harassment within the RCMP. The watchdog earlier reported that the RCMP needs swift, effective action on complaints about bullying and harassment.
Paulson was in trouble with another public safety minister, this one Vic Toews who was replaced by Blaney. Toews ordered Paulson in 2012 to rewrite an action plan to address findings of gender bias in the RCMP.
That’s a lot of serious sit-downs with your bosses. The next one might be with the boss of them all, the prime minister. Trudeau, when he appointed Goodale told him he wants an RCMP workplace that is free from harassment and sexual violence.
No doubt he is not amused at Paulson’s stumbles, and he likely is becoming impatient. He should be. Paulson has had fours years to change the RCMP. He boasts of some success, but it clear that he has done nothing to change his own style.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
The Commish is a political train wreck waiting to happen. He’s been close to running off the rails several times now, causing his political bosses some embarrassment.
His latest public relations disaster was last week in a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade where he noted that it is reasonable for the public to expect police officers to be held to a higher standard.
Later, he drew some laughs when he told about vacationing in British Columbia and being stopped for speeding by one of his own officers. B.C. is one of those provinces where RCMP do highway patrol.
He related how shocked the officer was when he realized he had pulled over his boss. Chuckles all around and that was the end of the amusing anecdote - until a reporter asked the obvious question: did he receive a speeding ticket?
“Oh, that was just a story I made up,” the commissioner replied.Questioned further, he reversed himself and said the story was true. Pressed harder on whether he received a ticket, he said he didn’t want to talk about it, then admitted he did not.You have to be awfully dim, or having a really off day, to think that story could be told without anticipating the obvious follow-up questions. It shows bad judgment on the commissioner’s part.Paulson is building quite a history of bad judgment. The news media often refers to his shoot-from-the-lip style. He has been dressed down by three different federal public safety ministers, the department to which he reports, since his appointment in late 2011.In 2012 he apologized and repaid the federal government $912, the cost of having on-duty RCMP honour guard assigned to his wedding.Documents obtained recently by journalists reveal that Paulson had to issue another apology in 2012. The government ordered him to apologize to a subordinate for intimating and demeaning behaviour.Staff Sgt. Tim Chad of B.C. complained to Paulson after the commissioner distributed a video lecture to all detachments on needed improvements and getting rid of the force’s bad apples. "We are not all a bunch of screw-ups but it is evident we are all being lumped into that category and we are not valued and trusted," Chad wrote in an email.
Paulson replied that Chad is “living under a rock” and that his complaints “reveal an ill-informed arrogance” that is “at the heart of what ails us.”
Another B.C. officer then complained that the commissioner’s response to Chad was “aggressive, insulting, arrogant, condescending and immature.”
The government obviously agreed and then-public safety minister Steven Blaney ordered Paulson to apologize.
Ralph Goodale, the latest public safety minister, has said nothing about Paulson’s most recent judgment misadventure, but no doubt is watching closely.
Back in February, Goodale told Paulson that he wants to see a plan to end “toxic workplace behaviour” in the RCMP. That came after reports of alleged bullying, sexual touching and nudity at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa.
Goodale also has asked the RCMP watchdog to take a new look at bullying and harassment within the RCMP. The watchdog earlier reported that the RCMP needs swift, effective action on complaints about bullying and harassment.
Paulson was in trouble with another public safety minister, this one Vic Toews who was replaced by Blaney. Toews ordered Paulson in 2012 to rewrite an action plan to address findings of gender bias in the RCMP.
That’s a lot of serious sit-downs with your bosses. The next one might be with the boss of them all, the prime minister. Trudeau, when he appointed Goodale told him he wants an RCMP workplace that is free from harassment and sexual violence.
No doubt he is not amused at Paulson’s stumbles, and he likely is becoming impatient. He should be. Paulson has had fours years to change the RCMP. He boasts of some success, but it clear that he has done nothing to change his own style.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
March 31, 2016
The Wearing Down of America
My Minden Times Column This Week
People continue to shake their heads and ask how Donald Trump, the vulgarian who inherited all his money, got to be a U.S. presidential contender. The answer will not be found by studying the man. The answer lies within the millions of Americans who support him.
His supporters are citizens most hurt by America’s decline. They lack the education or skills needed to stay afloat in these changing times. They feel voiceless with little understanding of, and no say in what their government does.
These are people who believe America is losing, and they are correct. America is a decaying empire that is losing on many fronts.
Consider these findings from a study published last year by Dr. Hershey Friedman of Brooklyn College:
China at the end of 2014 overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest economy. China accounted for 16.48 per cent of the world’s purchasing power-adjusted Gross Domestic Product. The U.S. figure was 16.28 per cent. The U.S. ranks 35th best of 157 countries with people living below the poverty line. And, 25 per cent of U.S. children under age five live in poverty. The U.S. also has one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality. The Chief Executive Officer-to-minimum wage worker pay ratio in the U.S. is a shocking 774:1. The U.S, is 17th among 36 countries ranked for overall happiness about life. Professor Hershey’s report appears to lean toward socialist political movements but his sources for data cited appear legitimate.
At any rate, it is a fact that millions of Americans are angry about poverty levels, income inequality, lost economic opportunities and a decline in world stature and power. They just don’t feel good about themselves anymore. Thus the clamour to join Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign.
America has been in decline for several decades now. I follow it back to Viet Nam, the lost war that followed the lost war in Korea. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Stop the Commies from overrunning Asia. Stop the dominoes from falling before the last one lands on the U.S. doorstep.
It didn’t seem like such a good idea after 60,000 young Americans and tens of thousands of Vietnamese died in the steamy Southeast Asian jungles and the U.S. had to admit defeat. More U.S. war losses followed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia (remember Blackhawk Down?).
Then there has been the War on Poverty declared by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 when the U.S. poverty rate was 19 per cent. Forty-nine years later in 2013 the poverty rate was down to 14.5 per cent but poor Americans still numbered 45.3 million, the same as 1964. Another failed war.
In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs. The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in 2013 an estimated 24.6 million Americans had used an illicit drug in the previous month. Yet another failed war.
Americans now are fighting and losing a war against Islamic extremism abroad, and at home. So far at home they’ve seen 9-11, the Boston Marathon and San Bernardino.
With all that weighing them down, who can blame Americans for not feeling good about themselves and their future. Germans felt much the same way following the First World War, so they elected a Fascist to make them great again.
Donald Trump seems like a good idea to a lot of Americans. He won’t get to lead them, however. He likely won’t win the Republican nomination and if he does, he won’t win the presidency. Americans elect their presidents from the centre, not from the extreme left or right wings.
Whoever does win will try to better American life, and likely will achieve some small successes. He or she will not be able to stop the empire from crumbling.
Empires come and empires go. There were the Greeks, then the Romans, and the individual European individual state empires. In the Americas, the Aztecs and the Incas.
Empires are like mountains that break through the earth’s crust and rise to majestic heights over time. Eventually wind, water and other elements grind them down to foothills.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
People continue to shake their heads and ask how Donald Trump, the vulgarian who inherited all his money, got to be a U.S. presidential contender. The answer will not be found by studying the man. The answer lies within the millions of Americans who support him.
His supporters are citizens most hurt by America’s decline. They lack the education or skills needed to stay afloat in these changing times. They feel voiceless with little understanding of, and no say in what their government does.
These are people who believe America is losing, and they are correct. America is a decaying empire that is losing on many fronts.
Consider these findings from a study published last year by Dr. Hershey Friedman of Brooklyn College:
China at the end of 2014 overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest economy. China accounted for 16.48 per cent of the world’s purchasing power-adjusted Gross Domestic Product. The U.S. figure was 16.28 per cent. The U.S. ranks 35th best of 157 countries with people living below the poverty line. And, 25 per cent of U.S. children under age five live in poverty. The U.S. also has one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality. The Chief Executive Officer-to-minimum wage worker pay ratio in the U.S. is a shocking 774:1. The U.S, is 17th among 36 countries ranked for overall happiness about life. Professor Hershey’s report appears to lean toward socialist political movements but his sources for data cited appear legitimate.
At any rate, it is a fact that millions of Americans are angry about poverty levels, income inequality, lost economic opportunities and a decline in world stature and power. They just don’t feel good about themselves anymore. Thus the clamour to join Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign.
America has been in decline for several decades now. I follow it back to Viet Nam, the lost war that followed the lost war in Korea. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Stop the Commies from overrunning Asia. Stop the dominoes from falling before the last one lands on the U.S. doorstep.
It didn’t seem like such a good idea after 60,000 young Americans and tens of thousands of Vietnamese died in the steamy Southeast Asian jungles and the U.S. had to admit defeat. More U.S. war losses followed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia (remember Blackhawk Down?).
Then there has been the War on Poverty declared by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 when the U.S. poverty rate was 19 per cent. Forty-nine years later in 2013 the poverty rate was down to 14.5 per cent but poor Americans still numbered 45.3 million, the same as 1964. Another failed war.
In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs. The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in 2013 an estimated 24.6 million Americans had used an illicit drug in the previous month. Yet another failed war.
Americans now are fighting and losing a war against Islamic extremism abroad, and at home. So far at home they’ve seen 9-11, the Boston Marathon and San Bernardino.
With all that weighing them down, who can blame Americans for not feeling good about themselves and their future. Germans felt much the same way following the First World War, so they elected a Fascist to make them great again.
Donald Trump seems like a good idea to a lot of Americans. He won’t get to lead them, however. He likely won’t win the Republican nomination and if he does, he won’t win the presidency. Americans elect their presidents from the centre, not from the extreme left or right wings.
Whoever does win will try to better American life, and likely will achieve some small successes. He or she will not be able to stop the empire from crumbling.
Empires come and empires go. There were the Greeks, then the Romans, and the individual European individual state empires. In the Americas, the Aztecs and the Incas.
Empires are like mountains that break through the earth’s crust and rise to majestic heights over time. Eventually wind, water and other elements grind them down to foothills.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
March 24, 2016
Good Wood from a Bad Situation
Evidence continues to stack up proving that trees are among our best friends who help us to enjoy healthier and happier lives.
Trees give us better air to breathe because their leaves draw in carbon monoxide and other toxic gases and pollutants such as sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, and even particulate matter. Scientists say that a single tree can absorb 10 pounds of pollutants every year.
That’s all stuff that trees save us from breathing into our lungs. A U.S. Forest Service study calculated that trees prevent 670,000 incidents of acute respiratory problems and save 850 human lives a year.
There’s an unfortunate flip side, however. Another study, this one published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which says that the loss of millions of ash trees to the emerald ash borer has increased respiratory and cardiovascular illness in some U.S. states. Fewer trees, less air filtering.
The borer, a fairly recent immigrant from Asia, bores under ash tree bark and sucks the life out of the tree’s vascular system. This tree killing beetle was discovered in Michigan in 2002 and moved quickly into Ontario. It has killed tens of millions of ash trees in 24 U.S. states and Ontario and Quebec.
The Emerald Ash Beetle has not been reported yet in Haliburton, says James Rogers, the county’s forest conservation officer. He says the county is watching for early signs of an infestation and urges residents to report any suspected sightings through the Invading Species Hotline at 1 800 563 7711.
The larvae of the borer have white worm-like bodies and feed just under the bark of ash trees. The developed insects emerge in summer as iridescent metallic green bugs which feed on the trees’ leaves. They are very pretty to look at.
The EAB, as professional tree folks call the borer, is an ecological and economic disaster. It is estimated to have killed in the U.S. and Canada more than 100 million ash trees, which have to be felled and disposed of before they fall down and damage power lines, property and people.
There is some good news in all of this. It is about how some bright people have come up with innovative ideas for disposing of downed ash trees. Ideas that make use of the wood, create some jobs and save taxpayer dollars.
When millions of ash trees started dying most municipalities felled them and ran them through machines that turned them to mulch. Grinding ash trees into chips for mulch costs roughly $8 a tonne, plus as much as $100 a tonne to haul it to landfill sites.
Some municipalities now auction, or donate, the trees for other uses. Ash boards are as strong as oak and can be used for furniture, decks and flooring. They can be used to make park benches, landscaping timber, playground equipment – pretty well anything that is made from wood.
Dead ash trees have value because the larvae boring is just beneath the bark and does not affect the rest of the wood.
Ash lumber also is being donated to school woodworking classes and prison shops where it helps people learn woodworking skills and brings in a few dollars from finished product sales.
Revenue from ash wood sales can be used by municipalities to help pay the huge costs of removing dead ash from public places.
In Illinois, hit especially hard by EAB, it has been estimated that reclaimed ash wood could meet 30 per cent of the United States’ hardwood needs, or roughly 3.8 billion board feet.
If and when EAB arrives in Haliburton it is not expected to be as much a problem as in more southern areas like Toronto. James Rogers notes that Haliburton forests have a lower percentage of ash than Southern Ontario and the loss will be more ecological than economic.
These tree plagues are sent to try us. We have seen over the years chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, beech bark beetle and other lesser epidemics. All sad, but it is heartening to see the initiatives being taken to make use of good wood felled by a bad situation.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
Trees give us better air to breathe because their leaves draw in carbon monoxide and other toxic gases and pollutants such as sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, and even particulate matter. Scientists say that a single tree can absorb 10 pounds of pollutants every year.
That’s all stuff that trees save us from breathing into our lungs. A U.S. Forest Service study calculated that trees prevent 670,000 incidents of acute respiratory problems and save 850 human lives a year.
There’s an unfortunate flip side, however. Another study, this one published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which says that the loss of millions of ash trees to the emerald ash borer has increased respiratory and cardiovascular illness in some U.S. states. Fewer trees, less air filtering.
The borer, a fairly recent immigrant from Asia, bores under ash tree bark and sucks the life out of the tree’s vascular system. This tree killing beetle was discovered in Michigan in 2002 and moved quickly into Ontario. It has killed tens of millions of ash trees in 24 U.S. states and Ontario and Quebec.
The Emerald Ash Beetle has not been reported yet in Haliburton, says James Rogers, the county’s forest conservation officer. He says the county is watching for early signs of an infestation and urges residents to report any suspected sightings through the Invading Species Hotline at 1 800 563 7711.
The larvae of the borer have white worm-like bodies and feed just under the bark of ash trees. The developed insects emerge in summer as iridescent metallic green bugs which feed on the trees’ leaves. They are very pretty to look at.
The EAB, as professional tree folks call the borer, is an ecological and economic disaster. It is estimated to have killed in the U.S. and Canada more than 100 million ash trees, which have to be felled and disposed of before they fall down and damage power lines, property and people.
There is some good news in all of this. It is about how some bright people have come up with innovative ideas for disposing of downed ash trees. Ideas that make use of the wood, create some jobs and save taxpayer dollars.
When millions of ash trees started dying most municipalities felled them and ran them through machines that turned them to mulch. Grinding ash trees into chips for mulch costs roughly $8 a tonne, plus as much as $100 a tonne to haul it to landfill sites.
Some municipalities now auction, or donate, the trees for other uses. Ash boards are as strong as oak and can be used for furniture, decks and flooring. They can be used to make park benches, landscaping timber, playground equipment – pretty well anything that is made from wood.
Dead ash trees have value because the larvae boring is just beneath the bark and does not affect the rest of the wood.
Ash lumber also is being donated to school woodworking classes and prison shops where it helps people learn woodworking skills and brings in a few dollars from finished product sales.
Revenue from ash wood sales can be used by municipalities to help pay the huge costs of removing dead ash from public places.
In Illinois, hit especially hard by EAB, it has been estimated that reclaimed ash wood could meet 30 per cent of the United States’ hardwood needs, or roughly 3.8 billion board feet.
If and when EAB arrives in Haliburton it is not expected to be as much a problem as in more southern areas like Toronto. James Rogers notes that Haliburton forests have a lower percentage of ash than Southern Ontario and the loss will be more ecological than economic.
These tree plagues are sent to try us. We have seen over the years chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, beech bark beetle and other lesser epidemics. All sad, but it is heartening to see the initiatives being taken to make use of good wood felled by a bad situation.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
March 17, 2016
Canadian Drama at its Best
We’ve seen the final episode of Downton Abbey, but the finales of two real-life Canadian dramas will be aired within the next few weeks.
A verdict in the Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault case comes down March 24. And, decisions on 31 counts of fraud, breach of trust and bribery against Senator Mike Duffy are expected in late April. Ghomeshi is a former CBC star, while Duffy was a high-profile CBC and CTV news personality before being named to the Senate.
Their trials concluded over the winter and the verdicts, whether “guilty” or “not guilty,” will generate much discussion. Both involve interesting and important issues.
Three women testified in the Ghomeshi trial, accusing him of physically hurting them while alone with him. The roughing up included slapping, pulling hair, choking and punching.
Ghomeshi, once host of the CBC radio show Q, has admitted in a Facebook post that he enjoys rough sex that some people might find offensive. CBC fired him after executives say they saw evidence he had injured a woman.
However, he said he practices rough sex only with consenting partners. His defence is that any partner he punched or choked consented.
Defence lawyer Marie Henein produced emails and a letter to show how at least one complainant continued to communicate with Ghomeshi after the alleged assault. The letter included a picture of the woman in a red bikini and was put forward as evidence as someone not disturbed about being slapped around.
Ms. Henein ran the complainants through a meat grinder, shattering their credibility. She accused them of lying under oath and of colluding to bring Ghomeshi down.
One of the issues in his trial is how to be less vicious with sexual assault complainants on the witness stand without weakening the accused person’s presumption of innocence. It is a fact that many rape victims do not step forward because they don’t want the trauma resulting from aggressive defence counsel tactics.
In the Duffy case, our corrupt political system is on trial. Specifically, how our prime ministers appoint senators as money raisers and vote getters, instead of working on behalf of citizens.
The charges against Duffy relate to expenses he racked up and whether he cheated in charging the Senate for purely personal items. There also is the issue of Nigel Wright, former prime minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, giving Duffy $90,000 to repay questioned expenses.
It is interesting how Ghomeshi and Duffy handled their defences differently. Ghomeshi exercised his right to remain silent, while Duffy was on the witness stand for eight days, testifying in his own defence.Duffy gave back as good as he got on the witness stand. He accused the PMO (prime minister’s office) of forcing him to repay questioned expenses that might cause political damage.
Paying back expenses gave the appearance that he had done something wrong, said Duffy. He did nothing wrong but feared retaliation if he did not accept the PMO’s plan to avoid political problems by repaying the expenses.
Everything Ghomeshi had to say was said before he was charged and on the Facebook post explaining why he was fired. He hasn’t said anything since.
That decision has been questioned privately, and in the media. Some people feel that the honourable thing for Ghomeshi to do was to take the stand, face his accusers and tell his version of what happened. On the witness stand he would face the same type of questioning his accusers faced – questioning designed to indicate whether a person is being entirely truthful.
At any rate, the judges in both cases are experienced and well respected and will figure it all out. Their rulings, however, will not end the debates over the issues in each case.
And, whether they are found guilty or not guilty, neither Ghomeshi nor Duffy will ever be viewed by the public as innocent victims.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
A verdict in the Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault case comes down March 24. And, decisions on 31 counts of fraud, breach of trust and bribery against Senator Mike Duffy are expected in late April. Ghomeshi is a former CBC star, while Duffy was a high-profile CBC and CTV news personality before being named to the Senate.
Their trials concluded over the winter and the verdicts, whether “guilty” or “not guilty,” will generate much discussion. Both involve interesting and important issues.
Three women testified in the Ghomeshi trial, accusing him of physically hurting them while alone with him. The roughing up included slapping, pulling hair, choking and punching.
Ghomeshi, once host of the CBC radio show Q, has admitted in a Facebook post that he enjoys rough sex that some people might find offensive. CBC fired him after executives say they saw evidence he had injured a woman.
However, he said he practices rough sex only with consenting partners. His defence is that any partner he punched or choked consented.
Defence lawyer Marie Henein produced emails and a letter to show how at least one complainant continued to communicate with Ghomeshi after the alleged assault. The letter included a picture of the woman in a red bikini and was put forward as evidence as someone not disturbed about being slapped around.
Ms. Henein ran the complainants through a meat grinder, shattering their credibility. She accused them of lying under oath and of colluding to bring Ghomeshi down.
One of the issues in his trial is how to be less vicious with sexual assault complainants on the witness stand without weakening the accused person’s presumption of innocence. It is a fact that many rape victims do not step forward because they don’t want the trauma resulting from aggressive defence counsel tactics.
In the Duffy case, our corrupt political system is on trial. Specifically, how our prime ministers appoint senators as money raisers and vote getters, instead of working on behalf of citizens.
The charges against Duffy relate to expenses he racked up and whether he cheated in charging the Senate for purely personal items. There also is the issue of Nigel Wright, former prime minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, giving Duffy $90,000 to repay questioned expenses.
It is interesting how Ghomeshi and Duffy handled their defences differently. Ghomeshi exercised his right to remain silent, while Duffy was on the witness stand for eight days, testifying in his own defence.Duffy gave back as good as he got on the witness stand. He accused the PMO (prime minister’s office) of forcing him to repay questioned expenses that might cause political damage.
Paying back expenses gave the appearance that he had done something wrong, said Duffy. He did nothing wrong but feared retaliation if he did not accept the PMO’s plan to avoid political problems by repaying the expenses.
Everything Ghomeshi had to say was said before he was charged and on the Facebook post explaining why he was fired. He hasn’t said anything since.
That decision has been questioned privately, and in the media. Some people feel that the honourable thing for Ghomeshi to do was to take the stand, face his accusers and tell his version of what happened. On the witness stand he would face the same type of questioning his accusers faced – questioning designed to indicate whether a person is being entirely truthful.
At any rate, the judges in both cases are experienced and well respected and will figure it all out. Their rulings, however, will not end the debates over the issues in each case.
And, whether they are found guilty or not guilty, neither Ghomeshi nor Duffy will ever be viewed by the public as innocent victims.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
March 10, 2016
The Window
It was one of the those wood frame windows they built into 2 ½-storey family homes 100 years ago. Perhaps four feet tall, and 2 ½ feet wide with a push up lower sash that allowed cool air to flow in during summer.
My grandparents had their kitchen table set beside that window so they could watch the weather and whatever else might be happening outside.
There wasn’t a whole lot to see because of the house next door, which had a similar kitchen window directly across the driveway separating the two houses. You could see a bit of both back yards and a glimpse of downtown, which started just a block or so behind the houses.
It was the window through which my grandfather saw the moose arrive one day after lunch. The big beast trotted between the two houses and stood surveying the back yard.
My grandfather kept his legendary .38-.55 deer rifle on a rack in the cold room just behind the kitchen. It was the rifle he boasted could “knock a deer down, clean it and pack it out of the woods with one bullet.” Within a minute or so the old man appeared on the clothes line stoop, .38-.55 in hand, and dropped the moose stone cold dead with one shot.
It probably is not the best idea to shoot a moose just a couple blocks away from downtown. It is decidedly a bad idea to bag a moose in a backyard only a stone’s throw from the Department of Lands and Forests (now Ministry of Natural Resources) northern headquarters.
I didn’t get all the details of what happened when the police and conservation officers arrived. I was told that my grandfather was not charged with anything, that the moose was hauled away and the .38-.55 was back on its rack when I got home. Times were different back then.
There were other scenes viewed through that kitchen window but none as exciting as the day the unfortunate moose decided to visit. There is one other, however, that pushes into my memory more these days as the U.S. presidential race becomes increasing absurd and sad.
My grandfather and I were finishing bowls of his famous Mulligan Stew one evening when he looked out the window and exclaimed: “There, they’ve turned it into a bootlegging operation and gambling den.”
I peered out and saw people next door sitting at their kitchen table playing cards. There was a jug of homemade wine on the table. A day or so later he announced with disgust that he had seen them dumping garbage on their back lawn.
We learned later that they were ‘foreigners’ the first newcomers to a neighbourhood where houses almost never changed families. It was an established neighbourhood where everyone had an Anglo-Saxon surname. But times were changing.
Not long after, I finished school and moved to another city where my work as a young reporter took me into what was known as Little Italy. I met a girl there and soon was invited into homes where families played cards in the evening and usually had a jug of homemade wine on the table. They also gathered up their kitchen garbage and piled it in their back yards where it rotted and became rich soil for their luxuriant vegetable gardens.
I married that girl and wherever we lived we had a backyard where we composted kitchen waste for nourishing our vegetable garden. And we usually had a jug of homemade wine on our table.
My grandfather used to shake his head and mutter when he stared out his kitchen window and saw the goings on next door. That was because his view was limited to what was offered through a single window.
Every time I see one of the Republican debates on U.S. TV I think about my grandfather’s kitchen window and its limited view. Politicians today have a view of the whole world through panoramic picture windows, yet they see only what they want to see. Too often what they choose to see matches what they believe will get them elected.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
My grandparents had their kitchen table set beside that window so they could watch the weather and whatever else might be happening outside.
There wasn’t a whole lot to see because of the house next door, which had a similar kitchen window directly across the driveway separating the two houses. You could see a bit of both back yards and a glimpse of downtown, which started just a block or so behind the houses.
It was the window through which my grandfather saw the moose arrive one day after lunch. The big beast trotted between the two houses and stood surveying the back yard.
My grandfather kept his legendary .38-.55 deer rifle on a rack in the cold room just behind the kitchen. It was the rifle he boasted could “knock a deer down, clean it and pack it out of the woods with one bullet.” Within a minute or so the old man appeared on the clothes line stoop, .38-.55 in hand, and dropped the moose stone cold dead with one shot.
It probably is not the best idea to shoot a moose just a couple blocks away from downtown. It is decidedly a bad idea to bag a moose in a backyard only a stone’s throw from the Department of Lands and Forests (now Ministry of Natural Resources) northern headquarters.
I didn’t get all the details of what happened when the police and conservation officers arrived. I was told that my grandfather was not charged with anything, that the moose was hauled away and the .38-.55 was back on its rack when I got home. Times were different back then.
There were other scenes viewed through that kitchen window but none as exciting as the day the unfortunate moose decided to visit. There is one other, however, that pushes into my memory more these days as the U.S. presidential race becomes increasing absurd and sad.
My grandfather and I were finishing bowls of his famous Mulligan Stew one evening when he looked out the window and exclaimed: “There, they’ve turned it into a bootlegging operation and gambling den.”
I peered out and saw people next door sitting at their kitchen table playing cards. There was a jug of homemade wine on the table. A day or so later he announced with disgust that he had seen them dumping garbage on their back lawn.
We learned later that they were ‘foreigners’ the first newcomers to a neighbourhood where houses almost never changed families. It was an established neighbourhood where everyone had an Anglo-Saxon surname. But times were changing.
Not long after, I finished school and moved to another city where my work as a young reporter took me into what was known as Little Italy. I met a girl there and soon was invited into homes where families played cards in the evening and usually had a jug of homemade wine on the table. They also gathered up their kitchen garbage and piled it in their back yards where it rotted and became rich soil for their luxuriant vegetable gardens.
I married that girl and wherever we lived we had a backyard where we composted kitchen waste for nourishing our vegetable garden. And we usually had a jug of homemade wine on our table.
My grandfather used to shake his head and mutter when he stared out his kitchen window and saw the goings on next door. That was because his view was limited to what was offered through a single window.
Every time I see one of the Republican debates on U.S. TV I think about my grandfather’s kitchen window and its limited view. Politicians today have a view of the whole world through panoramic picture windows, yet they see only what they want to see. Too often what they choose to see matches what they believe will get them elected.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
