You may never have heard of Stratfor. You certainly will not have read about it in The Moncton Times and Transcript. Stratfor is an intelligence service that examines security risks, and provides forecasts of strategic events. One of its major clients is the American government, with which it has enormous influence. Other clients are private corporations - like oil companies. (Well, no possible conflict of interest there.)
It is one, if probably the most influential one, of many such private spy outfits employed by the US government. Nobody knows (or perhaps nobody is telling) exactly how many such companies exist. They spy on foreign governments. They spy on American citizens. Indeed, Americans are probably the most spied on people in history. All sorts of Americans (and Canadians) - peace advocates, environmentalists, people who were seen having coffee with an environmentalist, people who spent a holiday week in Cuba are on thousands of lists as potential threats to the land of the free.
You don't have to do anything at all to get on a list. Teachers can end up on the list because they failed a vengeful student. A professor friend of mine, a conservative and orthodox Jew, was listed as a Palestinian terrorist. Nobody knows who submitted his name or why. The list is on the web, and it's influential in deciding which universities will get donations from corporations. I was furious about what had been done to this quite innocent man. So now I'm on the list as a Palestinian terrorist.
The late Senator Kennedy was once listed as a suspected terrorist, and so forbidden to fly in the US. It took him well over a month to get off the list.
It can be dangerous to be on one of those lists. As the US attorney general said just a few days ago, an American president now has the power to have anybody arrested and jailed indefinitely - with no charge, no lawyer, no trial, no reason. On those same grounds, or lack of them, he can order anybody assassinated.
Not long ago, hackers got into Stratfor's computers - and downloaded some 5,000,000 emails. Then they handed them over to Wikileaks. (They also got the credit card data for wealthy customers, and used it to donate money to charities.)
Of course, you wouldn't have seen any of that information in The Moncton Times and Transcript. So you might not know that American, British and French special ops troops are in Syria. They are training the rebels, supplying them, organizing them, carrying out assassinations, and terrorism operations. (They were also operating in Libya.)
In other words, our governments are not sitting around wringing their hands and feeling heartbroken about the killing in Syria. They're behind a good deal of it. Much the same was - and still is - going on in Libya, Yeman, Somalia, Nigeria and many other countries.
Special Ops troops are not humanitarian workers. They are not soldiers for democracy. They are thugs. They are highly trained thugs, but they are thugs - assassins, terrorists....
They are operating all over Africa and the middle east so that the western powers can nail down the region's resources and people before the Chinese get there. Will the people of the region be better off if our side succeeds? Well, we've been there for well over a century without doing them much good.
Will we bring democracy? Yes, so long as it's democracy that does what we tell it to do or, more accurately, what our oil and mining companies tell it to do. If not, there will be regime changes. And the west will create co-operative leaders - just as it created and supported the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, the king of Saudi Arabia, and Ghadaffi. (How soon we forget how those people got and held power).
In the longer run, we are headed for a cold war (I hope it's cold) with China. That's why the US is opening more military bases in the Pacific region. That's why Harper is reorganizing and equipping the Canadian forces.
But why worry? Hey! You have enough problem. Right? So just go to the op ed page Where Eric Lewis has a column on city planning that says nothing whatever. That's it. Relax. Close your eyes......
Perhaps I should soon do a blog on what city planning actually means......
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
March 6: Tonight, tonight....
Won't be just any night.
Tonight there will be
Current Events...
Moncton Library, 7 p.m.
(with apologies to West Side Story)
And now to my proper heading - ...to talk of many things.
of plans and mayors
of cabbages and kings...
I was delighted today to see that The Moncton Times and Transcript had a real news story on p. A1.---
I was delighted....until I read it.
The Moncton City Council Planning Committee has come up with a plan. However, the story tells nothing about what the plan is - with one exception. Alas! The exception is not one to inspire confidence. The story gives a hint of the genius of the plan by saying that the recent decision to allow street parking on Main St. (in order to revive Main St.) is a part of the greater plan that council approved last night.
Lord love a duck. What are they smoking?
The automobile is what destroyed downtowns all over the world. How is bringing even more cars in going to change that? You might as well talk about reviving Hiroshima by dropping another nuclear bomb on it. Here is a part of the plan, the only clear part the TandT presents; and it's a part that no major city in the world is even considering. If you want to revive a downtown, the automobile is the problem, not the answer.
Another element, a kind of important one, was completely missing from the newspaper report. - the world of the future, of the next fifty years.
You know, you go to a travel agent to ask for a holiday package in the sun. Okay. The agent does not immediately lay out a package. In instead, the agent says "when?" And if you say next January, he does not go to his Fundy Park file; instead, he pulls out Jamaica. The agent asks when because you can't plan something without some idea of what the environment will be like as the plan takes effect.
We can't forecast the future. But we do have to make some informed guesses. What will be the role, cost, availability if fossil fuels in 20 years? 40 years? What implications does that have for mass transportation? for suburbs? for housing? How do we make all of this fit both the environment and the people who have to live in it? What are the implications of rising costs and environmental effects of home heating? What does that mean about the type of housing we need. (Hint - isolated, single houses can be much more costly to heat, far more demanding of infrastructure, and ill-suited to mass transportation.)
Perhaps questions like this were considered - though there is no hint of it in the story. Nor is there any hint of how the move of Moncton High, for example, fits into this or any other plan.
There is, apparently, a site that one can check to see the plan.I shall certainly look it up - though the story does not say where the site is. (If it had been a concert at Magnetic Hill or an autobiography of a Irving editor, there would have been complete instructions in large print on how to get to it.)
I think I remember a recent editorial saying it was important to have a lawyer for mayor because they're good at this sort of thing. This new story does nothing to support that view.
Most news stories in the TandT are about nothing. This one is an improvement over the usual one because it is about something. Alas! It tells us nothing about the something.
Netanyahu has openly said many times in recent days that he doesn't give a damn what the American president or anybody else says. It the US won't go to war with Iran, Israel will. Harper completely and publicly supported Netanyahu in this.
Nobody can foretell the consequences of this, though it's a safe guess this is the most dangerous course of action of the past century. But if you're a TandT reader, you don't have worry about it. The TandT has never bothered to mention it.
Section C2 features a long, boring (for most readers) , and poorly edited interview by the Telegraph-Irving of various heavyweights from Enbridge Gas about the government's proposal to alter franchise plans. The questions are, to say the least, soft. It's rather like watching a group men play patty cake.
Then there's Norbert. I think he was on to a good insight in today's column. But, oh, it gets dreadfully confused and lost in a rant that strays all over.
He main point,I think, is that Liberals need to forget the political squabbling, and tell us what they stand for. And that surely is a good idea.
But Norbert can't help bringing all his own prejudices and contradictions into it. He refers to Liberals as ideologues - whether they are small l or big L. I have no idea what that means. The most ideological liberal (small l) in Canada in Stephen Harper. His economic policies are exactly what liberals advocated a couple of centuries ago. They are still what the world liberal means.
Nor do I thinkk there is much about big L Libeals that is ideological. They are pretty much like Conservatives.
Am I a Liberal? No. Am I a liberal? Sometimes.
Am I a Conservative? Am I a conservative? Sometmes.
And in that, I'm pretty much like everybody else.
In any case, not one person in a thousand knows what the words liberal and conservative actually mean. And Norbert, I am afraid, is among the nine hundred and ninety-nine.
Oh, and I doubt whether Norbert understands the meaning of ideologue. If he did, he would be more careful in using it to criticize other people.
Norbert begins with a sensible idea. But he destroys it with almost incoherent rant. Why did he do that?
Gee! Could it have something to do with smothering the national anger over robocalls?
For comic relief, read the editorial on how we could stop illegal cigarette smuggling by raising taxes on legal cigarettes.
Thankfully, Alec Bruce is back in form.
Tonight there will be
Current Events...
Moncton Library, 7 p.m.
(with apologies to West Side Story)
And now to my proper heading - ...to talk of many things.
of plans and mayors
of cabbages and kings...
I was delighted today to see that The Moncton Times and Transcript had a real news story on p. A1.---
I was delighted....until I read it.
The Moncton City Council Planning Committee has come up with a plan. However, the story tells nothing about what the plan is - with one exception. Alas! The exception is not one to inspire confidence. The story gives a hint of the genius of the plan by saying that the recent decision to allow street parking on Main St. (in order to revive Main St.) is a part of the greater plan that council approved last night.
Lord love a duck. What are they smoking?
The automobile is what destroyed downtowns all over the world. How is bringing even more cars in going to change that? You might as well talk about reviving Hiroshima by dropping another nuclear bomb on it. Here is a part of the plan, the only clear part the TandT presents; and it's a part that no major city in the world is even considering. If you want to revive a downtown, the automobile is the problem, not the answer.
Another element, a kind of important one, was completely missing from the newspaper report. - the world of the future, of the next fifty years.
You know, you go to a travel agent to ask for a holiday package in the sun. Okay. The agent does not immediately lay out a package. In instead, the agent says "when?" And if you say next January, he does not go to his Fundy Park file; instead, he pulls out Jamaica. The agent asks when because you can't plan something without some idea of what the environment will be like as the plan takes effect.
We can't forecast the future. But we do have to make some informed guesses. What will be the role, cost, availability if fossil fuels in 20 years? 40 years? What implications does that have for mass transportation? for suburbs? for housing? How do we make all of this fit both the environment and the people who have to live in it? What are the implications of rising costs and environmental effects of home heating? What does that mean about the type of housing we need. (Hint - isolated, single houses can be much more costly to heat, far more demanding of infrastructure, and ill-suited to mass transportation.)
Perhaps questions like this were considered - though there is no hint of it in the story. Nor is there any hint of how the move of Moncton High, for example, fits into this or any other plan.
There is, apparently, a site that one can check to see the plan.I shall certainly look it up - though the story does not say where the site is. (If it had been a concert at Magnetic Hill or an autobiography of a Irving editor, there would have been complete instructions in large print on how to get to it.)
I think I remember a recent editorial saying it was important to have a lawyer for mayor because they're good at this sort of thing. This new story does nothing to support that view.
Most news stories in the TandT are about nothing. This one is an improvement over the usual one because it is about something. Alas! It tells us nothing about the something.
Netanyahu has openly said many times in recent days that he doesn't give a damn what the American president or anybody else says. It the US won't go to war with Iran, Israel will. Harper completely and publicly supported Netanyahu in this.
Nobody can foretell the consequences of this, though it's a safe guess this is the most dangerous course of action of the past century. But if you're a TandT reader, you don't have worry about it. The TandT has never bothered to mention it.
Section C2 features a long, boring (for most readers) , and poorly edited interview by the Telegraph-Irving of various heavyweights from Enbridge Gas about the government's proposal to alter franchise plans. The questions are, to say the least, soft. It's rather like watching a group men play patty cake.
Then there's Norbert. I think he was on to a good insight in today's column. But, oh, it gets dreadfully confused and lost in a rant that strays all over.
He main point,I think, is that Liberals need to forget the political squabbling, and tell us what they stand for. And that surely is a good idea.
But Norbert can't help bringing all his own prejudices and contradictions into it. He refers to Liberals as ideologues - whether they are small l or big L. I have no idea what that means. The most ideological liberal (small l) in Canada in Stephen Harper. His economic policies are exactly what liberals advocated a couple of centuries ago. They are still what the world liberal means.
Nor do I thinkk there is much about big L Libeals that is ideological. They are pretty much like Conservatives.
Am I a Liberal? No. Am I a liberal? Sometimes.
Am I a Conservative? Am I a conservative? Sometmes.
And in that, I'm pretty much like everybody else.
In any case, not one person in a thousand knows what the words liberal and conservative actually mean. And Norbert, I am afraid, is among the nine hundred and ninety-nine.
Oh, and I doubt whether Norbert understands the meaning of ideologue. If he did, he would be more careful in using it to criticize other people.
Norbert begins with a sensible idea. But he destroys it with almost incoherent rant. Why did he do that?
Gee! Could it have something to do with smothering the national anger over robocalls?
For comic relief, read the editorial on how we could stop illegal cigarette smuggling by raising taxes on legal cigarettes.
Thankfully, Alec Bruce is back in form.
Monday, March 5, 2012
March 5: oh, my...oh, my...oh, my...
Today's is the most depressing and disagreeable edition of the The Moncton Times and Transcript I have yet seen. Apart from a few letters and a forecast of warm weather late this week, there is no reason to buy it. This time, I was dismayed even by Alec Bruce, normally the only real journalist at that paper.
1. The lead story is a disguised ad for various things to do (that require spending money) in Moncton during March break. Another is a story about a liquor sale that's over. Then there's a half page of photos of the RV show.
Think about that latter one.
Gas prices are rising; and are likely rise a great deal more. Most RVs are heavy on gas. Some would be lucky to get five kilometres to a litre. One picture is of a luxury vehicle the size of a bus. Who would believe that the world economies are in serious trouble?
Oh, yes. There's also talk that we're facing disastrous changes in climate; and much of that is due to the burning of fossil fuels like oil.
And people are lining up to look at more expensive ways to make all this worse. And The Moncton Times and Transcript is encouraging them. (I guess the editors didn't notice their own story in section C, p. 1. "Outdoor skating rinks on road to extinction". It seems scientists are warning that climate change will make the outdoor rink in Canada extinct with 50 years.
Wouldn't you think, then, it would make more sense to make RVs extinct before that can happen?
Anyway, it's all summed up in an inane editorial. More pollution might destroy us all; but the bottom line is the show is good for Moncton business.
2. On the weekend President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met for talks that were major news around the world. Netanyahu wants an attack on Iran - now. Obama wants to negotiate. So does most of NATO.
(In fact, Obama and NATO won't have much choice - and Netanyahu knows it. Israel Cannot carry out a successful strike on Iran without US logistical support - and Obama and NATO cannot afford to stand by and watch the chaos that would arise from an Israeli strike. And, just to underline the weakness of Obama's position, we're in the runup to a US election.
Netanyahu also met and shook hands with Harper. Harper took the opportunity to take the most pro-Israel stand in the world. He vowed Canada's support no matter what. That means that if Israel decides to attack Iran,----well ---- it sounds like Harper has committed us to support it. Wasn't there once a time when our parliament decided when to go to war? Aren 't we told that Canadians sacrificed their lives in World War One for that right?
Oh - and note Harper's words, "Israel has a right to defend itself." This is what George Orwell called "Newspeak". In olden days (and even today in dictionaries), to defend meant to protect yourself against someone who was attacking you. In Harperspeak, defence means you attacking somebody else. So, for example, Germany was defending itself when it invaded Poland in 1939.
Anyway, none of this was important enough to make the TandT.
3. China has announced it will increase its defence budget by over ten percent out of worries over "unfriendly neighbours". Gee, China is pretty big, and already has a formidable defence force. So, who are the neighbours it's so scared of? And why is it going to build a bigger fleet? Which "neighbour" of China even has a fleet to speak of?
Could this possibly have any connection with the new US military bases in Australia and The Philippines? and with the increase of American naval patrols on the edge of Chinese waters? Is this our new cold war? Our new arms race? Of course it is.
But don't worry. It's not important enough to make the TandT.
4. Aso a no-show was a big story out of Montreal. The Olympic stadium, the great structure erected for the Olympics and for Expo year is crumbling. A huge piece of concrete, some 8 metres by 5 metres, came crashing down. The whole building is dangerous. It is almost certain that the only solution to tear it down.
Expo stadium cost a billion dollars. It was to be a guaranteed profit-maker, attracting tens of thousands to Montreal for trade shows, conventions, ball games. It would fill hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues (see the last paragraph of today's editorial "To the open road").
It never came close to making a profit or even to breaking even. And that was in a metro of three million. Gee! Why didn't that story make the TandT? Do you think maybe it had something to do with the proposed hockey arena/convention centre for Moncton?
5. As to local news, there's a notable absence of the long-promised information and discussion of fracking. And the issue of Moncton High School gets into the paper only by courtesy of a letter to the editor.
6. Norbert Cunningham discusses --something --- in a column which might well flash red lights for Moncton's psychiatric specialists. It begins by trivializing the Robocalls scandal as "inconsequential". Okay, that's normal Norbert. I mean, who really cares if our political system has been corrupted. Lord knows, corruption is something that has never bothered the Norberts of the Irving news media.
Then he has the chutzpah (Yiddish for 'nerve') to accuse other news media across Canada of being biased. And, in a startling absence of any logic, says that politicians used to give booze to voters - as though that makes it all right today to break election laws.
Hell, Norbert, I can remember days when some people gave journalists booze quite regularly for writing nice things. I even knew a few who drank themselves to death with free booze.
Today's column looks as though it might have been written by Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich - if they had enough to drink while writing. I have rarely seen such an ignorant and illogical rant in print. This one is a keeper.
7. Allan Abel, as usual, gives us a column on the op ed page that seems to have no reason to exist. Craig Bobstock, the staff writer for today op ed page, contributes the original and daring thought that we should not use Facebook to threaten to kill people.
8. All of the above was what we have come to expect of the TandT. The great disappointment is Alec Bruce's column. At least, it's a great disappointment for me because I've thought from the start (and still do think) that he is the only class journalist who appears daily in that paper.
He writes about a recent study arguing that the rich tend to be greedier and less observant of the law and of moral ethics than do other people. At one point, he calls this study liberal, leftish, guilt-trip - without being very clear on what liberal or leftish mean, and with no evidence at all that there was any guilt tripping.
He also says this extols the supposed virtues of poverty. In fact, it does no such thing. It does not say the poor are moral or ethical or in any sense good. It gives him a great chance for a paragraphs or two of sarcasm; but it's completly off the wall.
He wildly exaggerates some of their conclusions as, for example, their tests of the behaviour of luxury car drivers in traffic.He ways the reseearchers show them to be less respectful of the law, "and unprincipled goons." They say no such thing.
He cites a couple of anecdotes about a couple of rich families that have been generous donors - as though anecdotes about a few rich prove something about all rich.
He quotes with approval a Harvard professor who says that greed may be caused not by people but by market conditions. A second or so of thought might have led him to wonder - "What causes market conditions?" Whatever conditions we have are those conditions we create. You can't take the blame off people, and lay it on something both vague and inanimate. The invasion, slaughter, torture, expoitation of millions of Congolese by Belgium was, I suppose, caused by market conditions. (There were lots of minerals and other goodies available for the market). But, and perhaps I'm being naive,I think that Belgium's King Leopold and Belgium's wealthy, had something to do with it.
I still think Alec Bruce is a top columnist; but, oh, my, he must have caught something from Norbert.
Ah, well, remember the Current Events group at the Moncton library. Tuesday, March 6, at 7 p.m.
I shall bring a gift of seeds for the famed Decarie Melon as supplied to King Edward VII. (Seriously. Check it out on Google.)
I shall also be looking for hints on where to find a community garden for those seeds I kept for myself.
1. The lead story is a disguised ad for various things to do (that require spending money) in Moncton during March break. Another is a story about a liquor sale that's over. Then there's a half page of photos of the RV show.
Think about that latter one.
Gas prices are rising; and are likely rise a great deal more. Most RVs are heavy on gas. Some would be lucky to get five kilometres to a litre. One picture is of a luxury vehicle the size of a bus. Who would believe that the world economies are in serious trouble?
Oh, yes. There's also talk that we're facing disastrous changes in climate; and much of that is due to the burning of fossil fuels like oil.
And people are lining up to look at more expensive ways to make all this worse. And The Moncton Times and Transcript is encouraging them. (I guess the editors didn't notice their own story in section C, p. 1. "Outdoor skating rinks on road to extinction". It seems scientists are warning that climate change will make the outdoor rink in Canada extinct with 50 years.
Wouldn't you think, then, it would make more sense to make RVs extinct before that can happen?
Anyway, it's all summed up in an inane editorial. More pollution might destroy us all; but the bottom line is the show is good for Moncton business.
2. On the weekend President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met for talks that were major news around the world. Netanyahu wants an attack on Iran - now. Obama wants to negotiate. So does most of NATO.
(In fact, Obama and NATO won't have much choice - and Netanyahu knows it. Israel Cannot carry out a successful strike on Iran without US logistical support - and Obama and NATO cannot afford to stand by and watch the chaos that would arise from an Israeli strike. And, just to underline the weakness of Obama's position, we're in the runup to a US election.
Netanyahu also met and shook hands with Harper. Harper took the opportunity to take the most pro-Israel stand in the world. He vowed Canada's support no matter what. That means that if Israel decides to attack Iran,----well ---- it sounds like Harper has committed us to support it. Wasn't there once a time when our parliament decided when to go to war? Aren 't we told that Canadians sacrificed their lives in World War One for that right?
Oh - and note Harper's words, "Israel has a right to defend itself." This is what George Orwell called "Newspeak". In olden days (and even today in dictionaries), to defend meant to protect yourself against someone who was attacking you. In Harperspeak, defence means you attacking somebody else. So, for example, Germany was defending itself when it invaded Poland in 1939.
Anyway, none of this was important enough to make the TandT.
3. China has announced it will increase its defence budget by over ten percent out of worries over "unfriendly neighbours". Gee, China is pretty big, and already has a formidable defence force. So, who are the neighbours it's so scared of? And why is it going to build a bigger fleet? Which "neighbour" of China even has a fleet to speak of?
Could this possibly have any connection with the new US military bases in Australia and The Philippines? and with the increase of American naval patrols on the edge of Chinese waters? Is this our new cold war? Our new arms race? Of course it is.
But don't worry. It's not important enough to make the TandT.
4. Aso a no-show was a big story out of Montreal. The Olympic stadium, the great structure erected for the Olympics and for Expo year is crumbling. A huge piece of concrete, some 8 metres by 5 metres, came crashing down. The whole building is dangerous. It is almost certain that the only solution to tear it down.
Expo stadium cost a billion dollars. It was to be a guaranteed profit-maker, attracting tens of thousands to Montreal for trade shows, conventions, ball games. It would fill hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues (see the last paragraph of today's editorial "To the open road").
It never came close to making a profit or even to breaking even. And that was in a metro of three million. Gee! Why didn't that story make the TandT? Do you think maybe it had something to do with the proposed hockey arena/convention centre for Moncton?
5. As to local news, there's a notable absence of the long-promised information and discussion of fracking. And the issue of Moncton High School gets into the paper only by courtesy of a letter to the editor.
6. Norbert Cunningham discusses --something --- in a column which might well flash red lights for Moncton's psychiatric specialists. It begins by trivializing the Robocalls scandal as "inconsequential". Okay, that's normal Norbert. I mean, who really cares if our political system has been corrupted. Lord knows, corruption is something that has never bothered the Norberts of the Irving news media.
Then he has the chutzpah (Yiddish for 'nerve') to accuse other news media across Canada of being biased. And, in a startling absence of any logic, says that politicians used to give booze to voters - as though that makes it all right today to break election laws.
Hell, Norbert, I can remember days when some people gave journalists booze quite regularly for writing nice things. I even knew a few who drank themselves to death with free booze.
Today's column looks as though it might have been written by Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich - if they had enough to drink while writing. I have rarely seen such an ignorant and illogical rant in print. This one is a keeper.
7. Allan Abel, as usual, gives us a column on the op ed page that seems to have no reason to exist. Craig Bobstock, the staff writer for today op ed page, contributes the original and daring thought that we should not use Facebook to threaten to kill people.
8. All of the above was what we have come to expect of the TandT. The great disappointment is Alec Bruce's column. At least, it's a great disappointment for me because I've thought from the start (and still do think) that he is the only class journalist who appears daily in that paper.
He writes about a recent study arguing that the rich tend to be greedier and less observant of the law and of moral ethics than do other people. At one point, he calls this study liberal, leftish, guilt-trip - without being very clear on what liberal or leftish mean, and with no evidence at all that there was any guilt tripping.
He also says this extols the supposed virtues of poverty. In fact, it does no such thing. It does not say the poor are moral or ethical or in any sense good. It gives him a great chance for a paragraphs or two of sarcasm; but it's completly off the wall.
He wildly exaggerates some of their conclusions as, for example, their tests of the behaviour of luxury car drivers in traffic.He ways the reseearchers show them to be less respectful of the law, "and unprincipled goons." They say no such thing.
He cites a couple of anecdotes about a couple of rich families that have been generous donors - as though anecdotes about a few rich prove something about all rich.
He quotes with approval a Harvard professor who says that greed may be caused not by people but by market conditions. A second or so of thought might have led him to wonder - "What causes market conditions?" Whatever conditions we have are those conditions we create. You can't take the blame off people, and lay it on something both vague and inanimate. The invasion, slaughter, torture, expoitation of millions of Congolese by Belgium was, I suppose, caused by market conditions. (There were lots of minerals and other goodies available for the market). But, and perhaps I'm being naive,I think that Belgium's King Leopold and Belgium's wealthy, had something to do with it.
I still think Alec Bruce is a top columnist; but, oh, my, he must have caught something from Norbert.
Ah, well, remember the Current Events group at the Moncton library. Tuesday, March 6, at 7 p.m.
I shall bring a gift of seeds for the famed Decarie Melon as supplied to King Edward VII. (Seriously. Check it out on Google.)
I shall also be looking for hints on where to find a community garden for those seeds I kept for myself.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
March 4: Racism revisited
Stephen Harper says that Iran is the biggest threat to world peace, and the one he most worries about. Stephen Harper is playing a game with our heads. It's an old game; but it still works.
We humans naturally distrust people who don't look like us or who don't talk like us. Political leaders have known that for thousands of years. And it almost always works. Until very recently, this distrust often took the form of racism. If you said the word Black, the minds of white listeners automatically drew a picture of a person who was mentally and socially inferior. That was true even in New Brunswick until quite recently (and probably still holds true for more than a few people.)
To be a racist was quite respectable and Christian. A century ago and less, the most respectable and learned Canadians complained loud and long about inferior peoples who were coming to Canada and inflicting their debased cultures on us. You know, people like Italians and Slavs and Chinese and Japanese and Jews. Oh, yes, the Canada of the 1930s and even later was not so different from Nazi Germany as we like to think. A quite saintly and intelligent reverend, J.S.Woodsworth, wrote Strangers Within Our Gates, warning us not do let the lesser breeds in. He included Jews among the unsuitable types.
Racism is out of fashion. But those very human instincts live on in new form.
Say Moslem. What will many, perhaps most, Canadians see? A bearded terrorist.
Mexican cop? Somebody fat, lazy and corrupt.
Canadian mountie? Honest and upright.
When my students in China heard I was Canadian, they had a vision of me tramping the woods on my showshoes, fending off wolves with my axe. (I regret to say I rather encouraged these images.)
We just naturally divide people up by nationality or religion or language - and then imagine the national or religious or linguistic type. French? Hah! English? Hah right back at you! British, American? Good. Iranian evil. Moslems kill 3000 innocent Americans? Terribly, terribly evil. Americans kill a quarter million innocent Guatemalans? What? Are you anti-American?
It's the new racism, a form of racism nurtured by our politicians and our news media. I expect that Iranians and Afghanis feel pretty much the same way about us, and all those evil ideas coming out from the great darkness of Christianity. That's the trouble with us people. We're all scared of people different from us, and we all convert that fear into a sort of racism. (It's crazy, isn't it? We're all scared of people diffeernt from us. And we all have a tendency to imagines stereotypes. In other words, in a very fundamental way, all us human who fear or look down on those who are different are exactly the same in this behaviour.)
So Harper says he's real worried about them there Iranis. If we were thinking straight that would be laughable.
Iran hasn't invaded anybody in well over a century. However, it was invaded after World War 1 by Britain and Russia who split the oil fields between them, supported a puppet king, and robbed the country blind. (For thirty years, Iran had to supply oil free of charge for the whole British navy.)
In 1951, Iran finally had a democratic election, and the premier decided to nationalize the oil fields and actually charge the British a fair price for the oil. So the British gave a call to the US. The US helped out with special ops forces, propaganda, overthrew the government, and installed a brutal dictator for next 25 years. In return, American oil companies got 35% of the Iranian oil fields. That is what drove Iranians to the only institution in their own country that was still theirs, the mosque.
At last, there was an Iranian revolution. the Shah was deposed; and that's how we got the present situation with a government heavily influenced by religious leadership. (The same, incidentally, is true of Israel - though that's not the image you get in our press.)
Then, in 1980, everybody - the US, Britain, Russia, China, everybody got behind a ruthless dictator who wanted that Iranian oil. They supplied him with chemical weapons and conventional ones. The dictator fought a war brutal even by modern standards. But he lost, to the dismay of his friends - the US, Britain, Russia, China, et al. The dictator's name was Saddam Hussein.
The world is dominated by countries of enormous wealth and population and power. The US has something well over a thousand nuclear weapons. Israel has hundreds. Ditto for China and Russia. Iran has armed forces respectable enough for its size; but scarcely world class. It might be developing one nuclear bomb - though even American intelligence experts are not convinced of that.
But, yep. This is fersure the biggest threat to world peace. Harper can get away with that absurdity only because when he says Iranian, what our minds have been conditioned to see is a religious and murderous fanatic. We're being set up for a war - just like we were set up for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why? One important reason is that the American and British oil industries are desparate to keep Iranian oil away from China.There are also, for Harper, some pretty cheap political reasons. But the bottom line is oil and money.
And the method is the new racism peddled by our politicians and our journalists. For a sample of the method, read almost any foreign news story in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
We humans naturally distrust people who don't look like us or who don't talk like us. Political leaders have known that for thousands of years. And it almost always works. Until very recently, this distrust often took the form of racism. If you said the word Black, the minds of white listeners automatically drew a picture of a person who was mentally and socially inferior. That was true even in New Brunswick until quite recently (and probably still holds true for more than a few people.)
To be a racist was quite respectable and Christian. A century ago and less, the most respectable and learned Canadians complained loud and long about inferior peoples who were coming to Canada and inflicting their debased cultures on us. You know, people like Italians and Slavs and Chinese and Japanese and Jews. Oh, yes, the Canada of the 1930s and even later was not so different from Nazi Germany as we like to think. A quite saintly and intelligent reverend, J.S.Woodsworth, wrote Strangers Within Our Gates, warning us not do let the lesser breeds in. He included Jews among the unsuitable types.
Racism is out of fashion. But those very human instincts live on in new form.
Say Moslem. What will many, perhaps most, Canadians see? A bearded terrorist.
Mexican cop? Somebody fat, lazy and corrupt.
Canadian mountie? Honest and upright.
When my students in China heard I was Canadian, they had a vision of me tramping the woods on my showshoes, fending off wolves with my axe. (I regret to say I rather encouraged these images.)
We just naturally divide people up by nationality or religion or language - and then imagine the national or religious or linguistic type. French? Hah! English? Hah right back at you! British, American? Good. Iranian evil. Moslems kill 3000 innocent Americans? Terribly, terribly evil. Americans kill a quarter million innocent Guatemalans? What? Are you anti-American?
It's the new racism, a form of racism nurtured by our politicians and our news media. I expect that Iranians and Afghanis feel pretty much the same way about us, and all those evil ideas coming out from the great darkness of Christianity. That's the trouble with us people. We're all scared of people different from us, and we all convert that fear into a sort of racism. (It's crazy, isn't it? We're all scared of people diffeernt from us. And we all have a tendency to imagines stereotypes. In other words, in a very fundamental way, all us human who fear or look down on those who are different are exactly the same in this behaviour.)
So Harper says he's real worried about them there Iranis. If we were thinking straight that would be laughable.
Iran hasn't invaded anybody in well over a century. However, it was invaded after World War 1 by Britain and Russia who split the oil fields between them, supported a puppet king, and robbed the country blind. (For thirty years, Iran had to supply oil free of charge for the whole British navy.)
In 1951, Iran finally had a democratic election, and the premier decided to nationalize the oil fields and actually charge the British a fair price for the oil. So the British gave a call to the US. The US helped out with special ops forces, propaganda, overthrew the government, and installed a brutal dictator for next 25 years. In return, American oil companies got 35% of the Iranian oil fields. That is what drove Iranians to the only institution in their own country that was still theirs, the mosque.
At last, there was an Iranian revolution. the Shah was deposed; and that's how we got the present situation with a government heavily influenced by religious leadership. (The same, incidentally, is true of Israel - though that's not the image you get in our press.)
Then, in 1980, everybody - the US, Britain, Russia, China, everybody got behind a ruthless dictator who wanted that Iranian oil. They supplied him with chemical weapons and conventional ones. The dictator fought a war brutal even by modern standards. But he lost, to the dismay of his friends - the US, Britain, Russia, China, et al. The dictator's name was Saddam Hussein.
The world is dominated by countries of enormous wealth and population and power. The US has something well over a thousand nuclear weapons. Israel has hundreds. Ditto for China and Russia. Iran has armed forces respectable enough for its size; but scarcely world class. It might be developing one nuclear bomb - though even American intelligence experts are not convinced of that.
But, yep. This is fersure the biggest threat to world peace. Harper can get away with that absurdity only because when he says Iranian, what our minds have been conditioned to see is a religious and murderous fanatic. We're being set up for a war - just like we were set up for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why? One important reason is that the American and British oil industries are desparate to keep Iranian oil away from China.There are also, for Harper, some pretty cheap political reasons. But the bottom line is oil and money.
And the method is the new racism peddled by our politicians and our journalists. For a sample of the method, read almost any foreign news story in The Moncton Times and Transcript.
March 3: Moncton's White Rabbit....
Remember the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland? He was the one always checking his watch, and scurrying, scurrying. The Queen mustn't be kept waiting. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Places to go. People to see.
Shale gas warnings from the US? Oil pipline spills that have dumped millions of gallons of crude on land that will never recover? Hints of conniving in the deal to move Moncton High?
No time. No time. Oh , my fuss and feathers. The Queen wants a special report on "Liquor Deals can be found". And, oh, oh, big auction in Moncton. Big, big auction. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Ooooh! And big story on liquor board privatization. No time. No room for shale gas or shady deals. Need space for the Queen.
And that is the little white rabbit that lands on my doorstep every morning to load me up with the two kinds of information the Queen decrees I shall have - trivia and propaganda.
Though we've heard almost nothing for months about shale gas or regulations for it, close to nothing (and almost all of that in the form of propaganda) about the school move, just today we have close to a full page of propaganda about liquor privatization. And a full page of prime news space about an auction.
No wonder The Irving newspapers are a national embarassment, even when the rest of the Canadian press is nothing of great merit.
On p. D4, our white rabbit announces a speech from the throne which orders the government to cut back on the prices the Queen has to pay that nasty Enbridge Company for gas. Much of the speech was delivered by Baron Ganong. But parts were taken directly from the mouth of the Queen. We're very grateful to the Queen for not allowing New Brunswickers to be ripped off by outsiders.
Queen Jim also informs us that natural gas is environmentally friendly. Indeed it is. Just so long as you don't live in the environment.
In NewsToday, we're getting set up for a war with Iran. Harper has announced that Israel has a right to defend itself against attack from Iran. Well, yes. But Iran hasn't attacked Israel - or anybody else - for centuries. And even if it did get a nuclear bomb, it would be one against hundreds of them in Israel and thousands in the US. (As well, and though it was never reported by the white rabbit, senior US intelligence people have said publicly they see no evidence Iran is developing a nuclear bomb.)
A key, by the way, to Harper's policies is that he caters to relatively small but well-organized groups - like fundamentalist Christians and those Canadian Zionists (which means not all Canadian Zionists) who support Netanyahu. such groups, when well organized, are a potent force in a close election. Looking at one group tells us why we're building more prisons. Looking at both tells us why we are supporting aggressive Zionist groups rather than groups like Jews for Peace in the Middle East.
We're also getting lots of reports on how brutal the Syrian government is. (Estimates are it has killed over seven thousand people.) Funny how the word brutal never came up when the US killed millions of innocent people in Vietnam, a quarter million in Guatmala, a million or so in Iraq - and as it daily kills known numbers in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia...with drones.
Has Mr. Harper offered words of support to any of those victimized countries?
Bill Belliveau assures us that robocalls did not affect the election results. Impressive. We don't even know how many calls were made. Or all the ridings they were made in. There's yet to be any investigation. As well, while it's true that Harper got 40% of the vote, he got nowhere close to 40% of the total electorate, just 40% of those who voted. And nobody has the faintest idea how many of the electorate did not vote because of misleading robocalls.
No body. Except Mr. Belliveau. Obviously, this is a man who can see around corners.
I quite agree with the editorial which praises Mr. Leonard's work as Minister of the Environment where he dealt with the shale gas industry. I'm sure he'll be as good a servant to the Queen in his new portfolio as he was when he was her guardian of the environment.
What a crap paper!
Shale gas warnings from the US? Oil pipline spills that have dumped millions of gallons of crude on land that will never recover? Hints of conniving in the deal to move Moncton High?
No time. No time. Oh , my fuss and feathers. The Queen wants a special report on "Liquor Deals can be found". And, oh, oh, big auction in Moncton. Big, big auction. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Ooooh! And big story on liquor board privatization. No time. No room for shale gas or shady deals. Need space for the Queen.
And that is the little white rabbit that lands on my doorstep every morning to load me up with the two kinds of information the Queen decrees I shall have - trivia and propaganda.
Though we've heard almost nothing for months about shale gas or regulations for it, close to nothing (and almost all of that in the form of propaganda) about the school move, just today we have close to a full page of propaganda about liquor privatization. And a full page of prime news space about an auction.
No wonder The Irving newspapers are a national embarassment, even when the rest of the Canadian press is nothing of great merit.
On p. D4, our white rabbit announces a speech from the throne which orders the government to cut back on the prices the Queen has to pay that nasty Enbridge Company for gas. Much of the speech was delivered by Baron Ganong. But parts were taken directly from the mouth of the Queen. We're very grateful to the Queen for not allowing New Brunswickers to be ripped off by outsiders.
Queen Jim also informs us that natural gas is environmentally friendly. Indeed it is. Just so long as you don't live in the environment.
In NewsToday, we're getting set up for a war with Iran. Harper has announced that Israel has a right to defend itself against attack from Iran. Well, yes. But Iran hasn't attacked Israel - or anybody else - for centuries. And even if it did get a nuclear bomb, it would be one against hundreds of them in Israel and thousands in the US. (As well, and though it was never reported by the white rabbit, senior US intelligence people have said publicly they see no evidence Iran is developing a nuclear bomb.)
A key, by the way, to Harper's policies is that he caters to relatively small but well-organized groups - like fundamentalist Christians and those Canadian Zionists (which means not all Canadian Zionists) who support Netanyahu. such groups, when well organized, are a potent force in a close election. Looking at one group tells us why we're building more prisons. Looking at both tells us why we are supporting aggressive Zionist groups rather than groups like Jews for Peace in the Middle East.
We're also getting lots of reports on how brutal the Syrian government is. (Estimates are it has killed over seven thousand people.) Funny how the word brutal never came up when the US killed millions of innocent people in Vietnam, a quarter million in Guatmala, a million or so in Iraq - and as it daily kills known numbers in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia...with drones.
Has Mr. Harper offered words of support to any of those victimized countries?
Bill Belliveau assures us that robocalls did not affect the election results. Impressive. We don't even know how many calls were made. Or all the ridings they were made in. There's yet to be any investigation. As well, while it's true that Harper got 40% of the vote, he got nowhere close to 40% of the total electorate, just 40% of those who voted. And nobody has the faintest idea how many of the electorate did not vote because of misleading robocalls.
No body. Except Mr. Belliveau. Obviously, this is a man who can see around corners.
I quite agree with the editorial which praises Mr. Leonard's work as Minister of the Environment where he dealt with the shale gas industry. I'm sure he'll be as good a servant to the Queen in his new portfolio as he was when he was her guardian of the environment.
What a crap paper!
Friday, March 2, 2012
March 2:
Too bad editors at Irving newspapers don't read the New York Times. On March 1, the NY Times reported that two, former US senators, both major figures in the congressional investigation of 9/11, have filed court charges that the American government has failed to act on strong evidence that the government of Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 attack.
Well, it's understandable. The US has already killed over a million people who had nothing to do with the attack. I mean, who wants to do that all over again? Besides, Saudi Arabia is the strongest ally of the US in the middle east, its most reliable source of oil, and a major buyer of American weapons.
Anyway, don't worry about it. You'll never see the story in The Moncton Times and Transcript; so it can't be very important. (Today's front page, the whole page, is an ad for Bell.)
On the good side, the TandT continues to do a decent job of reporting on the robocalls scandal. What it could use now is some intelligent comment on it. (They might have done it in an editorial today - but the question of who should sell booze in NB was obviously a more important one.)
Briefly, what's happening is this. The extensive use of robocalls to disrupt the voting process is the most serious threat we have ever seen to our democratic system. (Yes. The most serious threat. Neither Germany nor Japan was ever in a position to threaten our democracy, not even if they wanted to.)
Already weakened by news media which are, most of them, heavily biased and often lying, our basic freedom, the right to decide who will govern us, is now wide open to pyschological manipulation for anybody who can afford to buy it.
The great failing of our politicians of all parties and of our news media is reliance on confused shouting about who did or didn't do it. Everybody is guilty of that finger-pointing; and we will never get anywhere with that approach.
The starting point should be a thorough study to find out what happened. Next is to determine who did whatever parts of it were illegal,and to hold byelections in their ridings.
The next is to determine whether further laws are required and, if so, to propose them.
Elections Canada cannot do all of that. It has no mandate to do it. Nor has it shown much interest.
This is not a party issue. All parties seem to be trying to make it a party issue. But it's not. In fact, under our constitution, parties don't even exist. The issue is one for all of us. The issue is our right to the freedom that is essential to all other freedoms. It has nothing to do with which party you support.
Virtually all our elected representatives have been guilty of reducing this to finger-pointing. The worst, worst because he is the only one in a position to take useful action, is the Prime Minister. With a word from him, we can have the public scrutiny and the changes we need to save our democracy.
The great leader is the one who can rise above partisan shouting, and do what is best for the country. Shouted denials and counter-accusations are of no help to anybody. We need a Prime Minister who can lead not just a party - but lead the whole country. The next days will decide whether Harper is that man.
And today's editorial? It's a call for privatization of liquor sales in New Brunswick. Private business is so much more efficient. You can read all about in reports for Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. Right. The proof of that efficiency is in how many Americans - and Greeks and Irish and many more to come are homeless and hungry. The private market is very efficient at puttinig money into the pockets of those who own it. Its history all over the world for centuries is that it's very bad at putting money into anybody else's pocket. And now, in this world crisis created by the private market, it's obvious to anyone with eyes that it's a disaster. Luckily, the owners have been wise enough to buy up polticians along the way, so they can get the benefits of a welfare state even as their profits continue to rise out of the poverty and wreckage they have created. (It's reminiscent of the way beautiful flowers can come up from a dunghill.)
NB liquor makes a profit. It's a profit that goes to us. Why on earth would we give that profit to somebody else?
But have you ever know the TandT to support anything but privatization? No way. Corporations intend to own and control everything - your water, your energy, your roads, your children, your health care, your governments and, of course, your booze.
That's been the push for the last fifty years. It has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with greed and power.
Well, it's understandable. The US has already killed over a million people who had nothing to do with the attack. I mean, who wants to do that all over again? Besides, Saudi Arabia is the strongest ally of the US in the middle east, its most reliable source of oil, and a major buyer of American weapons.
Anyway, don't worry about it. You'll never see the story in The Moncton Times and Transcript; so it can't be very important. (Today's front page, the whole page, is an ad for Bell.)
On the good side, the TandT continues to do a decent job of reporting on the robocalls scandal. What it could use now is some intelligent comment on it. (They might have done it in an editorial today - but the question of who should sell booze in NB was obviously a more important one.)
Briefly, what's happening is this. The extensive use of robocalls to disrupt the voting process is the most serious threat we have ever seen to our democratic system. (Yes. The most serious threat. Neither Germany nor Japan was ever in a position to threaten our democracy, not even if they wanted to.)
Already weakened by news media which are, most of them, heavily biased and often lying, our basic freedom, the right to decide who will govern us, is now wide open to pyschological manipulation for anybody who can afford to buy it.
The great failing of our politicians of all parties and of our news media is reliance on confused shouting about who did or didn't do it. Everybody is guilty of that finger-pointing; and we will never get anywhere with that approach.
The starting point should be a thorough study to find out what happened. Next is to determine who did whatever parts of it were illegal,and to hold byelections in their ridings.
The next is to determine whether further laws are required and, if so, to propose them.
Elections Canada cannot do all of that. It has no mandate to do it. Nor has it shown much interest.
This is not a party issue. All parties seem to be trying to make it a party issue. But it's not. In fact, under our constitution, parties don't even exist. The issue is one for all of us. The issue is our right to the freedom that is essential to all other freedoms. It has nothing to do with which party you support.
Virtually all our elected representatives have been guilty of reducing this to finger-pointing. The worst, worst because he is the only one in a position to take useful action, is the Prime Minister. With a word from him, we can have the public scrutiny and the changes we need to save our democracy.
The great leader is the one who can rise above partisan shouting, and do what is best for the country. Shouted denials and counter-accusations are of no help to anybody. We need a Prime Minister who can lead not just a party - but lead the whole country. The next days will decide whether Harper is that man.
And today's editorial? It's a call for privatization of liquor sales in New Brunswick. Private business is so much more efficient. You can read all about in reports for Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. Right. The proof of that efficiency is in how many Americans - and Greeks and Irish and many more to come are homeless and hungry. The private market is very efficient at puttinig money into the pockets of those who own it. Its history all over the world for centuries is that it's very bad at putting money into anybody else's pocket. And now, in this world crisis created by the private market, it's obvious to anyone with eyes that it's a disaster. Luckily, the owners have been wise enough to buy up polticians along the way, so they can get the benefits of a welfare state even as their profits continue to rise out of the poverty and wreckage they have created. (It's reminiscent of the way beautiful flowers can come up from a dunghill.)
NB liquor makes a profit. It's a profit that goes to us. Why on earth would we give that profit to somebody else?
But have you ever know the TandT to support anything but privatization? No way. Corporations intend to own and control everything - your water, your energy, your roads, your children, your health care, your governments and, of course, your booze.
That's been the push for the last fifty years. It has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with greed and power.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
March 1: just a brief note...
After all, there were two blogs yesterday - and one can inflict only so much punishment on readers.
Though late to start, The Moncton Times and Transcript is doing a good job on following up on the robocalls issue in Ottawa. It's now clear that Elections Canada has no authority to do the kind of investigation that is required - and doesn't appear to want to have it.
This is serious because it is a double blow to democracy in Canada. It destroys he confidence of voters in democracy. And if turnout figures mean anything at all, that confidence has been dangeroustly weakening for years. As well, it lays the groundwork to make all future elections simply mind games with the advantage going to the party with the most money and the least scruples.
(Oh, I know. I know. It can't happen here. Well, it just did.) There's a superb column by Alec Bruce on this subject.
This is where a prime minister has to show leadership. But Harper isn't showing any. He's s stalling with denials and with the token firing a very junior election worker, We need a full investigation and a public one not just of whether the law was broken but whether the law comes even close to being adequate. Only Harper can make that possible. And he obviously has no intention of doing any such thing.
The rest of the paper is its usual self. Trivial stories in most of it (except for the one on robocalls), solid columns by Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire, Then there's an editorial designed to kill discussion of a serious issue. It's about whether Moncton needs a full time mayor.
The big city issue is, or should be, about the plan for the future of Moncton. How are we preparing to meet the imminent challenges of housing, of transportation, of essential facilities such as schools, .... Are we aiming at urban sprawl? At a city designed for cars? Does it really make any sense to 'revive' the old Main St.? If so, would the degree of revival offered by a hockey arena make any sense given the huge expenditure involved? Will allowing curb parking revive Main St.?
What is city council's view of the future needs of Moncton? What is its plan? Is there really a plan? Or is it all up to developers interested only in a quick buck no matter what the long term damage?
These questions are the real questions behind the hockey arena proposal and the new location of Moncton High.Now, I have no sentimental attachment to Moncton High. At some time, all things have to change; and Moncton High is no exception to the rule. But is this the right change?
It's obvious that the owner of The Moncton Times and Transcript has no wish to discuss these issues, and no interest in what the city plan is - if there really is a city plan. Who cares what we peasaants think. The only important thing is quick profit at public expense. That's been obvious in both news and opinion expessed in the TandT.
But how do you get people off these subjects? Easy. Turn their attention to something else.
Remember Brent Mazerolle's recent 'news' story on whether Moncton needs a full time mayor? Is that really our top priority? Why would that be important enough for the front page?
Then you have today's editorial on the same subject. What a coincidence?
Like Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs, we're being led off on a false trail.
We need to consider what challenges this city is going to face in the not-very-distant future. We need to think of the map and services and means of this city. We need to decide whether we're going to build more parking lots downtown or more arenas or more apartments. And if we're going to opt for apartments, we're going to have to decide whether the bland and unimaginative designs proposed for Royal Oaks come anywhere close to what we want our children and gandchildren to live in.
But the Times and Transcript doesn't want that discussion to happen. That's why we're likely to read even more about the need (or lack of need) for a full time mayor.
The Moncton Times and Transcrip - the newspaper designed to keep us in the dark.
When I was a kid, every school child in the city got a free ticket to the circus. A regular act was the trained seals. It would being by setting up horns that were sounded by squeezing rubber bulbs. The seals, trained to bite the bulbs in proper order, would then play O Canada. (Perhaps if Kelly Lamrock, our former education minister who was very big on O Canada, will become permier some day, and then his government would supply the schools with such an act. It would sure beat those awful PA systems. And it would make the students patriotic.)
Though late to start, The Moncton Times and Transcript is doing a good job on following up on the robocalls issue in Ottawa. It's now clear that Elections Canada has no authority to do the kind of investigation that is required - and doesn't appear to want to have it.
This is serious because it is a double blow to democracy in Canada. It destroys he confidence of voters in democracy. And if turnout figures mean anything at all, that confidence has been dangeroustly weakening for years. As well, it lays the groundwork to make all future elections simply mind games with the advantage going to the party with the most money and the least scruples.
(Oh, I know. I know. It can't happen here. Well, it just did.) There's a superb column by Alec Bruce on this subject.
This is where a prime minister has to show leadership. But Harper isn't showing any. He's s stalling with denials and with the token firing a very junior election worker, We need a full investigation and a public one not just of whether the law was broken but whether the law comes even close to being adequate. Only Harper can make that possible. And he obviously has no intention of doing any such thing.
The rest of the paper is its usual self. Trivial stories in most of it (except for the one on robocalls), solid columns by Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire, Then there's an editorial designed to kill discussion of a serious issue. It's about whether Moncton needs a full time mayor.
The big city issue is, or should be, about the plan for the future of Moncton. How are we preparing to meet the imminent challenges of housing, of transportation, of essential facilities such as schools, .... Are we aiming at urban sprawl? At a city designed for cars? Does it really make any sense to 'revive' the old Main St.? If so, would the degree of revival offered by a hockey arena make any sense given the huge expenditure involved? Will allowing curb parking revive Main St.?
What is city council's view of the future needs of Moncton? What is its plan? Is there really a plan? Or is it all up to developers interested only in a quick buck no matter what the long term damage?
These questions are the real questions behind the hockey arena proposal and the new location of Moncton High.Now, I have no sentimental attachment to Moncton High. At some time, all things have to change; and Moncton High is no exception to the rule. But is this the right change?
It's obvious that the owner of The Moncton Times and Transcript has no wish to discuss these issues, and no interest in what the city plan is - if there really is a city plan. Who cares what we peasaants think. The only important thing is quick profit at public expense. That's been obvious in both news and opinion expessed in the TandT.
But how do you get people off these subjects? Easy. Turn their attention to something else.
Remember Brent Mazerolle's recent 'news' story on whether Moncton needs a full time mayor? Is that really our top priority? Why would that be important enough for the front page?
Then you have today's editorial on the same subject. What a coincidence?
Like Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs, we're being led off on a false trail.
We need to consider what challenges this city is going to face in the not-very-distant future. We need to think of the map and services and means of this city. We need to decide whether we're going to build more parking lots downtown or more arenas or more apartments. And if we're going to opt for apartments, we're going to have to decide whether the bland and unimaginative designs proposed for Royal Oaks come anywhere close to what we want our children and gandchildren to live in.
But the Times and Transcript doesn't want that discussion to happen. That's why we're likely to read even more about the need (or lack of need) for a full time mayor.
The Moncton Times and Transcrip - the newspaper designed to keep us in the dark.
When I was a kid, every school child in the city got a free ticket to the circus. A regular act was the trained seals. It would being by setting up horns that were sounded by squeezing rubber bulbs. The seals, trained to bite the bulbs in proper order, would then play O Canada. (Perhaps if Kelly Lamrock, our former education minister who was very big on O Canada, will become permier some day, and then his government would supply the schools with such an act. It would sure beat those awful PA systems. And it would make the students patriotic.)
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