On the front page of the The Moncton Times and Transcript, under the title "It's time to dream big", is what looks like an oversized aircraft hangar with what appear to be giant chimneys for what must be massive firelplaces. It has a garish mural stuck up on one of the chimneys and, for no apparent reason, a huge area in front that might be suitable for a parking lot but which is covered in brick, with people standing around on it (I have no idea why) and benches in the bleak setting that, wisely, nobody is sitting on.
Generally, it is a facade that is disconnected, awkward, and ugly. Rather than modern, it looks early industrial revolution, reminiscent of some of the worst architecture turned out by Stalin's Russia. Even worse, there is no sense this is designed for people.
The roof over the entry is high enough to accomodate a team of giraffe acrobats standing on each other. And what is that huge, brick courtyard for? Leisurely strolls on a cold and windy day? Where is the connectin between this building and the human scale? I would rather stroll around a warehouse than around this ovsized blight on the landscape.
That's the best one. The others are on p. A10. One appears to glory in a roof capped with what looks like giant sheets of crumplied foil paper. Another is just unimaginative, ugly and, again, hopelessly out of any sense of human scale. The last one looks more atractive, but wildly impractical for most of our year.
These are designs that were outdated by the 1930s.
None shows any sense of how people will get to the exciting spot. The only recognition of this crucial factor is the front page design which shows curbside parking for one car. (I don't think that's going to do it.)
None of them shows any sense of where the shops and cafes and all the other promised wonders fit in.
If we throw a hundred million at any of these designs, the world will, indeed, notice Moncton. And the world will mutter, "Hicksville."
Still, Brent Mazerolle, writing about the "events centre" churns out an outhouse load of pure gush that one usually finds only in the earliest dreams of puberty. So does the editorial. Obviously, this is timed to fit in with the elections. So expect to be slobbered on for a few weeks more.
Then there are pages of names of candidates for council and DEC elections. The platform of George Leblanc ( mayor) is a typical one. He wants to see Moncton grow as a vibrant and prosperous city. Wow! That's a relief. We have to be sure not to elect someone who wants to see Moncton shrink as a dead and poor city.
The DEC lineup is even worse. Many of the seats have only one candidate. And nobody has any platform or any suggestion of the issues. Obviously, very few people in this city give a damn one way or the other. Well, what the hell...it's easier just to blame the teachers.
I guess the old saying is true. We get the government we deserve.
The op ed page has a column by Brian Gallant, announcing his bid for leadership of the NB Liberal Party. It's the standard column of its type; but some people will take it seriously as though it actually says something. That's why New Brunswick will vote Liberal next time; then get mad at them and swear to vote Conservative the time after.
There are a few things worth reading. As always, I like the student columns in Whatever. There's nothing really strking this time. But they're sensible; and they're well written. This time, I'm particularly impressed by Jessica Melanson who is, in grade eleven, writing a novel that she hopes to publish. Gosh! In grade eleven, I was so busy failing, I never even thought of writing a novel.
I'm impressed, too, that Isabelle's Agnew's father does work that takes him and his family on trips all over the world. I am available for adoption.
Then there's the Faith page, E6. Now, I have to confess that while I am Christian, I am not a Baptist or fundamentalist of any sort. But I thought that Pastor David Hawksworth of First Elgin Baptist wrote a pretty good column. So I forgive him for being a Baptist.
Finally, there is a letter from Dave Daigle, Jr. of Riverview, urging us to walk or bicycle more - instead of using our cars. I quite agree. But I want to draw attention to his first sentence because it draws attention to a problem we ignore.
He writes, "The price of gas is getting brutally high and it may get worse before it gets better."
It is brutally high.
If is going to get worse but....
it is not going to get better. Not ever.
We have been walking through a tunnel for over a century. For years, it sloped gently upwards. Then it got steeper; the climb became work...now, it's curving up even more steeply. And just ahead of us, just ahead, an iron gate has come crashing down.
We can pretend it's not happening. It doesn't matter what we pretend. The steep slope and the iron gate are there. The age of cheap fossil fuels is almost over. But all our cities and suburbs and schools (and, I might add, our hockey arenas and civic centres) are designed around cheap fossil fuel.
Maybe, with luck, it will only be ten dollars a litre in ten years. Maybe we'll still be able to pay for it by doing away with health care or decent housing, stuff like that. But the slope and the gate will still be there.
So - in this election time - what does Moncton plan to do about it? How does a suburb like Royal Oaks fit into it? How does a massive events centre fit into it? How many people will be driving to Moncton at ten bucks a litre to see a hockey game? To commute to work? How do big high schools fit into it? How do rural schools fit into it? What are the plans for mass transportation? For heat?
And even if we were to find vast, new reserves of fossil fuels, the iron gate is still there. Our environment cannot stand the damage of continued pollution. It doesn't matter what we think. It doesn't matter if we prefer not to think. The iron gate is still there.
Do any of our candidates have any thoughts about this? Planning has to come from somewhere. And we're certainly not going to find it in The Moncton Times and Transcript. They still haven't noticed that we could be in a world war by this summer.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
April 13, 2012: Why, tell me why....
Three days ago, Russia began massing troops on its border with Iran. They're expecting a western/Israeli attack on Iran this summer. Hint - they aren't there to help our side. But for three days, The Moncton Times and Transcript has had no room for that story. Nor does it today.
The lead story is yet another TandT SPECIAL REPORT. "Metro Moncton's 911 responders are always there. Yes, they are. And I'm glad. But why is this a SPECIAL REPORT? Why is it on p. 1?
Big story no. 2. "Events centre dream unveiled". Notice the choice of words? 'Dreams". Not project proposals. Those are drab. But dreams, well, that's a romantic and inspiring word. Dreams implies happiness, fulfillment. And not proposals. Proposals is a boring word.The architects aren't boring. They are displaying 'visions' - something like Revelation in The Bible. Think angels. This us rising into heaven.
Then catch the opening sentence. Nothing cold and commonplace like "architects diplay ideas for events centre." No. It's.....
"We have a dream." Wow! Just like Martin Luther King. Not only is Revelation back in that word 'dream'. But notice the We. That actually has nothing to do with the story. It's much warmer than that. The story is about a display. The "we" suggests that this is something we have all been longing for. We are involved. It's something divine come true for us. It's all warm and cuddly.
Then it plunges into excitement. The next paragraph doesn't, as you might have expected, simply tell us how many were there. No. It expresses shock and exhiliration at the size of the turnout. It quotes Mayor Leblanc as gushing that he had no idea anybody would come.
Right. The mayor announces a display that's the opening gun of a big push for what will mean at least a hundred million dollars of our money going into the pockets of some very influential people. And gee, duh, the mayor didn't think anybody would be there. Golly, I bet he and the developers never even thought of making sure every seat was filled.
The whole story is geegollywhiz. This isn't reporting. This is the kind of shpiel you get from an unhealthy looking guy puffing a weed who sidles up to you and says, "Hey! Lookin' for a good time with a hot babe?"
The only news story on page one is that a Moncton bus driver has been charged in a fatal accident. You remember Moncton bus drivers? They're the ones who were the subject of an editorial a view days ago, in which the editor said they're job was easy. Anybody could do it. They weren't worth what they are getting paid for such an easy job.
The only story worth reading in section A is on p. 6. It's about a Congolese man now living in Fredericton who is on a hunger strike (and perhaps close to death) because Canada has refused to press for an investigation of human rights abuses in Congo.
Human rights abuse is a mild term for what Congo has been suffering for well over a century at the hands of western countries - including Canada. The murders are in the millions. The starvation, the exploitation of cheap labour, the early death, the torture are all beyond counting. And, yes, Canadian mining companies, in particular, have been right in there with the big kids from Belgium, Britain, France, the US.
It wouldn't cost Ottawa much, probably not as much as it cost to send Stephen Harper and his family and his bodyguards to see a hockey game in New York - from the expensive seats.
Newstoday has big story about the Titanic. Just in time. Meanwhile, it carries its usual report about Syria, a report that does nothing to explain why that part of the world is in chaos. There are rebellions, civil wars, civic chaos from the most southern part of Africa to the farthest north of the middle east. Why has this happened all of a sudden? Why has the West fought wars in Libya, Iraq, and unofficially been involved with assassinations, uprisings in Nigeria, Yeman, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Iran....? It's simple.
1. The region is rich in resources - oil, gold, diamonds.... We in the West have been looting that wealth for over two centuries. First, we took the people as slaves. Now, we use them as starvation labour. The railways of the British Empire were built largely with the gold looted from South Africa. We installed dictators like the King of Saudi Arabia, like Saddam Hussein, like Ghadaffi, like the rulers of Egypt....
And, sometimes, if the dictators aren't cooperative enough, we kill them.
2. The West does not want any of that loot to be available to, say, China. For that reason, the US established Africa Command, a military apparatus to seize control of all of the region. The great beneficiaries of this would be huge corporations, most of them American, who could then use their control to pile up even greater profits at the expense of Africans.
Public opinion, with the help of news media like the TandT, has been shaped to see this as a struggle of good aagainst evil, of Christians and Jews against Moslems. Of democracy against dictatorship.
What a crock! Most of the dictators were put in power by us. And when we "change a regime" it is very seldom that we establish a democracy. On the contrary, we have a stronger record of destroying democracies in order to establish dictatorships.
As for religion, wars of religion are actually rare. Even the crusades weren't really about religion. Most of the crusaders, like Richard the Lion Heart, were thugs, scoundrels and thieves, an embarassment to any religion.
3. These wars may be coming to a crisis. China and Russia cannot forever stand by to watch the US and NATO establish a world order that shuts them out. At some point, they must decide to use force - whatever the risk - or to forever surrender to western power.
Iran could be that point. This summer could be the time.
Understand that, and you will understand more about what's happening than you will ever learn from all the stories you can ever read from Reuters.
There is a story these days that New Brunswickers should take pride in. Unfortunately, it appeared in Literary Review of Canada (April issue), something with too many big words to appeal to TandT staff. But it's an excellent journal.
The lead story is an essay by James Hughes, a former deputy minister of social development for New Brunswick. (Ministers are the politicians appointed to run departments. Deputy Ministers are the civil servants who actually understand what it is they're doing.) James Hughes is
now at University of New Brunswick.
His essay is an intelligent and stimulating outline of how we could cut our spending on welfare in half - and do a far better job of it. The idea is summed up in one sentence. "In 2007, poverty cost Canada $24.4 billion in direct, indirect and societal costs .....eliminating it would cost $12.3 billion."
This is an article that New Brunswickers should be thinking and talking about.
Too bad Mr. Irving didn't say it. We would have had a special edition.
Meanwhile, I can only suggest that if James Hughes wants to get in the news in this province, he would be wiser to learn how to play the spoons for a downhome band.
The lead story is yet another TandT SPECIAL REPORT. "Metro Moncton's 911 responders are always there. Yes, they are. And I'm glad. But why is this a SPECIAL REPORT? Why is it on p. 1?
Big story no. 2. "Events centre dream unveiled". Notice the choice of words? 'Dreams". Not project proposals. Those are drab. But dreams, well, that's a romantic and inspiring word. Dreams implies happiness, fulfillment. And not proposals. Proposals is a boring word.The architects aren't boring. They are displaying 'visions' - something like Revelation in The Bible. Think angels. This us rising into heaven.
Then catch the opening sentence. Nothing cold and commonplace like "architects diplay ideas for events centre." No. It's.....
"We have a dream." Wow! Just like Martin Luther King. Not only is Revelation back in that word 'dream'. But notice the We. That actually has nothing to do with the story. It's much warmer than that. The story is about a display. The "we" suggests that this is something we have all been longing for. We are involved. It's something divine come true for us. It's all warm and cuddly.
Then it plunges into excitement. The next paragraph doesn't, as you might have expected, simply tell us how many were there. No. It expresses shock and exhiliration at the size of the turnout. It quotes Mayor Leblanc as gushing that he had no idea anybody would come.
Right. The mayor announces a display that's the opening gun of a big push for what will mean at least a hundred million dollars of our money going into the pockets of some very influential people. And gee, duh, the mayor didn't think anybody would be there. Golly, I bet he and the developers never even thought of making sure every seat was filled.
The whole story is geegollywhiz. This isn't reporting. This is the kind of shpiel you get from an unhealthy looking guy puffing a weed who sidles up to you and says, "Hey! Lookin' for a good time with a hot babe?"
The only news story on page one is that a Moncton bus driver has been charged in a fatal accident. You remember Moncton bus drivers? They're the ones who were the subject of an editorial a view days ago, in which the editor said they're job was easy. Anybody could do it. They weren't worth what they are getting paid for such an easy job.
The only story worth reading in section A is on p. 6. It's about a Congolese man now living in Fredericton who is on a hunger strike (and perhaps close to death) because Canada has refused to press for an investigation of human rights abuses in Congo.
Human rights abuse is a mild term for what Congo has been suffering for well over a century at the hands of western countries - including Canada. The murders are in the millions. The starvation, the exploitation of cheap labour, the early death, the torture are all beyond counting. And, yes, Canadian mining companies, in particular, have been right in there with the big kids from Belgium, Britain, France, the US.
It wouldn't cost Ottawa much, probably not as much as it cost to send Stephen Harper and his family and his bodyguards to see a hockey game in New York - from the expensive seats.
Newstoday has big story about the Titanic. Just in time. Meanwhile, it carries its usual report about Syria, a report that does nothing to explain why that part of the world is in chaos. There are rebellions, civil wars, civic chaos from the most southern part of Africa to the farthest north of the middle east. Why has this happened all of a sudden? Why has the West fought wars in Libya, Iraq, and unofficially been involved with assassinations, uprisings in Nigeria, Yeman, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Iran....? It's simple.
1. The region is rich in resources - oil, gold, diamonds.... We in the West have been looting that wealth for over two centuries. First, we took the people as slaves. Now, we use them as starvation labour. The railways of the British Empire were built largely with the gold looted from South Africa. We installed dictators like the King of Saudi Arabia, like Saddam Hussein, like Ghadaffi, like the rulers of Egypt....
And, sometimes, if the dictators aren't cooperative enough, we kill them.
2. The West does not want any of that loot to be available to, say, China. For that reason, the US established Africa Command, a military apparatus to seize control of all of the region. The great beneficiaries of this would be huge corporations, most of them American, who could then use their control to pile up even greater profits at the expense of Africans.
Public opinion, with the help of news media like the TandT, has been shaped to see this as a struggle of good aagainst evil, of Christians and Jews against Moslems. Of democracy against dictatorship.
What a crock! Most of the dictators were put in power by us. And when we "change a regime" it is very seldom that we establish a democracy. On the contrary, we have a stronger record of destroying democracies in order to establish dictatorships.
As for religion, wars of religion are actually rare. Even the crusades weren't really about religion. Most of the crusaders, like Richard the Lion Heart, were thugs, scoundrels and thieves, an embarassment to any religion.
3. These wars may be coming to a crisis. China and Russia cannot forever stand by to watch the US and NATO establish a world order that shuts them out. At some point, they must decide to use force - whatever the risk - or to forever surrender to western power.
Iran could be that point. This summer could be the time.
Understand that, and you will understand more about what's happening than you will ever learn from all the stories you can ever read from Reuters.
There is a story these days that New Brunswickers should take pride in. Unfortunately, it appeared in Literary Review of Canada (April issue), something with too many big words to appeal to TandT staff. But it's an excellent journal.
The lead story is an essay by James Hughes, a former deputy minister of social development for New Brunswick. (Ministers are the politicians appointed to run departments. Deputy Ministers are the civil servants who actually understand what it is they're doing.) James Hughes is
now at University of New Brunswick.
His essay is an intelligent and stimulating outline of how we could cut our spending on welfare in half - and do a far better job of it. The idea is summed up in one sentence. "In 2007, poverty cost Canada $24.4 billion in direct, indirect and societal costs .....eliminating it would cost $12.3 billion."
This is an article that New Brunswickers should be thinking and talking about.
Too bad Mr. Irving didn't say it. We would have had a special edition.
Meanwhile, I can only suggest that if James Hughes wants to get in the news in this province, he would be wiser to learn how to play the spoons for a downhome band.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
April 12: as anyone could have predicted......
It was a restaurant in Guanzhou, China. I couldn't speak enough Chinese to order anything. (My Chinese is limited to "Excuse me, foreigh devil.") The waiter couldn't speak English. So he brought me sweet and sour pork. (They've learned that's a safe bet with westerners.)
I didn't eat there again. No hard feelings. And the pork was okay. But I wanted to be able to order from the whole menu. So, in future, I made sure to pick a place with an English menu.
On a related topic, there are two good letters from Sebastien Emard and Sylvain Cyr in Letters to the Editor. I don't agree with them in that I don't agree that the language of commercial signs should be imposed by law. But the two letters are reasonable in tone, and well-written. They're discussable.
However, there is also a third letter. Sign Law is use of force. This one shows how far off the rails such an argument can get. It invokes how our veterans fought for freedom of expression. Well, that's a crock from the start. Our freedom of expresseion was never threatened in any war. That has nothing to do with the issue.
Nor is bilingualism forced on us, at least not if we're English. French pretty well have to learn English to survive. That's not law, just a practical matter.
Then we get the reference to culture. Please, if we must get into a language debate, let's forget the word culture. Nobody know what it means. Exactly what is the Acadian culture of the ;province? What is the English culture? If any of us were to meet any of our ancestors of 500 years ago, we'd have almost nothing in common. Heck, it can be tough enough with parents.
For that matter you can find masses of cultural differences between any two social groups of Acadians - or any two social groups of English. I don't have the same culture as Mr. Alward. (Thank God for small mercies.)
There is no such thing as a neat, little culture, a sort of package. There is also no such thing as preserving a culture. If we did, we'd still be cutting down trees with stone axes. The world changes. You and your culture change with it. If you don't, then neither you nor your culture survives at all. Both sides in the language debate should understand that.
That said, I oppose resort to a sign law for private business. I should certainly like the signs to be there. But doing it by law breeds precisely the over-the-top reaction we read in "Sign law is a use of force."
I had hoped the business owners of Dieppe would have the intelligence and courtesy to make that small and simple guesture on their own. I was wrong to hope. Let's forget the language war. Nobody can win that one. Let's all concentrate on the civilization deficiencies and juvenile behaviour being displayed by those businesspeople in Dieppe.
(I will forgive Jody Dallaire for using the word culture in her column. She writes a solid column every time. I cringed when I saw 'culture' in her headline. But the column is still a good one - just don't do it again, Jody.)
Norbert Cunningham, alas, goes back to writing a harsh column on a subject he knows nothing about.
I don't have space to go into all that he doesn't understand - the student strike in Quebec. But briefly, the universities are a mess. They are weighted down with education ideas that developed centuries ago, when only the rich got to university - and when getting a degree was pretty much routine whether you went to classes or spent your time drunk. (That was still true well into the nineteenth century.) Universities are also mired in pretension, status-obssession, and public posturing that have driven their costs skyward - while they fail to address even the simplest issues of teaching.
That has also, and increasingly, led to them falling under the control of the billionaires of this world - whose interest in freedom of thought (and of most learning of any sort) is minimal.
Some of the poor get to university (even to Queen's. I did - eventually), but most don't. And it's not just money. It's also because so much of our education from kindergarten is affected by social class. Some go to private schools (commonly those kids who are both rich and slow because they need more help). Some go to public schools in districts where the parents provide an environment that encourages learning, and which sees advanced learning as natural. Some go to schools where most of the kids come from quite a deprived background. And that makes one hell of a difference in academic performance - and in getting to university.
Social class, family background, income, expectation, university posturing and indifference to education, business interest in converting universities into places of serving business rather than encouraging free thought ( along with the incompetence of the universities to teach thinking) are all bubbling away in the same pot.
It's worse in New Brunswick where governments have made it clear they don't give a damn about stimulating (or even allowing) intellectual life and independent thought, where libraries don't have enough money to provide adequate programmes, where nobody seems to give a damn about intellectual life outside the cities (or even inside them.)
Yes. If you look at the specific demands of the students in Quebec who are striking, it is easy to dismiss them. But they, too, like Norbert, don't grasp all the forces that are at work here.
There are huge problems coming crashing down on education in Canada. The public schools, to their credit, have made efforts to address them. Universities and governments haven't lifted a finger. Like it or not, this is going to get worse.
Incidentally, I was just reading a British paper, The Guardian. It has several columns on education, all written by reporters and commentators who had studied education, who really knew what they were talking about. I have rarely seen such a column in North American newspapers, and never in the Irving Press.
Except for the columns of Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire, there's really no reason to read today's TandT. In fact, if your have an e reader, you can buy excellent papers from all over the world for the same price as the TandT.
Of course, they don't carry Moncton news. But then, neither does The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Oh - today's lead story is another one pimping for the "Metro events centre". There's a show on for "public input". I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the city council election campaign is on.
Again, the story is a Brent Mazerolle special - essentially a press release from the promoters, with no questions asked. Mike Wallace he ain't.
I didn't eat there again. No hard feelings. And the pork was okay. But I wanted to be able to order from the whole menu. So, in future, I made sure to pick a place with an English menu.
On a related topic, there are two good letters from Sebastien Emard and Sylvain Cyr in Letters to the Editor. I don't agree with them in that I don't agree that the language of commercial signs should be imposed by law. But the two letters are reasonable in tone, and well-written. They're discussable.
However, there is also a third letter. Sign Law is use of force. This one shows how far off the rails such an argument can get. It invokes how our veterans fought for freedom of expression. Well, that's a crock from the start. Our freedom of expresseion was never threatened in any war. That has nothing to do with the issue.
Nor is bilingualism forced on us, at least not if we're English. French pretty well have to learn English to survive. That's not law, just a practical matter.
Then we get the reference to culture. Please, if we must get into a language debate, let's forget the word culture. Nobody know what it means. Exactly what is the Acadian culture of the ;province? What is the English culture? If any of us were to meet any of our ancestors of 500 years ago, we'd have almost nothing in common. Heck, it can be tough enough with parents.
For that matter you can find masses of cultural differences between any two social groups of Acadians - or any two social groups of English. I don't have the same culture as Mr. Alward. (Thank God for small mercies.)
There is no such thing as a neat, little culture, a sort of package. There is also no such thing as preserving a culture. If we did, we'd still be cutting down trees with stone axes. The world changes. You and your culture change with it. If you don't, then neither you nor your culture survives at all. Both sides in the language debate should understand that.
That said, I oppose resort to a sign law for private business. I should certainly like the signs to be there. But doing it by law breeds precisely the over-the-top reaction we read in "Sign law is a use of force."
I had hoped the business owners of Dieppe would have the intelligence and courtesy to make that small and simple guesture on their own. I was wrong to hope. Let's forget the language war. Nobody can win that one. Let's all concentrate on the civilization deficiencies and juvenile behaviour being displayed by those businesspeople in Dieppe.
(I will forgive Jody Dallaire for using the word culture in her column. She writes a solid column every time. I cringed when I saw 'culture' in her headline. But the column is still a good one - just don't do it again, Jody.)
Norbert Cunningham, alas, goes back to writing a harsh column on a subject he knows nothing about.
I don't have space to go into all that he doesn't understand - the student strike in Quebec. But briefly, the universities are a mess. They are weighted down with education ideas that developed centuries ago, when only the rich got to university - and when getting a degree was pretty much routine whether you went to classes or spent your time drunk. (That was still true well into the nineteenth century.) Universities are also mired in pretension, status-obssession, and public posturing that have driven their costs skyward - while they fail to address even the simplest issues of teaching.
That has also, and increasingly, led to them falling under the control of the billionaires of this world - whose interest in freedom of thought (and of most learning of any sort) is minimal.
Some of the poor get to university (even to Queen's. I did - eventually), but most don't. And it's not just money. It's also because so much of our education from kindergarten is affected by social class. Some go to private schools (commonly those kids who are both rich and slow because they need more help). Some go to public schools in districts where the parents provide an environment that encourages learning, and which sees advanced learning as natural. Some go to schools where most of the kids come from quite a deprived background. And that makes one hell of a difference in academic performance - and in getting to university.
Social class, family background, income, expectation, university posturing and indifference to education, business interest in converting universities into places of serving business rather than encouraging free thought ( along with the incompetence of the universities to teach thinking) are all bubbling away in the same pot.
It's worse in New Brunswick where governments have made it clear they don't give a damn about stimulating (or even allowing) intellectual life and independent thought, where libraries don't have enough money to provide adequate programmes, where nobody seems to give a damn about intellectual life outside the cities (or even inside them.)
Yes. If you look at the specific demands of the students in Quebec who are striking, it is easy to dismiss them. But they, too, like Norbert, don't grasp all the forces that are at work here.
There are huge problems coming crashing down on education in Canada. The public schools, to their credit, have made efforts to address them. Universities and governments haven't lifted a finger. Like it or not, this is going to get worse.
Incidentally, I was just reading a British paper, The Guardian. It has several columns on education, all written by reporters and commentators who had studied education, who really knew what they were talking about. I have rarely seen such a column in North American newspapers, and never in the Irving Press.
Except for the columns of Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire, there's really no reason to read today's TandT. In fact, if your have an e reader, you can buy excellent papers from all over the world for the same price as the TandT.
Of course, they don't carry Moncton news. But then, neither does The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Oh - today's lead story is another one pimping for the "Metro events centre". There's a show on for "public input". I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the city council election campaign is on.
Again, the story is a Brent Mazerolle special - essentially a press release from the promoters, with no questions asked. Mike Wallace he ain't.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Nov. 11; This part is just footnote to the real april 11 blog.
The Moncton Times and Transcript reports that the city has ordered testing of the soil to ensure its safe for a hockey rink. Good idea.
The site originally held a railway yard. The TandT mentions the dnager of pollution by diesel leakage. Actually, it goes much further than that. Montreal is building a new hospital on an old railway yard. The soil was so toxic, thousands of tons of it had to be removed, and trucked to a disposal site hundreds of miles away. It was so toxic that each truck leaving the dump was immediately followed by a street water spray and sweeper cleaning up its dust for an least a block. (I had an interest in the site because it was the original Decarie farm in the 1650s.)
So, of course, Moncton is testing the soil at Highfield Square to make sure it's safe enough for a hockey rink.
Question? How come city council didn't feel a testing was necessary before approving a Sobey's food store on the same site?
Interesting set of priorities for city council. Interesting how the TandT can miss important questions.
The site originally held a railway yard. The TandT mentions the dnager of pollution by diesel leakage. Actually, it goes much further than that. Montreal is building a new hospital on an old railway yard. The soil was so toxic, thousands of tons of it had to be removed, and trucked to a disposal site hundreds of miles away. It was so toxic that each truck leaving the dump was immediately followed by a street water spray and sweeper cleaning up its dust for an least a block. (I had an interest in the site because it was the original Decarie farm in the 1650s.)
So, of course, Moncton is testing the soil at Highfield Square to make sure it's safe enough for a hockey rink.
Question? How come city council didn't feel a testing was necessary before approving a Sobey's food store on the same site?
Interesting set of priorities for city council. Interesting how the TandT can miss important questions.
April 11: The biggest international story is in the.....
...Sports section. For real.
The coach of the Miami Marlins has been suspended for publicly saying nice things about Fidel Castro.
Big Brother doesn't like people who say nice things about Fidel Castro Nothing could better illustrate the collapse of any sort of maturity or free speech in the US. A news editor should have realized that. But it took a sports editor to see the importance of it - if for the wrong reasons.
Look, it doesn't matter a damn what a baseball manager believes about politics. But the only reason that story made even the sports page is that it happened to a baseball manager. Is it possible that anybody cares about the political views of a baseball manager? Is it an issue of international importance?
Apparently, the view of the TandT is that this is terribly important. Sometimes, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Big excitement in Moncton. City Council is testing the soil of Highfield Sqare as a prelude to going ahead with its hundred million dollar hockey rink (sorry. Social Centre. Whatever.) As usual, the TandT asks no question as it leads the way in building up a passion for the project.
How will people get to it? If by car, where will they leave their cars? What will the price of gas be by the time the building opens? (What will it be in five months?) How bad is this recession going to get? What is the future for a small city going for being a regional (and more than regional) entertainment centre with the rate of poverty growing in every possible market for it? And the cost of travel rising?
While we're going into the hole for a hundred million (probably twice that), where do we find the money for rebuilding a city for a future that is going to be very different? For dealing with the housing and urban sprawl that will soon make this city a disaster area?
Private business is not competent to deal with a society's social needs, and is neither competent in nor interested in long term priorities. That's why the world is in the state of economic chaos that we're seeing. Yes. There are things the Ganongs and McCains and even (roll of drums) the Irvings are incompetent to do.
That's why we have government. That's why we elect it. That's why we need news to inform us and stimulate us. Except that we don't have those things. We don't have an elected government. We have a bought government. We don't have news. We have propaganda - and its propaganda mainly aimed at keeping us in ignorance, and keeping us passive. This province is run by corporate bosses who actually believe they know best in areas of which they actually know nothing at all.
That's why our City Council is testing soil for a hockey rink. The idea didn't start with city council. Like the provincial government, it does its master's bidding. It's plunging us into debt for the rest of our lives and, probably, our children's lives without the slightest thought to what Moncton's priorities have to be in this very uncertain age.
It's not as if there's a choice. One way or another, the age of unrenewable energy is coming to and end. And probably soon. I don't know of any city that is adequately prepared for that. But I do know that Moncton has not even thought of it. This city needs massive changes to its infrastructure, to its whole layout.And it hasn't even thought of it.
That's the only story of any importance in Section A. Except it's not a story. It does nothing to inform people or to stir them to think. Its just a small-town carnival pitch for yet another rip-off.
In foreign news, the major story (almost the only story) is about the fighting in Syria. And it's the usual propaganda from Reuters. It plays up the killing of rebels - but says little of the killing BY rebels. It gives the impression that the rebels are mostly helpless civilians. It has never occured to Reuters to ask where the rebels are getting their money and weapons and training from. (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, the US, probably Britain and France).
Yep. We gotta intervene to bring peace and save civilian lives in Syria. They don't even mention that both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have been killing civilians. It's bad enough that world race drivers have been demanding a delay or ever closure to the Bahrain Grand Prix because of the dangerous situation.
The editorial? What can I say? Essentially, t he message is that New Brunswickers are lazy, spoiled, no longer the tough people who were happy to work for peanuts as they cut down trees by hand and for long hours in the bitterest cold and storm. (Could we have a photo of the calloused hands and simple, unheated home of that editorial writer?). And they're always asking for favours. Not like that nice Mr. Irving who never asks for loans or lands or grants or anything., and who just works, works, works all the time. No union for him. No sir. Just give him his twelve dollars an hour like those Mexicans, and he's happy.)
Ooh - speaking of $12 an hour, we need more of those foreign workers to come in. Yesiree. A few hundred thousand $12 an hour jobs and a billionaire or two with no unions, and this province will be on its way.
Of course, it might be hard to sell ten thousand hockey tickets to people making $12 an hour. So we might have to set up a forgiveable loan to whichever Irving owns the team.
Read this editorial for its implied message. The editorial writer pours contempt on anybody who isn't rich. They're lazy. They're worthless. They're leeches. Make'em realize they have to world hard like the Irvings and Ganongs and McCains who go into the deep woods every day to tear down trees with their bare hands, and haul them out through waist high snow.
We need more people who are so desperately poor they'll work long hours in awful jobs for $12 an hour. People who never heard of unions, and don't expect any services. That's what draws in the billionaires who have been so good to us.
This is the sort of editorial that expresses nothing but contempt for ordinary people. And nothing but praise for the "philanthropic" rich. That's really the philosophy of the Times and Transcript, itself and, one might reasonably guess, of its ownership.
That's the message every day. You are worthless. You are lazy. You are spoiled. You are trivial. You really don't count. That message has had its effect. There's a lack of self-esteem that shows up in the kinds of people New Brunswick elects at every level. There's willingness to accept the contempt that's poured on them - because they've been trained to believe they deserve contempt.
And there's fear. Newpapers like the Times and Transcript play a key role in that training.
The coach of the Miami Marlins has been suspended for publicly saying nice things about Fidel Castro.
Big Brother doesn't like people who say nice things about Fidel Castro Nothing could better illustrate the collapse of any sort of maturity or free speech in the US. A news editor should have realized that. But it took a sports editor to see the importance of it - if for the wrong reasons.
Look, it doesn't matter a damn what a baseball manager believes about politics. But the only reason that story made even the sports page is that it happened to a baseball manager. Is it possible that anybody cares about the political views of a baseball manager? Is it an issue of international importance?
Apparently, the view of the TandT is that this is terribly important. Sometimes, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Big excitement in Moncton. City Council is testing the soil of Highfield Sqare as a prelude to going ahead with its hundred million dollar hockey rink (sorry. Social Centre. Whatever.) As usual, the TandT asks no question as it leads the way in building up a passion for the project.
How will people get to it? If by car, where will they leave their cars? What will the price of gas be by the time the building opens? (What will it be in five months?) How bad is this recession going to get? What is the future for a small city going for being a regional (and more than regional) entertainment centre with the rate of poverty growing in every possible market for it? And the cost of travel rising?
While we're going into the hole for a hundred million (probably twice that), where do we find the money for rebuilding a city for a future that is going to be very different? For dealing with the housing and urban sprawl that will soon make this city a disaster area?
Private business is not competent to deal with a society's social needs, and is neither competent in nor interested in long term priorities. That's why the world is in the state of economic chaos that we're seeing. Yes. There are things the Ganongs and McCains and even (roll of drums) the Irvings are incompetent to do.
That's why we have government. That's why we elect it. That's why we need news to inform us and stimulate us. Except that we don't have those things. We don't have an elected government. We have a bought government. We don't have news. We have propaganda - and its propaganda mainly aimed at keeping us in ignorance, and keeping us passive. This province is run by corporate bosses who actually believe they know best in areas of which they actually know nothing at all.
That's why our City Council is testing soil for a hockey rink. The idea didn't start with city council. Like the provincial government, it does its master's bidding. It's plunging us into debt for the rest of our lives and, probably, our children's lives without the slightest thought to what Moncton's priorities have to be in this very uncertain age.
It's not as if there's a choice. One way or another, the age of unrenewable energy is coming to and end. And probably soon. I don't know of any city that is adequately prepared for that. But I do know that Moncton has not even thought of it. This city needs massive changes to its infrastructure, to its whole layout.And it hasn't even thought of it.
That's the only story of any importance in Section A. Except it's not a story. It does nothing to inform people or to stir them to think. Its just a small-town carnival pitch for yet another rip-off.
In foreign news, the major story (almost the only story) is about the fighting in Syria. And it's the usual propaganda from Reuters. It plays up the killing of rebels - but says little of the killing BY rebels. It gives the impression that the rebels are mostly helpless civilians. It has never occured to Reuters to ask where the rebels are getting their money and weapons and training from. (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, the US, probably Britain and France).
Yep. We gotta intervene to bring peace and save civilian lives in Syria. They don't even mention that both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have been killing civilians. It's bad enough that world race drivers have been demanding a delay or ever closure to the Bahrain Grand Prix because of the dangerous situation.
The editorial? What can I say? Essentially, t he message is that New Brunswickers are lazy, spoiled, no longer the tough people who were happy to work for peanuts as they cut down trees by hand and for long hours in the bitterest cold and storm. (Could we have a photo of the calloused hands and simple, unheated home of that editorial writer?). And they're always asking for favours. Not like that nice Mr. Irving who never asks for loans or lands or grants or anything., and who just works, works, works all the time. No union for him. No sir. Just give him his twelve dollars an hour like those Mexicans, and he's happy.)
Ooh - speaking of $12 an hour, we need more of those foreign workers to come in. Yesiree. A few hundred thousand $12 an hour jobs and a billionaire or two with no unions, and this province will be on its way.
Of course, it might be hard to sell ten thousand hockey tickets to people making $12 an hour. So we might have to set up a forgiveable loan to whichever Irving owns the team.
Read this editorial for its implied message. The editorial writer pours contempt on anybody who isn't rich. They're lazy. They're worthless. They're leeches. Make'em realize they have to world hard like the Irvings and Ganongs and McCains who go into the deep woods every day to tear down trees with their bare hands, and haul them out through waist high snow.
We need more people who are so desperately poor they'll work long hours in awful jobs for $12 an hour. People who never heard of unions, and don't expect any services. That's what draws in the billionaires who have been so good to us.
This is the sort of editorial that expresses nothing but contempt for ordinary people. And nothing but praise for the "philanthropic" rich. That's really the philosophy of the Times and Transcript, itself and, one might reasonably guess, of its ownership.
That's the message every day. You are worthless. You are lazy. You are spoiled. You are trivial. You really don't count. That message has had its effect. There's a lack of self-esteem that shows up in the kinds of people New Brunswick elects at every level. There's willingness to accept the contempt that's poured on them - because they've been trained to believe they deserve contempt.
And there's fear. Newpapers like the Times and Transcript play a key role in that training.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
April 10: The editor: King of the gutter....
The Moncton Times and Transcript editorial today is a rant at unions and the pay scales for municipal workers in Moncton.
I shall take that editorial writer seriously - some day - if he ever shows the intelligence, integrity and, dare I say it, balls, to criticize the outrageous incomes and taxpayers' giveaways for the Irvings, the Ganongs, and all the visiting ghouls of the shale gas industry. I don't know who writes those dreadfully ignorant and abusive editorials. And I can only imagine what wretched childhood produced such a cowardly and bullying editorial writer.
The opening story on p. 1 looks hopeful - "Kent Country residents raise shale gas concerns" - that is, it looks hopeful until you read the first sentence. "Some residents of Kent Country are continuing to raise concerns about shale gas development." Some. Continuing.
Those words are not there by accident. 'Some' implies a small minority. 'Continuing' suggests that they are perversely disagreeble. These are small things. But they make all the difference in the world in how people read a story.
The rest of the article gives very little sense of what it is they are protesting - and a good half of it is devoted to very carefully, even professionally, prepared rebuttals (not all of them entirely true) by Tom Alexander of a shale gas company, SWN.
So here is the paper which has given us virtually none of the information it promised years ago, and still tells us virtually nothing - except to pass on propaganda that those opposed to shale gas are a rag tag collection of malcontents - and that Mr. Alexander is a man of poise and accuracy.
P.A2 has an interesting item, "Fighting raging in Yemen". It's not the story that's interesting. In fact, there's so little information in it, that it is really incoherent.. (It's from Reuter's.) No, what 's interesting is that it is a piece of foreign news in a section devoted largely to local matters (and usually trivia, at that.) So why is it there?
Take a close look. Notice that the print is smaller than that of neighbouring stories? Notice, too, that though this is the shortest story on the page, it has the biggest headline? Here's what happened.
The editor had a hole to fill, a blank space on p. 2. It wasn't a big one; so the looked for a short item, any short item. Then he or she fiddled with the print size so it would just fit. That's what editors at The Moncton TandT (and many other papers) call selecting news for importance and context.
The big news items of the day didn't make it at all.
North Korea, which has nuclear bombs, seems now to have developed a missile to fire them. But, no problem. The US will handle it diplomatically, No need to panic.
On the other hand, Iran, which doesn't have a bomb and, according to serious sources, is probably not developing one, is the greatest threat to world peace today. Obama has been stepping up the rhetoric, and is now almost promising war. So why is it no big deal if North Korea has bombs and gets missile, but a terrible threat to the world that a major war is essential?
1. The West can't interfere with North Korea. It sits beside China.
2. Iran has no powerful and protecting neighbour. The US also fears that it will sell oil heavily to China, and will lead the way in dropping the US dollar as the international currency. The US overthrew Iranian democracy back in the 1950s for a similar reason. (The government of Iran had the nerve to want to control its own oil. British, French and American oil companies were righteously indignant.) For almost sixy years, a major concern of US policy has been first to control Iran with a dictatorship and, when that collapsed, to displace the elected government of Iran.
3. Israel wants - and has publicly announced - it wants a war with Iran - and it intends to go to war with or without American approval.
4. Obama is facing an election year. If Obama doesn't support Israel, the Republicans will paint him as a weakling and a coward. If he wants to win this election, he'll have to skate very close to the edge of war - and maybe over the line.
5. Harper has already and on many occasions, said that Canada will go to war if Israel does. (So much for consulting the Canadian people first.)
That could have some profound effects for us. It could easily become a world war. It's kind of important. But the TandT has told us even less about it than it has about shale gas.
Alec Bruce has a good column on the CBC - and the cuts to CBC are particularly important to New Brunswick.
For news, the Irving papers are a disaster. So is private radio. Occasionally, you will find a good journalist in a private radio newsroom. It can happen. But even when it does, the news staff is almost invariably way too small to do an adequate job, often ten times or even more too small.
As for the talk shows, these are mostly pure show biz. Rarely are the hosts particularly knowledgable. Some, many, are so prejudiced they can safely be called bigots.
As well, anyone working in news for private radio knows there are some stories you keep quiet about - anything that would offend an advertiser or annoy anybody important is forbidden. Generally, radio news is an even bigger joke than the Times and Transcript is.
The best news source New Brunswickers have for local, national or international news, almost the only source, is CBC. Harper is forcinig it to cut back. That will have at least two effects.
One is that an already strained news service will be weakened. The other is that news editors will be even more fearful of running stories that might offend the goverment and its friends.
The same will happen with TV- though that's not such a great loss because TV news service was never that great in the first place. TV, by the nature of the medium, has to be pretty lightweight.
Evey province is going to suffer as a result of the CBC cuts; but none more than New Brunswick.
This has nothing to do with personal taste, likes, dislikes, size of audience. There are some facts here. The Irving papers are simply propaganda sheets. and peddlers of triviality and ignorance. Private radio news is not something to take seriously. Even the private radio stations don't take it seriously. So why should you?
I shall take that editorial writer seriously - some day - if he ever shows the intelligence, integrity and, dare I say it, balls, to criticize the outrageous incomes and taxpayers' giveaways for the Irvings, the Ganongs, and all the visiting ghouls of the shale gas industry. I don't know who writes those dreadfully ignorant and abusive editorials. And I can only imagine what wretched childhood produced such a cowardly and bullying editorial writer.
The opening story on p. 1 looks hopeful - "Kent Country residents raise shale gas concerns" - that is, it looks hopeful until you read the first sentence. "Some residents of Kent Country are continuing to raise concerns about shale gas development." Some. Continuing.
Those words are not there by accident. 'Some' implies a small minority. 'Continuing' suggests that they are perversely disagreeble. These are small things. But they make all the difference in the world in how people read a story.
The rest of the article gives very little sense of what it is they are protesting - and a good half of it is devoted to very carefully, even professionally, prepared rebuttals (not all of them entirely true) by Tom Alexander of a shale gas company, SWN.
So here is the paper which has given us virtually none of the information it promised years ago, and still tells us virtually nothing - except to pass on propaganda that those opposed to shale gas are a rag tag collection of malcontents - and that Mr. Alexander is a man of poise and accuracy.
P.A2 has an interesting item, "Fighting raging in Yemen". It's not the story that's interesting. In fact, there's so little information in it, that it is really incoherent.. (It's from Reuter's.) No, what 's interesting is that it is a piece of foreign news in a section devoted largely to local matters (and usually trivia, at that.) So why is it there?
Take a close look. Notice that the print is smaller than that of neighbouring stories? Notice, too, that though this is the shortest story on the page, it has the biggest headline? Here's what happened.
The editor had a hole to fill, a blank space on p. 2. It wasn't a big one; so the looked for a short item, any short item. Then he or she fiddled with the print size so it would just fit. That's what editors at The Moncton TandT (and many other papers) call selecting news for importance and context.
The big news items of the day didn't make it at all.
North Korea, which has nuclear bombs, seems now to have developed a missile to fire them. But, no problem. The US will handle it diplomatically, No need to panic.
On the other hand, Iran, which doesn't have a bomb and, according to serious sources, is probably not developing one, is the greatest threat to world peace today. Obama has been stepping up the rhetoric, and is now almost promising war. So why is it no big deal if North Korea has bombs and gets missile, but a terrible threat to the world that a major war is essential?
1. The West can't interfere with North Korea. It sits beside China.
2. Iran has no powerful and protecting neighbour. The US also fears that it will sell oil heavily to China, and will lead the way in dropping the US dollar as the international currency. The US overthrew Iranian democracy back in the 1950s for a similar reason. (The government of Iran had the nerve to want to control its own oil. British, French and American oil companies were righteously indignant.) For almost sixy years, a major concern of US policy has been first to control Iran with a dictatorship and, when that collapsed, to displace the elected government of Iran.
3. Israel wants - and has publicly announced - it wants a war with Iran - and it intends to go to war with or without American approval.
4. Obama is facing an election year. If Obama doesn't support Israel, the Republicans will paint him as a weakling and a coward. If he wants to win this election, he'll have to skate very close to the edge of war - and maybe over the line.
5. Harper has already and on many occasions, said that Canada will go to war if Israel does. (So much for consulting the Canadian people first.)
That could have some profound effects for us. It could easily become a world war. It's kind of important. But the TandT has told us even less about it than it has about shale gas.
Alec Bruce has a good column on the CBC - and the cuts to CBC are particularly important to New Brunswick.
For news, the Irving papers are a disaster. So is private radio. Occasionally, you will find a good journalist in a private radio newsroom. It can happen. But even when it does, the news staff is almost invariably way too small to do an adequate job, often ten times or even more too small.
As for the talk shows, these are mostly pure show biz. Rarely are the hosts particularly knowledgable. Some, many, are so prejudiced they can safely be called bigots.
As well, anyone working in news for private radio knows there are some stories you keep quiet about - anything that would offend an advertiser or annoy anybody important is forbidden. Generally, radio news is an even bigger joke than the Times and Transcript is.
The best news source New Brunswickers have for local, national or international news, almost the only source, is CBC. Harper is forcinig it to cut back. That will have at least two effects.
One is that an already strained news service will be weakened. The other is that news editors will be even more fearful of running stories that might offend the goverment and its friends.
The same will happen with TV- though that's not such a great loss because TV news service was never that great in the first place. TV, by the nature of the medium, has to be pretty lightweight.
Evey province is going to suffer as a result of the CBC cuts; but none more than New Brunswick.
This has nothing to do with personal taste, likes, dislikes, size of audience. There are some facts here. The Irving papers are simply propaganda sheets. and peddlers of triviality and ignorance. Private radio news is not something to take seriously. Even the private radio stations don't take it seriously. So why should you?
April 10: today's blog will be a little bit late - probably early evening.
It's not my fault. It's somebody else's. I do not know who. I just know it isn't me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)