There's a curious story on p. 1. "SPCA lifted by casino donation." Now, speaking for all the lost dogs and cats of Moncton, I thank the casino. But front page? And it's a long story, running to almost half a page in all. Now, such donations are daily news, with photos, in The Moncton Times and Transcript. You know, two to ten strangers, smiling inanely and holding up a giant-sized cheque. But this is usually inside page stuff. And the casino donation is not an unusually large one. So what gives?
It is certainly possible that the front page editor was sloppy and lazy and had no idea what a front page should be. The rest of the front page would certainly support that thesis. But not everything the TandT does can be blamed on incompetence. And there is another possiblity.
Maybe the casino paid for that story to appear on the front page. That would be sinking pretty low for a nerspaper. But the Irving Press is normally as low as a fracking well. It's quite possible, even likely that the TandT got paid to make that a front page story.
That's pretty well it for Section A, unless you want to be a cheerleader for the Moncton Miracles. They're looking for dancers with talent, personality, commitment and love of community. So I guess it doesn't matter if they're ugly. Count on me for the tryouts.
NewsToday has close to nothing. There's a story on the Commons debate that tells us nothing, another on bad tempers in the NB legislature (who cares?) There's a story that Syria is in a civil war -as if we haven't known that for months - and some restaurant in Vancouber is offering pizzas at $450 each. Nice to know that we all, rich and poor, are sharing the pain of the recession.
Speaking of the Syrian war, the Reuters report is a warning that Russia may be supplying attack helicopters to the Syrian government. Quite possibly so. There's no mention that the west and Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have been supplying weapons and money and mercenaries to the "rebels" since the start of the war. In fact, without those, there wouldnt' be a war. But Reuters always likes to keep it simple. And that reminds me....
I often enough have said that war correspondents are liars and never to be trusted. They rarely mention that US soldiers are committing suicide at the highest rate in American history - one a day. Canadian reporters don't even mention such things. Nor do they mention the rate of broken homes, shattered minds, and homelessness - or how Canada has been cutting the very limited help it gives them.
Instead of remembering the tragedies of war and what we really owe to those who had to fight, we glamorize it with 'highways to heroes', hypocritic speeches on Nov. 11, and a festive 'celebration' of the War of 1812. Lots of flags. Lots of pictures of the Queen. Of course, there's a reason for that.
Canadian society has to be militarized, as American society already is. Police forces in the US are already being equipped and trained to fight their next enemy - the American people. Within months, in the great American democracy, the army will have the right to imprison and to torture American citizens with no charge, no trial. (You sure it's not important to study Harper's omnibus bill very carefully?)
There is, in Ottawa, a handsome monument to those who served as peacekeepers. We were once openly proud of them. Such a monument today would be unthinkable. Peacekeeping is sneered at by generals who want lots of new, shiny weapons. When was the last time you heard a politician praising peacekeeping? No. That's out. War is now officially glamorous and ballsy. That 's because the big plan now is to fight lots of wars, lots, as part of the NATO wing of the US military.
Of course, the war correspondents don't mention that. And that sort of lying by omission has been the stock in trade of journalists for over a century. Want to see a story that never made the papers? Look for a magazine, the June issue. of Literary Review of Canada (LRC)., p. 9, "Buried Atrocities".
Sixty Canadian soldiers in the Korean War were charged and convicted of multiple rapes and killings of civilians. There's nothing unusual about that. The number of Canadians (and Americans and French and British, and Turk, and South Koreans, and North Koreans) who were guilty of rape and murder in that war - as in any war) was many, many times those who got charged.
These sixty Canadians were the ones who were found guilty, receiving anywhere from two years to life. All were immediately returned to Canada - and promptly released from prison.
The same has been true in every army that ever existed. Lt. William Calley was convicted of murdering 120 civilians, including babies in Vietnam. (The real number was closer to 800). He spent one night in jail.
In World War I, Canadians were notorious (among their allies) for beating, torturing and murdering prisoners.
In all cases, any war correspondent who mentioned any of this was subject to punishment. No wonder they lie.
None of this is to criticize anybody in our mlitary, including the murderers and rapists. This is what war is about. This is what it does to people. It's not glamorous. It's not ennobling. But we have to be made to think it is. We have to be made to think our soldiers in Afghanistan (and, perhaps) in Syria and Iran and Pakistan and all over Africa die to protect our freedom and independence.
Damn right. You never know when those Syrians might invade Canada.
The op ed page has the usual personal, irrelevant and boring stories, this time by Eric Lewis and Brian Cormier, from the bottomless pit of the TandT's personal, irrelevant and boring writers.
Then, there's Alec Bruce. I think he's entirely wrong, shockingly wrong. (maybe even schlockingly wrong - if you know any Yiddish.)
The omnibus bill is anti-democratic because most Canadians have very little idea of what is in it. We have no opportunity to read it, discuss it, or to hear varying opinions. The omnibus bill was created to deny us that basic right of any democracy. And it is not possible in the time allotted for even the best prepared mps to discuss the meanings of this bill.
To day that such a huge budget bill is okay becaause all issues involve money is nonsense. If that were true, then we would need only one, huge bill per year; then everybody could go home after a month.
It any case, it is not clear to me why harmonizing our border rules with the US is essentially a budget matter. It has to do with basic rights of all Canadians; and the police state behaviour of American border control does not seem to be to be compatible with any notion of freedom and democracy I have very heard of.
What does allowing more pollution from oil have to do with the budget? Abandoning large areas of fisheries protection? Cracking down on EI abusers? Hell, all the EI abusers in New Brunswick are pipsqueaks compared to the corporate gangsters who run this province.
Then there's the whole basic philosophy of this budget. The recession was not caused by welfare recipients - not here, not in Greece, not in Spain, not in Britain, not in Italy. It was caused by irresponsible and sometimes criminal bankers and corporate leaders.
The rest of us had to borrow mountains of money to bail them out - so they could then give each other multi-million dollar bonusses as rewards for their Christian endeavours.
It was also caused by economic policies over the last thirty years which have encouraged national profits to go into the pockets of the rich at a mad rate of escalation for each year - which has meant decreasing prosperity for the rest of us.
At the same time, we have signed free trade agreements to let the rich exploit cheap labour in other countries, thus reducing the number of jobs here.
That's what caused a recession, and one which we haven't even begun to suffer. (Well, I guess we could add to that the massive cost of wars to help oil billionaires become trillionaires, and the stunning levels of corruption in the defence industries.)
So now we're all supposed fall in line as billionaires run through the streets accusing the poor and elderly of causing all the problems. And that answer of the western countries?
We have too many unemployed? Too much money is going to the rich?
Duh, says Parker. Fire more people. Cut taxes to the rich so they keep even more. And get after those welfare bums. If there weren't lazy, they'be be rich like me and Mr. Irving and all our friends.
Firing people and cutting budgets has never worked to cure a recession. What it has done is to make things worse - including worsening damage to the environment, to people's health, and to their lives.
No, Alec. I really would like a little more time to learn about this omnibus bill and to think about it.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
June 12: First things first
Most newspapers of any quality place the most important news of the day on the front page. This is the news that we need to know about. Currently, for example, the Canadian government is ramming through the longest and most complex piece of legislation in the history of this country. It will profoundly affect most of us, probably all of us, for the rest of our lives.
This is the time we need to be fully informed of what the bill is about, what it's implications are; we need discussion; we need to hear the reasoned opinions of the people we elected. Even those among us who voted for Harper have a right to know what he is doing (and the majority of us didn't vote for Harper.)
But not one Candian in a thousand knows what is in that bill, let along what effects it all might have. Even our elected m.p.s don't have time to read it all; and certainly no time to think through its implications. After all, it's well over 500 pages long. Nor is it at all like reading a 500 page novel - because it's not on one topic. It's not one story. It's hundreds of stories, most of them quite different and separate from the others, and all requiring special knowledge and training to understand them.
And some of them may have very profound consequences, very profound indeed - cuts to environmental protection and energy alternatives, major changes in EI, in pensions, in fisheries - and so many others that nobody even knows what they all are.
This is the most arrogant and undemocratic procedure this country has ever seen. It is also one that will affect the lives of all of us and our children and, quite likely, our children's children. It's safe to say this is the most important piece of legislation ever presented in Canada. But we and our elected representatives aren't going to get a chance to discuss it or even to know what it's all about before it passes.
For that matter, most of the Conservtives who vote for it will be doing so without themselves even knowing about it.
Say goodbye to democracy. (Actually, as many New Brunswickers know, democracy has been gone for a long time.)
Here is a story of major importance for the tremendous sweep of the bill, the radical changes proposed in it, the general ignorance of what it's all about, the speed with which it's being pushed through, the fact that it's being pushed by a government that has only minority support across Canada.
From the little bit we do know, it looks as though Harper is throwing away any chance to deal with climate change; it looks as though lower income Canadians are facing disaster; it looks as though we're going to be tied even more closely to the hysteria that is driving the US into war after war, taking us with it, and ever closer to a nuclear war. And all of this is in what is called a budget bill.
But that's not enough to make the front page of The Moncton Times and Transcript. No, sir. The big story is that a man injured in a parking lot is getting better. The Moncton Peace Centre is moving into new offices. A farmer is facing SPCA charges. And the budget bill?
Section C. Page 1. At the bottom
And at that, it tells us nothing. The tone is set by the headline. Take a look at it. You'll think the story is about a pyjama party. And, as reported in the TandT, it is. Just a pyjama party.
To get a sense of how dangerous this omnibus bill probably is, take a look at the editorial and op end pages for Gwynne Dyer and David Suzuki, both of them a good deal more intelligent than Stephen Harper.
And be scared. Be very scared.
Next time you're in a supermarket checkout line, look over one of tabloids at the counter. You know, the ones with headlines like "Brad Pitt has shocking addiction to ice cream." "Shocking revelation: Kate's baby will be next Dalai Lama." "Prophecy says world will end if you do not buy this paper."
These tabloids are written for morons whose whole lives are wasted in triviality. The Moncton Times and Tribune is not a serious newspaper. But it's not quite a cheap tabloid, either. It isn't designed to appeal to morons.
It is designed, quite deliberately designed, to create morons out of intelligent people by highlighting trivia and ignoring reality.
For a prime example of the style, read Alan Cochrane's"opinion" piece at the top of the op ed page.
The behaviour of people like Harper and Alward and, yes, the Irvings, is destroying the fundamental rules of our political and social system. That's all very nice if you are prepared to put a new and workable system in place. But they aren't. They're arrogant enough and ignorant enough to presume they are.
But they are simply working on greed, arrogance, ignorance - and a severe case of short-sightedness.
That's what causes social systems to collapse - something I really don't look forward to because any such collapse is commonly followed by something even worse. Think of the Russian tsars, and then of Stalin. Or, as is more likely in this case, think of Germany's Weimar Republic and then of Hitler.
Democracy is far the best way to go. But we don't have much time to get it back.
This is the time we need to be fully informed of what the bill is about, what it's implications are; we need discussion; we need to hear the reasoned opinions of the people we elected. Even those among us who voted for Harper have a right to know what he is doing (and the majority of us didn't vote for Harper.)
But not one Candian in a thousand knows what is in that bill, let along what effects it all might have. Even our elected m.p.s don't have time to read it all; and certainly no time to think through its implications. After all, it's well over 500 pages long. Nor is it at all like reading a 500 page novel - because it's not on one topic. It's not one story. It's hundreds of stories, most of them quite different and separate from the others, and all requiring special knowledge and training to understand them.
And some of them may have very profound consequences, very profound indeed - cuts to environmental protection and energy alternatives, major changes in EI, in pensions, in fisheries - and so many others that nobody even knows what they all are.
This is the most arrogant and undemocratic procedure this country has ever seen. It is also one that will affect the lives of all of us and our children and, quite likely, our children's children. It's safe to say this is the most important piece of legislation ever presented in Canada. But we and our elected representatives aren't going to get a chance to discuss it or even to know what it's all about before it passes.
For that matter, most of the Conservtives who vote for it will be doing so without themselves even knowing about it.
Say goodbye to democracy. (Actually, as many New Brunswickers know, democracy has been gone for a long time.)
Here is a story of major importance for the tremendous sweep of the bill, the radical changes proposed in it, the general ignorance of what it's all about, the speed with which it's being pushed through, the fact that it's being pushed by a government that has only minority support across Canada.
From the little bit we do know, it looks as though Harper is throwing away any chance to deal with climate change; it looks as though lower income Canadians are facing disaster; it looks as though we're going to be tied even more closely to the hysteria that is driving the US into war after war, taking us with it, and ever closer to a nuclear war. And all of this is in what is called a budget bill.
But that's not enough to make the front page of The Moncton Times and Transcript. No, sir. The big story is that a man injured in a parking lot is getting better. The Moncton Peace Centre is moving into new offices. A farmer is facing SPCA charges. And the budget bill?
Section C. Page 1. At the bottom
And at that, it tells us nothing. The tone is set by the headline. Take a look at it. You'll think the story is about a pyjama party. And, as reported in the TandT, it is. Just a pyjama party.
To get a sense of how dangerous this omnibus bill probably is, take a look at the editorial and op end pages for Gwynne Dyer and David Suzuki, both of them a good deal more intelligent than Stephen Harper.
And be scared. Be very scared.
Next time you're in a supermarket checkout line, look over one of tabloids at the counter. You know, the ones with headlines like "Brad Pitt has shocking addiction to ice cream." "Shocking revelation: Kate's baby will be next Dalai Lama." "Prophecy says world will end if you do not buy this paper."
These tabloids are written for morons whose whole lives are wasted in triviality. The Moncton Times and Tribune is not a serious newspaper. But it's not quite a cheap tabloid, either. It isn't designed to appeal to morons.
It is designed, quite deliberately designed, to create morons out of intelligent people by highlighting trivia and ignoring reality.
For a prime example of the style, read Alan Cochrane's"opinion" piece at the top of the op ed page.
The behaviour of people like Harper and Alward and, yes, the Irvings, is destroying the fundamental rules of our political and social system. That's all very nice if you are prepared to put a new and workable system in place. But they aren't. They're arrogant enough and ignorant enough to presume they are.
But they are simply working on greed, arrogance, ignorance - and a severe case of short-sightedness.
That's what causes social systems to collapse - something I really don't look forward to because any such collapse is commonly followed by something even worse. Think of the Russian tsars, and then of Stalin. Or, as is more likely in this case, think of Germany's Weimar Republic and then of Hitler.
Democracy is far the best way to go. But we don't have much time to get it back.
Monday, June 11, 2012
June 11: A vicious attack on Premier Alward
Every day, I remain in touch with old friends in journalism - mostly in Montreal, but also scattered to London, Japan, and China. Their politics range anywhere from moderate liberal to neo-conservative and libertarian. (Contrary to a common impression, most journalists are not raving leftists. Most of those I have known are leftists of any sort. The contrast between most western journalists and those in the Irving press is not a political one. The contrast is that most journalists have some sense of ethics. Okay. The word some comes in very small letters.)
When I told them the New Brunswick government was presenting a bill which would forbid doctors from taking public positions on issues of public health, even the most conservative were astonished - and would not believe me. They back in posts that were frequently rude, that this could not happen in a western democracy - that I was making it up. I had to send them news reports and descriptions of the bill. Now, they want me to keep them daily informed of what on earth is going on in this bizarre province.
According to today's Section A., not much is going on. Of its 8 pages, five are stories of people walking or running to help some cause; and there is, of course, the standard picture of smiling people holding up a huge checque. The resmaining three pages are mostly ads and obituaries.
Page two has its standard interview with almost the only professor the TandT ever interviews, Donald Savoie of U de M. It refers to him as "Savoie...the acclaimed researcher..." (Hint, if a newspaper has to say you're acclaimed, you aren't.)
Savoie's gist is we have to cut government spending. That's also the Harper line, and it's the line of the European bankers who are plunging Greece and and Ireland and Spain and other into prolonged and profound poverty and suffering.
We could cut spending dramatically with rather stricter standards of what honesty in government means, and with fewer gifts to billionaaires. And that would certainly be a good start. But there is no record of any country ever breaking out of recession simply by cutting spending. Quite the contrary. Governments that cut spending made the great depression of the 1930s worse. Business didn't care because all the desperately cheap labour available meant they could maintain high profits, even with lower sales. Employers like the Eaton's stores could fire employees just weeks before they were to retire, thus cutting their obligation to pay pensions. Paid holiday were cancelled. Overtime became compulsory and unpaid. Women could be hired for ten cents an hour to sew shirts for Eatonia. Big farm produce buyers like Macdonald Tobacco, meat packing companies, retail chains could skip the usual auctions and simply offer a basement price to farmers, saying "take it or leave it".
What broke the depression was not cuttinig government spending. It was increasing government spending. Afther all, people can't buy until they have money to buy with and can't pay taxes until they have money to pay them. And how could we start that without raising the deficit?
Well, geegolly, maybe we could tax the rich. But you won't hear Professor Savoie saying much about that. In Greece, people are actually starving to death, and the suicide rate is skyrocketing, all because of a financial crisis created by the rich, and their refusal to pay their share of taxes for the huge debt they created.
So what's going to happen in Europe? Well, we've been there. We've been through social disorder, fascism and world war. And that's where we're heading now. The acclaimed Donald Savoie might consider that next time he's doing his acclaimed research.
Oh, they also quote the acclaimed Donald Cirtwill of the acclaimed Atlantic Institute of Market Studies - who isn't an economist at all. He's a statistician. an acclaimed one, I am sure; but still just a statistician. For an interview on economics, it would have made just as much sense to have interviewed an acclaimed plumber.
The person only person in the whole story who looks as though he might have had something intelligent to say was UNB professor David Murrell who is an economist. But it's hard to tell. they gave him only one sentence - at the bottom of the story. Maybe he's not acclaimed. (Ever notice, too, how often the TandT refers to Irving as a philanthopist? It seems to be a rule. Environmentalists are terrorists. Proressor Savoie is acclaimed. Irving is a philanthopist.)
NewsToday is five pages of ads, a business page that, as usual, says nothing, and two pages of news - in which the lead story is that people who don't get enough sleep tend to eat junk food. With the whole world trembling at the edge of eonomic collapse, severe social unrest,multi-wars, some of which have the potential to go nuclear, the big story is a warning to get more sleep.
There's also a poll (commissioned by Postmedia) showing that Harper is the most popular leader in Canada, and that the NDP has not made much progress. There's no mention that a poll of last week showed directly opposite results. Perhaps some editor was feeling dozey again.
Norbert Cunningham criticizes premier Alward for lush and overpaid patronage appointments. He says these contradict his election promises. Quite true. But then Norbert adds that nobody believed his promises, anyway.
Gee whiz, Norbert, are you saying the premier is a liar? Are you saying the people of New Brunswick are so stupid they voted for an obvious liar? Are you saying that you knew even during the election that he was lying?
Well, Norbert, why didn't you tell us stupid people he was lying? I mean, you had a daily column to do it in. And you've had hundreds more since the election.
And Norbert's solution for the problem of paying Mrs. Blaney an annual salary of $175,000 for ten years for doing nothing in particular? Why, fire more lower level civil servants. Yeah. And cut the salaries of those you keep. Yeah. I mean, who needs to have anybody to organize vast programmes like health and education and justice, and road mainenance. We can get by with just a few, cheap civil servants.
Oh, sure. Big business heeds it's 'civil servants' and 'bureaucrats'. But we don't call them that, and they're way higher paid than civil servants. But it's different. We don't have to pay for them. (Really, Norbert? Who the hell do you think puts up the money for a million dollar CEO? The tooth fairy?)
Alec Bruce's column is with the extra work to read it. At first, it looks like nothing special - but it can get you thinking toward some profound conclusions. In brief, innovations and inventions don't change the world. It's our willingness to change our ways and adopt something new that changes the world. Think - solar power is new. Fossil fuels like shale gas are not. Grade our governments and business leades from one to ten on their willingness to change.
The op ed page is the usual zero.
But there is an important message in this edition. Mr. Alward is a liar. Every political leader of New Brunswick for the past fifty years has been a liar. I didn't say that. I am just quoting Norbert. Well, I'm sorry he kept it secret for so long. But at least he's now out of the closet.
Can we now hope to see a similar exposé of Irving press editors?
When I told them the New Brunswick government was presenting a bill which would forbid doctors from taking public positions on issues of public health, even the most conservative were astonished - and would not believe me. They back in posts that were frequently rude, that this could not happen in a western democracy - that I was making it up. I had to send them news reports and descriptions of the bill. Now, they want me to keep them daily informed of what on earth is going on in this bizarre province.
According to today's Section A., not much is going on. Of its 8 pages, five are stories of people walking or running to help some cause; and there is, of course, the standard picture of smiling people holding up a huge checque. The resmaining three pages are mostly ads and obituaries.
Page two has its standard interview with almost the only professor the TandT ever interviews, Donald Savoie of U de M. It refers to him as "Savoie...the acclaimed researcher..." (Hint, if a newspaper has to say you're acclaimed, you aren't.)
Savoie's gist is we have to cut government spending. That's also the Harper line, and it's the line of the European bankers who are plunging Greece and and Ireland and Spain and other into prolonged and profound poverty and suffering.
We could cut spending dramatically with rather stricter standards of what honesty in government means, and with fewer gifts to billionaaires. And that would certainly be a good start. But there is no record of any country ever breaking out of recession simply by cutting spending. Quite the contrary. Governments that cut spending made the great depression of the 1930s worse. Business didn't care because all the desperately cheap labour available meant they could maintain high profits, even with lower sales. Employers like the Eaton's stores could fire employees just weeks before they were to retire, thus cutting their obligation to pay pensions. Paid holiday were cancelled. Overtime became compulsory and unpaid. Women could be hired for ten cents an hour to sew shirts for Eatonia. Big farm produce buyers like Macdonald Tobacco, meat packing companies, retail chains could skip the usual auctions and simply offer a basement price to farmers, saying "take it or leave it".
What broke the depression was not cuttinig government spending. It was increasing government spending. Afther all, people can't buy until they have money to buy with and can't pay taxes until they have money to pay them. And how could we start that without raising the deficit?
Well, geegolly, maybe we could tax the rich. But you won't hear Professor Savoie saying much about that. In Greece, people are actually starving to death, and the suicide rate is skyrocketing, all because of a financial crisis created by the rich, and their refusal to pay their share of taxes for the huge debt they created.
So what's going to happen in Europe? Well, we've been there. We've been through social disorder, fascism and world war. And that's where we're heading now. The acclaimed Donald Savoie might consider that next time he's doing his acclaimed research.
Oh, they also quote the acclaimed Donald Cirtwill of the acclaimed Atlantic Institute of Market Studies - who isn't an economist at all. He's a statistician. an acclaimed one, I am sure; but still just a statistician. For an interview on economics, it would have made just as much sense to have interviewed an acclaimed plumber.
The person only person in the whole story who looks as though he might have had something intelligent to say was UNB professor David Murrell who is an economist. But it's hard to tell. they gave him only one sentence - at the bottom of the story. Maybe he's not acclaimed. (Ever notice, too, how often the TandT refers to Irving as a philanthopist? It seems to be a rule. Environmentalists are terrorists. Proressor Savoie is acclaimed. Irving is a philanthopist.)
NewsToday is five pages of ads, a business page that, as usual, says nothing, and two pages of news - in which the lead story is that people who don't get enough sleep tend to eat junk food. With the whole world trembling at the edge of eonomic collapse, severe social unrest,multi-wars, some of which have the potential to go nuclear, the big story is a warning to get more sleep.
There's also a poll (commissioned by Postmedia) showing that Harper is the most popular leader in Canada, and that the NDP has not made much progress. There's no mention that a poll of last week showed directly opposite results. Perhaps some editor was feeling dozey again.
Norbert Cunningham criticizes premier Alward for lush and overpaid patronage appointments. He says these contradict his election promises. Quite true. But then Norbert adds that nobody believed his promises, anyway.
Gee whiz, Norbert, are you saying the premier is a liar? Are you saying the people of New Brunswick are so stupid they voted for an obvious liar? Are you saying that you knew even during the election that he was lying?
Well, Norbert, why didn't you tell us stupid people he was lying? I mean, you had a daily column to do it in. And you've had hundreds more since the election.
And Norbert's solution for the problem of paying Mrs. Blaney an annual salary of $175,000 for ten years for doing nothing in particular? Why, fire more lower level civil servants. Yeah. And cut the salaries of those you keep. Yeah. I mean, who needs to have anybody to organize vast programmes like health and education and justice, and road mainenance. We can get by with just a few, cheap civil servants.
Oh, sure. Big business heeds it's 'civil servants' and 'bureaucrats'. But we don't call them that, and they're way higher paid than civil servants. But it's different. We don't have to pay for them. (Really, Norbert? Who the hell do you think puts up the money for a million dollar CEO? The tooth fairy?)
Alec Bruce's column is with the extra work to read it. At first, it looks like nothing special - but it can get you thinking toward some profound conclusions. In brief, innovations and inventions don't change the world. It's our willingness to change our ways and adopt something new that changes the world. Think - solar power is new. Fossil fuels like shale gas are not. Grade our governments and business leades from one to ten on their willingness to change.
The op ed page is the usual zero.
But there is an important message in this edition. Mr. Alward is a liar. Every political leader of New Brunswick for the past fifty years has been a liar. I didn't say that. I am just quoting Norbert. Well, I'm sorry he kept it secret for so long. But at least he's now out of the closet.
Can we now hope to see a similar exposé of Irving press editors?
Sunday, June 10, 2012
June 10: Miss Marples, killers and shale gas
In the time I worked as a volunteer at a penitentiary near Montreal, I met weekly with some 25 prisoners in a big room. And I never met one who was a criminal.
Loose the goose was a little guy in for robbery. "Hey. I took my chances. I robbed houses at night - but only when people were in them. And I was never violent."
Jean-Guy, a huge and powerful man, broke arms and legs for loan sharks. "Hey. These were business deals."
Matt was in for rape. He specialized in elderly women. He said they like it.
I also met an old friend there who had made his mark as the city's top armed robbery man. "Hey. I took my chances. I had a gun. So I knew the cops might shoot first and ask questions later."
Miss Marples, Agatha Christie's little old lady who solved crimes would have understood that. She solved crimes not so much by evidence, but by understanding how people behave. She would have understood that they really believed they had done nothing wrong. -just like the Irvings, the shale gas promoters, the provincial government which is trying to muzzle doctors so they cannot speak on the dangers of shale gas, the editors and reporters of The Moncton Times and Transcript, and even Bill Beliveau whose most recent column was a model of ----oh----of misleading readers.
Their behaviour will almost certainly lead to widespread and severe damage to New Brunswick, to lives ruined by severe illness, even to premature death. It's almost just now how bad it will be - though the history of shale gas suggests it will be very bad, indeed. But they aren't criminals. Not in their own minds.
Nor, in their own minds, are they are they callously grabbing at money without regard for the sickness and death they are gong to cause. And it is not true that they are willing to destroy and kill in order to get what they want, that they just don't give a damn about what happens to the people who live here. No. Miss Marples would tell you - people don't think that way. "Hey', they will think, "it was perfectly legal. I risked my money. I created jobs. Hey, it was business. Hey, they liked it."
In the US, medical corporations and pill makers use the health system just to make piles of money. The result is that tens of millions of Americans have no health care at all. That's why UN health reports put the US close to statistics for the undeveloped world. The medical corporations and and pill makers are actually klling people by the millions. But they see themselves as operating the finest health system in the world.
That's how we all think about these things. And that's how people who poison and kill think.
I'm sure oil executives lose no sleep over the more than a million Iraqis who were killed so oil billionaires could control of Iraq oil. "Hey. Saddam was a bad man." (Actually, Saddam was no badder than they were.)
Now, the New Brunswick government is moving on a bill to muzzle doctors so they cannot speak publicly on a health issue like shale gas. Well, we're used to that in countries like China and Guatemala. But not here. In a free country, the only people qualified to speak on health issues will not be allowed to. Why? Because it will offend some very rich people. (of course, if one of them sells out and praises shale gas, then that will be all right. The law is worded so that the government can decide what is legal AFTER it has been said.)
Does Mr. Alward think he is not only attacking democracy but contributing to sickness and death?
I''m sure he doesn't. People don't think that way. And there are strong signs that Mr. Alward doesn't think at all.
Those people will not change their manner of thinking. And their manner of thinking will destroy us. If this province is to survive as a livable place, it's the rest of us who have to change our thinking. We have to understand that continuing to submit to people motivated by greed and indifferent to our needs is going to destroy us.
We have to get out of the rut of voting for two parties with a long record of submission and obedience to the rich. We have to make a little bit of effort to wake up and to learn what is happening. We have to stop reading an Irving Press designed to make us brain dead.
There is not much time. Either we stop these people now or, as we love our children, we tell them to get the hell out of this province as soon as they can.
Loose the goose was a little guy in for robbery. "Hey. I took my chances. I robbed houses at night - but only when people were in them. And I was never violent."
Jean-Guy, a huge and powerful man, broke arms and legs for loan sharks. "Hey. These were business deals."
Matt was in for rape. He specialized in elderly women. He said they like it.
I also met an old friend there who had made his mark as the city's top armed robbery man. "Hey. I took my chances. I had a gun. So I knew the cops might shoot first and ask questions later."
Miss Marples, Agatha Christie's little old lady who solved crimes would have understood that. She solved crimes not so much by evidence, but by understanding how people behave. She would have understood that they really believed they had done nothing wrong. -just like the Irvings, the shale gas promoters, the provincial government which is trying to muzzle doctors so they cannot speak on the dangers of shale gas, the editors and reporters of The Moncton Times and Transcript, and even Bill Beliveau whose most recent column was a model of ----oh----of misleading readers.
Their behaviour will almost certainly lead to widespread and severe damage to New Brunswick, to lives ruined by severe illness, even to premature death. It's almost just now how bad it will be - though the history of shale gas suggests it will be very bad, indeed. But they aren't criminals. Not in their own minds.
Nor, in their own minds, are they are they callously grabbing at money without regard for the sickness and death they are gong to cause. And it is not true that they are willing to destroy and kill in order to get what they want, that they just don't give a damn about what happens to the people who live here. No. Miss Marples would tell you - people don't think that way. "Hey', they will think, "it was perfectly legal. I risked my money. I created jobs. Hey, it was business. Hey, they liked it."
In the US, medical corporations and pill makers use the health system just to make piles of money. The result is that tens of millions of Americans have no health care at all. That's why UN health reports put the US close to statistics for the undeveloped world. The medical corporations and and pill makers are actually klling people by the millions. But they see themselves as operating the finest health system in the world.
That's how we all think about these things. And that's how people who poison and kill think.
I'm sure oil executives lose no sleep over the more than a million Iraqis who were killed so oil billionaires could control of Iraq oil. "Hey. Saddam was a bad man." (Actually, Saddam was no badder than they were.)
Now, the New Brunswick government is moving on a bill to muzzle doctors so they cannot speak publicly on a health issue like shale gas. Well, we're used to that in countries like China and Guatemala. But not here. In a free country, the only people qualified to speak on health issues will not be allowed to. Why? Because it will offend some very rich people. (of course, if one of them sells out and praises shale gas, then that will be all right. The law is worded so that the government can decide what is legal AFTER it has been said.)
Does Mr. Alward think he is not only attacking democracy but contributing to sickness and death?
I''m sure he doesn't. People don't think that way. And there are strong signs that Mr. Alward doesn't think at all.
Those people will not change their manner of thinking. And their manner of thinking will destroy us. If this province is to survive as a livable place, it's the rest of us who have to change our thinking. We have to understand that continuing to submit to people motivated by greed and indifferent to our needs is going to destroy us.
We have to get out of the rut of voting for two parties with a long record of submission and obedience to the rich. We have to make a little bit of effort to wake up and to learn what is happening. We have to stop reading an Irving Press designed to make us brain dead.
There is not much time. Either we stop these people now or, as we love our children, we tell them to get the hell out of this province as soon as they can.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
June 10: How the news media got so bad...
Until the 1890s, newspapers were too expensive for most people; and news took a long time to travel. Accordingly, early newspapers were heavy on shipping news, official statements from the colonial governor, legal announcements, and very old and very brief reports of events around the world, reports that might commonly be only a few sentences.
Often, they could be operated only with substantial help from political parties - and sometimes from churches. The Globe depended on help from Liberal backers (called Reformers in those days). In Montreal, Presbyterians sponsored The Witness. Catholics responded with The True Witness. These connections naturally led to some very prejudiced reporting. However, the Presbyterian version figured bigger in Canadian history. It had the first sports columnist in Canada - Elmer Ferguson who would be a major figure in sport reporting for well over half a century.
Three great changes occured, and were felt strongly by the 1890s - cheap paper and printing, the Atlantic cable.to move news quickly, and improvements in the ease of photography. Now, almost everyone could afford a newspaper (which also meant a newspaper could attract more advertising), and quicker, fuller news along with photos to make it far more attractive. These also made the newspaper far more influential.
An early proof of its influence was the Boer War. This was the first big war for the 'new" newspaper, the first great opportunity for war correspondents - and the papers covered that war with the proverbial blanket.
Trouble is, there really wasn't much to report. But correspondents, desperate for a story, any story, found one in a daring British colonel named Baden-Powell who, surrounded by Boer armies, was defending the small town of Mafeking against impossible odds.
Correspondents painted the story up with all the glamour they could invent; and for months the valiant Baden-Powell was the hero of the day around the globe. When a British army got through to relieve Mafeking, Britain when so wild in celebration that even today such a public display is often called 'mafeking'. The British army was not so enthusiastic.
Baden-Powell wasn't supposed to be defending Mafeking. There was no point in defending it - and he wasn't even supposed to be in it. He was supposed to be leading his regiment on hit and run raids behind enemy lines to disrupt their movements. Instead, the fool had got himself bottled up so badly it took months of effort by the British army to get him out. There were mutterings at the top level of a court martial. But they couldn't court martial him.
The newspapers had made the dolt such a hero that the army had no choice but to promote him to general. (However, it was made plain to him that his military career was over. That's what gave Baden-Powell the spare time to found the Boy Scout movement.)
The experience also created the modern war correspondent as the least truthful reporter in the business.
That lesson of the impact of newspapers was quickly picked up by ambitious publishers. William Randolph Hearst used his newspaper empire to start the Spanish-American wars with false reports of an attack by Spaniards on an Americn ship in Havana harbour. He later admitted it; and was proud of it.
A New Brunswick boy named Max Aitken used his newspaper ownerships in Britain to make himself a powerhouse in Britain. The leadership of his party was so worried about his political power that it feared he would become prime minister. That's why they cut him off at the knees by naming him Lord Beaverbrook. He remained a power in the Liberal pary. But his rise in rank effectively ended his chances of becoming party leader.
More recently, Rupert Murdoch has used his power of the press to make British prime ministers dependent on him to win elections. We have recently learned that cabinet meetings of both the Labour and the Conservative governments were always open house for Rupert Murdoch; and he used his power to force acceptance of his very right-wing views.
He also uses Fox News, basing it on the success of his British papers with cheap sensationalism to spread news that is highly biased, usually lying, designed to appeal to morons, and pushing his opinions on politics.
That is pretty much the history of most of the world's press, particularly in North America. It's a history of power exerted by newspaper owners who make sure that certain news never appears, that some news which is featured is, in fact, news that never happened, that newspaper commentaries usually reflect the biases, political interests and business interests of the ownershhip.
Within limits, some newspapers have editors who preserve bits of dignity, honesty and ethics. The Globe does. (Not always. But it does.) And it offers intelligent business coverage and book reviews, several of the best columnists in Canada, and a wide, if not always truthful, coverage of world events.
The National Post is a large notch below The Globe. And it continues downhill from there, reaching abysmal levels in Atlantic Canada, then dropping into a pit of shabbiness, ignorance, bias and distortion with the Irving Press.
The Press in the United States is used as cynically as the worst in Canada. That's why the average American has an extraordinary ignorance of what is going on in the world Very few Americans, for example, have ever heard of the slaughter of Guatemalans by the CIA, of the death tolls for Vietnamese and Iraqis, of the failure of the US to deliver any significant aid to Haiti, of those Americans who ae now in prison without charge or trial, of the stunning levels of curruption in congress., of the role of the US in propping up some of the world's worst dictators.. It's almost all loaded language and hysteria.
Much of the world press is no better. And, in countries like China, it's at least as bad with a state controlled press (just as one often finds state-controlled newspapers in much of the American empire. (Incidentally, most Americans -and, perhaps, Canadians - would be astonished to hear there is an American empire.)
One has to search very hard to find good newspapers. Cheap production, the Atlantic cable, and photography created a medium with tremendous potential. But it was largely ruined from the start to become a seller of pills and prejudices and ignorance and lies.
The major newsmagazines like Time and MacLean's, alas, are no better. The best I know of are British - The Economist (right of centre) and all those military and intelligence reviews whose titles begin - Jane's.
So there are some good ones. Better still, it's a big help to remember the basic rules of human behaviour. Think, for example, of the story in a current "Time" special edition. One story is about how the US invaded Afghanistan to make it a happier country. Now, many people, made brain-dead by years of reading newspapers, will believe that. But, come on. You know people and governments do not behave that way.
You don't try to make people happier by invading their country and killing tens of thousands. And why would the American government try to make people happy by killing them and spending a trillion dollars on it when when they could make a lot of people a lot happier by giving them real aid?
Common sense is the most important thing you need to understand the news.
Often, they could be operated only with substantial help from political parties - and sometimes from churches. The Globe depended on help from Liberal backers (called Reformers in those days). In Montreal, Presbyterians sponsored The Witness. Catholics responded with The True Witness. These connections naturally led to some very prejudiced reporting. However, the Presbyterian version figured bigger in Canadian history. It had the first sports columnist in Canada - Elmer Ferguson who would be a major figure in sport reporting for well over half a century.
Three great changes occured, and were felt strongly by the 1890s - cheap paper and printing, the Atlantic cable.to move news quickly, and improvements in the ease of photography. Now, almost everyone could afford a newspaper (which also meant a newspaper could attract more advertising), and quicker, fuller news along with photos to make it far more attractive. These also made the newspaper far more influential.
An early proof of its influence was the Boer War. This was the first big war for the 'new" newspaper, the first great opportunity for war correspondents - and the papers covered that war with the proverbial blanket.
Trouble is, there really wasn't much to report. But correspondents, desperate for a story, any story, found one in a daring British colonel named Baden-Powell who, surrounded by Boer armies, was defending the small town of Mafeking against impossible odds.
Correspondents painted the story up with all the glamour they could invent; and for months the valiant Baden-Powell was the hero of the day around the globe. When a British army got through to relieve Mafeking, Britain when so wild in celebration that even today such a public display is often called 'mafeking'. The British army was not so enthusiastic.
Baden-Powell wasn't supposed to be defending Mafeking. There was no point in defending it - and he wasn't even supposed to be in it. He was supposed to be leading his regiment on hit and run raids behind enemy lines to disrupt their movements. Instead, the fool had got himself bottled up so badly it took months of effort by the British army to get him out. There were mutterings at the top level of a court martial. But they couldn't court martial him.
The newspapers had made the dolt such a hero that the army had no choice but to promote him to general. (However, it was made plain to him that his military career was over. That's what gave Baden-Powell the spare time to found the Boy Scout movement.)
The experience also created the modern war correspondent as the least truthful reporter in the business.
That lesson of the impact of newspapers was quickly picked up by ambitious publishers. William Randolph Hearst used his newspaper empire to start the Spanish-American wars with false reports of an attack by Spaniards on an Americn ship in Havana harbour. He later admitted it; and was proud of it.
A New Brunswick boy named Max Aitken used his newspaper ownerships in Britain to make himself a powerhouse in Britain. The leadership of his party was so worried about his political power that it feared he would become prime minister. That's why they cut him off at the knees by naming him Lord Beaverbrook. He remained a power in the Liberal pary. But his rise in rank effectively ended his chances of becoming party leader.
More recently, Rupert Murdoch has used his power of the press to make British prime ministers dependent on him to win elections. We have recently learned that cabinet meetings of both the Labour and the Conservative governments were always open house for Rupert Murdoch; and he used his power to force acceptance of his very right-wing views.
He also uses Fox News, basing it on the success of his British papers with cheap sensationalism to spread news that is highly biased, usually lying, designed to appeal to morons, and pushing his opinions on politics.
That is pretty much the history of most of the world's press, particularly in North America. It's a history of power exerted by newspaper owners who make sure that certain news never appears, that some news which is featured is, in fact, news that never happened, that newspaper commentaries usually reflect the biases, political interests and business interests of the ownershhip.
Within limits, some newspapers have editors who preserve bits of dignity, honesty and ethics. The Globe does. (Not always. But it does.) And it offers intelligent business coverage and book reviews, several of the best columnists in Canada, and a wide, if not always truthful, coverage of world events.
The National Post is a large notch below The Globe. And it continues downhill from there, reaching abysmal levels in Atlantic Canada, then dropping into a pit of shabbiness, ignorance, bias and distortion with the Irving Press.
The Press in the United States is used as cynically as the worst in Canada. That's why the average American has an extraordinary ignorance of what is going on in the world Very few Americans, for example, have ever heard of the slaughter of Guatemalans by the CIA, of the death tolls for Vietnamese and Iraqis, of the failure of the US to deliver any significant aid to Haiti, of those Americans who ae now in prison without charge or trial, of the stunning levels of curruption in congress., of the role of the US in propping up some of the world's worst dictators.. It's almost all loaded language and hysteria.
Much of the world press is no better. And, in countries like China, it's at least as bad with a state controlled press (just as one often finds state-controlled newspapers in much of the American empire. (Incidentally, most Americans -and, perhaps, Canadians - would be astonished to hear there is an American empire.)
One has to search very hard to find good newspapers. Cheap production, the Atlantic cable, and photography created a medium with tremendous potential. But it was largely ruined from the start to become a seller of pills and prejudices and ignorance and lies.
The major newsmagazines like Time and MacLean's, alas, are no better. The best I know of are British - The Economist (right of centre) and all those military and intelligence reviews whose titles begin - Jane's.
So there are some good ones. Better still, it's a big help to remember the basic rules of human behaviour. Think, for example, of the story in a current "Time" special edition. One story is about how the US invaded Afghanistan to make it a happier country. Now, many people, made brain-dead by years of reading newspapers, will believe that. But, come on. You know people and governments do not behave that way.
You don't try to make people happier by invading their country and killing tens of thousands. And why would the American government try to make people happy by killing them and spending a trillion dollars on it when when they could make a lot of people a lot happier by giving them real aid?
Common sense is the most important thing you need to understand the news.
June 9:Wow! an NHL player will visit Moncton....
Front page, for sure. And that reminds me - my uncle was a big number in the Montreal sports world; and his New Year's Eve parties frequently featured many of the Montreal Canadiens. Occasionally, when I was a child I would meet some of them - like Maurice Richard, Toe Blake. Perhaps the TandT would like to run a big interview with me, inspirational talks to high schools, photos (nudes possible, but only in good taste.)
Of course, minor stories have to get brushed aside to make room for hockey players, pictures of smiling people handing out cheques, etc. Or perhpas I missed it. (Though I don't think so.) Our major collection of relics of aboriginal peoples and Acadians is being moved from this region to Ottawa - meaning that most aboriginal peoples and Acadians will never get to see it, and research that relies on them will become difficult..
I cannot recall seeing this story in the TandT. And I'm quite sure it never appeared.
There is also a "Special Report" on p. 1 about census returns showing low wages in New Brunswick, and out migration of young people. Big surprise.
The low wages have been encouraged as policy by the Moncton Times and Transcript. It makes us attractive to business - you know - like Haiti and Congo are attractive to business. All that will ever change that is stronger unions. But I cannot think of a single example in which The Moncton Times and Transcript has ever supported a union. Quite the contrary. It normally makes a point of spouting rant and rage in the editorials when there's a strike. (Transpo springs to mind as a recent example.)
The big boss, the real one, wants cheap labour. Greed is good in big business. Greed is what makes progress possible. But it's bad for workers. In fact, even wanting enough to live on is bad for workers.
As to young people leaving, of course they are. They'd be damn fools not to. Why live in a province run, in effect, by a dictator who became wealthy by ripping every else off? Why live in a province that routinely votes for two parties that have sold them to the big boss. Why live in a province in which the governments are obviously incompetent and puppets? Why live in a city that is intellectually a corpse, a city that tolerates a newspaper as shoddy as the Times and Transcript? A city in which a visit by a hockey player is a major cultural event? In which city council is even more inept and incompetent than the provincial government? And why do all that for a lousy wage?
Moncton could be an attractive place to live. The possibilities are strong. The education system is excellent. The people are friendly. But, at bottom, this is nothing more than a company town run by hacks to please the (arrogant) owner. Those who are going are young. And they're right.
And that is pretty much section A.
In NewsToday, Harper is continuing his answer to the recession - firing people by the tens of thousands, cutting services for those who badly need them and, for the rich who are making their biggest profits in history, holding down taxes. His solution to the recession is to cause more poverty while making the rich even richer.
That is exactly the policy that did NOT work in the 1930s. Then, governments cut budgets while the rich made enormous profits. (Yes, they did. Check for the report of The Royal Commission on Price Spreads and Mass Buying - 1935). The great depression was ended by government spending, not by cuts. So why aren't they spending now?
Because big business isn't hurting. Recession and unemployment mean even cheaper workers, and higher profits driven by that cheap labour. And free trade agreements mean they don't have to give a damn about the Canadian market or the Canadian people. Nor does Harper.
Reports on Syria continue to deal out purple prose on the killing of civilians - though it is still not clear who is killing them. Nor is it mentioned that the West and Saudi Arabia are supplying the weapons and money for the rebels. And, certainly, there is no mention that Bahrain (on our side) has been killing civilians for some time, now. And, certainly, no mention that the world's biggest killer of civilians over the past decade and more has been the US, with substantial help from Britain.
As for the Montreal proesters, the Irving press is the first to suggest that violence has returned. "Montreal grand prix protest brings violence, nudity, to the streets...." In fact, the story mentions very little violence - and it ends with a quotation that the only significant violence came from the police.
Of course, editors know that most readers will look at only the headline and the sub-head - while relatively few will read to the end. So an editor can safely lie through a whole story, then tell the truth at the end knowing that few will read that far.
The editorial is a wordy piece of puffery about the Royal Oaks high school - full of statements in which the editor has no idea what he's talking about. It tells us in glowing words that it is a "regional" school, as shown by its generous dimensions.
Dimensions have nothing to do with whether a school is regional. I have attended and taught in high schools that were bigger in student numbers and dimentions than the proposed one. And they were not regional. The area of those schools was about that of Moncton High - and those schools were neither cramped nor unhealthy - despited the preaching of the TandT. And---oooooh - it will have a library. And a cafeteria. and a double gymn. Gee. I never heard of that before - except in every school I have ever taught in. What wonder will we hear of next? Desks?
But it's not just a design, it's a 'concept'. Right. But as I look at the 'concept' it looks very much like any high school built in Canada in the last 50 years and more.
And all those 'concepts' could be built into the existing MHS, along with better health conditions far cheaper than the uninspired project the new school seems to be.
Oh, yeah. And the new 'concept' has no auditorium. I have never taught, even in older schools, in a high school that did not have an auditorium. I was a student at MHS (Montreal High) that is now almost a century old. It had a big auditorium - and a library and a cafeteria, and specialized art and technical drawing rooms and a double gymn. Nobody ever called it a concept, though. It did, however, manage to produce Christopher Plummer and Oscar Peterson, not to mention generations of leading professionals.
Bill Belliveau usually does his homework before writing a column. He can also be highly prejudiced. Today's column on the shale gas forum shows him at his worst in both respects.
He says that most presentations were made without prejudice. Bullshit, Bill. I read many of those presentations. They came from industry representatives - and they were prejudiced to the point of lying. And I noted one - by a professor - that was completely off the point - but designed to create a favourable view toward shale gas. But that may have been too subtle for Bill.
He claims that the anti-shale gas people deal only in emotion and fear. They don't have 'factual' aguments like the shale gas supporters.
1. It is a fact that many governments ban shale gas fracking because of its record of damage.
2. It is a fact that pumping toxic chemicals into our fresh water supply is rather a dangerous thing to do. (It is also a fact that our fresh water is in much shorter supply than most people realize.)
3.It is a fact, admitted even by one of the industry speakers (though disguised as an innocent statement of no great importance) that leakage from old wells (and even new ones) is a serious health problem - and one with no cure in sight.
4. It is not a fact that the industry will produce 2,500 jobs and $650 million a year. That is, as Bill says, an estimate (by the industry spokesmen). Too bad he includes this in a paragraph talking about facts.
5. Conference speakers (mostly industry and friends) were emphatic about the need for tough regulations and public approval, says Bill. Really? Then they must be terribly shy, because they haven't said a word about either for a dozen years. Who was stopping them?
6. Bill asks, "Can we afford to be radical environmentalists?" Notice the word 'radical'? Just like them there moslem terrorists. Exactly what is a radical environmentalist, Bill? You know, as compared to an ordinary one.
7.Bill - if you are going to pretend to be logical, please learn what the word 'factual' means. It is not the simple matter you appear to think it is.
This is a thoroughly prejudiced column. Maybe he believes all that he is saying. I certainly hope so. Because if he doesn't, this is a thoroughly dishonest column.
By the way - he mentions academics as trusted sources for most people. If so, then most people would be wise to be more cautious. Academics are rarely so wise as they think they are. On many issues, espcially in a province like New Brunswick, many of them are frightened into silence. As well, and I regret to say this, some are quite dishonest -and open to offers from think-tanks like Heartland Institute, and even lesser ones.
Brent Mazerolle, as usual, wastes space with a pointless story about yet another experience of no great importance that he had. Even Gwynne Dyer seems pretty unfocussed this time.
As an historian, I was drawn by a letter from someone who says, in defence of Crandall's homophobia, that society no longer tolerates Christian beliefs. Well, why should it? After all, even Christians have never tolerated Christian beliefs.
The slaughter of Jews in the holocaust was supported by Nazi Christians who, much like our own Baptists, felt that it was religiously justified. Canada refused to accept Jews fleeing Hitler's Germany from the 1930a, and right through the war and even after - though Canada knew quite well what aws happening to them. And the deputy minister of immigration who refused them was national Sunday School superintendent for a major church. He was supported by the prime minister, who always attended church, and cried when he sang hymns.
If you take the trouble to look at church thinking a century ago, and even more recently, you will find it soaked in racism.
The British and French armies that fought two wars with China to force the Chinese government to allow the sale of opium in China were Christian. The king of Spain (and the church leaders) who tortured Jews and then expelled them all, was Christian.
Our ancestors who slaughtered native peoples and stole their land were Christians.
The Americans who killed millions of civilians (including the Christian president) in Vietnam were Christians. The crusaders who freely killed, raped, plundered Moslems were Christian.
The head of the CIA when it murdered a quarter million innocent Guatemalans, and killed Christian clergy who supported their congregations, was the Christian George Bush sr.
When was this magic age when we Christians were so tolerant of Christian beliefs?
And aren't we being just a little selective when we decide what is a Christian belief?
I have a disrespect for Crandall not because of its Christian beliefs but because it is so damned un Christian. And it's worst abuse of the faith is its self-righteousness.
Of course, minor stories have to get brushed aside to make room for hockey players, pictures of smiling people handing out cheques, etc. Or perhpas I missed it. (Though I don't think so.) Our major collection of relics of aboriginal peoples and Acadians is being moved from this region to Ottawa - meaning that most aboriginal peoples and Acadians will never get to see it, and research that relies on them will become difficult..
I cannot recall seeing this story in the TandT. And I'm quite sure it never appeared.
There is also a "Special Report" on p. 1 about census returns showing low wages in New Brunswick, and out migration of young people. Big surprise.
The low wages have been encouraged as policy by the Moncton Times and Transcript. It makes us attractive to business - you know - like Haiti and Congo are attractive to business. All that will ever change that is stronger unions. But I cannot think of a single example in which The Moncton Times and Transcript has ever supported a union. Quite the contrary. It normally makes a point of spouting rant and rage in the editorials when there's a strike. (Transpo springs to mind as a recent example.)
The big boss, the real one, wants cheap labour. Greed is good in big business. Greed is what makes progress possible. But it's bad for workers. In fact, even wanting enough to live on is bad for workers.
As to young people leaving, of course they are. They'd be damn fools not to. Why live in a province run, in effect, by a dictator who became wealthy by ripping every else off? Why live in a province that routinely votes for two parties that have sold them to the big boss. Why live in a province in which the governments are obviously incompetent and puppets? Why live in a city that is intellectually a corpse, a city that tolerates a newspaper as shoddy as the Times and Transcript? A city in which a visit by a hockey player is a major cultural event? In which city council is even more inept and incompetent than the provincial government? And why do all that for a lousy wage?
Moncton could be an attractive place to live. The possibilities are strong. The education system is excellent. The people are friendly. But, at bottom, this is nothing more than a company town run by hacks to please the (arrogant) owner. Those who are going are young. And they're right.
And that is pretty much section A.
In NewsToday, Harper is continuing his answer to the recession - firing people by the tens of thousands, cutting services for those who badly need them and, for the rich who are making their biggest profits in history, holding down taxes. His solution to the recession is to cause more poverty while making the rich even richer.
That is exactly the policy that did NOT work in the 1930s. Then, governments cut budgets while the rich made enormous profits. (Yes, they did. Check for the report of The Royal Commission on Price Spreads and Mass Buying - 1935). The great depression was ended by government spending, not by cuts. So why aren't they spending now?
Because big business isn't hurting. Recession and unemployment mean even cheaper workers, and higher profits driven by that cheap labour. And free trade agreements mean they don't have to give a damn about the Canadian market or the Canadian people. Nor does Harper.
Reports on Syria continue to deal out purple prose on the killing of civilians - though it is still not clear who is killing them. Nor is it mentioned that the West and Saudi Arabia are supplying the weapons and money for the rebels. And, certainly, there is no mention that Bahrain (on our side) has been killing civilians for some time, now. And, certainly, no mention that the world's biggest killer of civilians over the past decade and more has been the US, with substantial help from Britain.
As for the Montreal proesters, the Irving press is the first to suggest that violence has returned. "Montreal grand prix protest brings violence, nudity, to the streets...." In fact, the story mentions very little violence - and it ends with a quotation that the only significant violence came from the police.
Of course, editors know that most readers will look at only the headline and the sub-head - while relatively few will read to the end. So an editor can safely lie through a whole story, then tell the truth at the end knowing that few will read that far.
The editorial is a wordy piece of puffery about the Royal Oaks high school - full of statements in which the editor has no idea what he's talking about. It tells us in glowing words that it is a "regional" school, as shown by its generous dimensions.
Dimensions have nothing to do with whether a school is regional. I have attended and taught in high schools that were bigger in student numbers and dimentions than the proposed one. And they were not regional. The area of those schools was about that of Moncton High - and those schools were neither cramped nor unhealthy - despited the preaching of the TandT. And---oooooh - it will have a library. And a cafeteria. and a double gymn. Gee. I never heard of that before - except in every school I have ever taught in. What wonder will we hear of next? Desks?
But it's not just a design, it's a 'concept'. Right. But as I look at the 'concept' it looks very much like any high school built in Canada in the last 50 years and more.
And all those 'concepts' could be built into the existing MHS, along with better health conditions far cheaper than the uninspired project the new school seems to be.
Oh, yeah. And the new 'concept' has no auditorium. I have never taught, even in older schools, in a high school that did not have an auditorium. I was a student at MHS (Montreal High) that is now almost a century old. It had a big auditorium - and a library and a cafeteria, and specialized art and technical drawing rooms and a double gymn. Nobody ever called it a concept, though. It did, however, manage to produce Christopher Plummer and Oscar Peterson, not to mention generations of leading professionals.
Bill Belliveau usually does his homework before writing a column. He can also be highly prejudiced. Today's column on the shale gas forum shows him at his worst in both respects.
He says that most presentations were made without prejudice. Bullshit, Bill. I read many of those presentations. They came from industry representatives - and they were prejudiced to the point of lying. And I noted one - by a professor - that was completely off the point - but designed to create a favourable view toward shale gas. But that may have been too subtle for Bill.
He claims that the anti-shale gas people deal only in emotion and fear. They don't have 'factual' aguments like the shale gas supporters.
1. It is a fact that many governments ban shale gas fracking because of its record of damage.
2. It is a fact that pumping toxic chemicals into our fresh water supply is rather a dangerous thing to do. (It is also a fact that our fresh water is in much shorter supply than most people realize.)
3.It is a fact, admitted even by one of the industry speakers (though disguised as an innocent statement of no great importance) that leakage from old wells (and even new ones) is a serious health problem - and one with no cure in sight.
4. It is not a fact that the industry will produce 2,500 jobs and $650 million a year. That is, as Bill says, an estimate (by the industry spokesmen). Too bad he includes this in a paragraph talking about facts.
5. Conference speakers (mostly industry and friends) were emphatic about the need for tough regulations and public approval, says Bill. Really? Then they must be terribly shy, because they haven't said a word about either for a dozen years. Who was stopping them?
6. Bill asks, "Can we afford to be radical environmentalists?" Notice the word 'radical'? Just like them there moslem terrorists. Exactly what is a radical environmentalist, Bill? You know, as compared to an ordinary one.
7.Bill - if you are going to pretend to be logical, please learn what the word 'factual' means. It is not the simple matter you appear to think it is.
This is a thoroughly prejudiced column. Maybe he believes all that he is saying. I certainly hope so. Because if he doesn't, this is a thoroughly dishonest column.
By the way - he mentions academics as trusted sources for most people. If so, then most people would be wise to be more cautious. Academics are rarely so wise as they think they are. On many issues, espcially in a province like New Brunswick, many of them are frightened into silence. As well, and I regret to say this, some are quite dishonest -and open to offers from think-tanks like Heartland Institute, and even lesser ones.
Brent Mazerolle, as usual, wastes space with a pointless story about yet another experience of no great importance that he had. Even Gwynne Dyer seems pretty unfocussed this time.
As an historian, I was drawn by a letter from someone who says, in defence of Crandall's homophobia, that society no longer tolerates Christian beliefs. Well, why should it? After all, even Christians have never tolerated Christian beliefs.
The slaughter of Jews in the holocaust was supported by Nazi Christians who, much like our own Baptists, felt that it was religiously justified. Canada refused to accept Jews fleeing Hitler's Germany from the 1930a, and right through the war and even after - though Canada knew quite well what aws happening to them. And the deputy minister of immigration who refused them was national Sunday School superintendent for a major church. He was supported by the prime minister, who always attended church, and cried when he sang hymns.
If you take the trouble to look at church thinking a century ago, and even more recently, you will find it soaked in racism.
The British and French armies that fought two wars with China to force the Chinese government to allow the sale of opium in China were Christian. The king of Spain (and the church leaders) who tortured Jews and then expelled them all, was Christian.
Our ancestors who slaughtered native peoples and stole their land were Christians.
The Americans who killed millions of civilians (including the Christian president) in Vietnam were Christians. The crusaders who freely killed, raped, plundered Moslems were Christian.
The head of the CIA when it murdered a quarter million innocent Guatemalans, and killed Christian clergy who supported their congregations, was the Christian George Bush sr.
When was this magic age when we Christians were so tolerant of Christian beliefs?
And aren't we being just a little selective when we decide what is a Christian belief?
I have a disrespect for Crandall not because of its Christian beliefs but because it is so damned un Christian. And it's worst abuse of the faith is its self-righteousness.
Friday, June 8, 2012
June 8: Teacher makes great sandwiches
That's front page stuff in the Moncton Times and Transcript.
Then there's a story by Brent Mazerolle about how Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Wilson explained why Royal Oaks was chosen for the new high school. The only weakness in the story is that he didn't explain anything. He gave us the old line about how it has fields, etc. - but no hint of how this compared with other sites. In fact, he wouldn't even name half the other sites.
For fuller information, he said people could fill out forms for access to information. Really? and he is prepared to handle hundreds of thousands of requests for access to information (something this province has a dismal record for responding to.) If people have a right to this information, why put them through a cumbersome and expensive access system? Why not just tell them, you pompous twit? Isn't that what the news media are for?
Brent Mazerrole, you are a reporter, not a stenographer. You are supposed to ask questions, not just to write down whatever drivel some politician hands you.
The minister said he cannot name sites without the permission of the owners since that is private information. No, it's not. They made bids involving the spending of public money on a public matter. Claude Williams is full of it. We have a right to know. Williams has told us nothing whatever - and Brent Mazerolle simply played his stooge.
There is also a story on the design of the new school which looks exactly like a thousand other high schools that have been built in the last sixty years. Nor do I see any intellectual stimulation or excitement in spending one's days looking out the school windows to look over a flat expanse of grass in Fall and Spring, and snow in summer with, in the near distance, rows of banal suburban bungalows.
I do, though, understand why we are building a school that will require an immense additional cost ($68 million dollars) for municipal services. That's because it will result in nice, fat contracts for friends of the government. Then there's the cost of the school itself which will make this - school plus services - the most expensive high school in Canada - and for the thrill of having a lawn and looking out over bungalows as architecturally banal as the school.
Meanwhile, the new school, like all the others, will have to hold fudge sales and chocolate bar drives to buy office paper and books for the library.
In a related example, the school system now supplies computers to teachers and to some students. Money is not problem because you can bet the schools have to buy them from a supplier whose a good ol' boy with the government. But don't let your computer break down. They get enough money for only one repairman for the whole province - which means that most of the time people don't have computers. My son has such a computer that we haven't seen for months.
Like everything else in this province the whole project is designed to make money for private contractors - with leftover pennies going to anything that has to do with education.
What a sleazy, slimy government!
Meanwhile, a poll shows the Conservatives still in the lead with the other stooge party in second place. Well, that's what happens when you have an education minister who thinks the most important things a school needs for intellectual stimulation is a lawn - and a profit for contractors. But it's too bad our children have to suffer for what we have deserved.
There's nothing much in NewsToday - but a lot that was missed.
1, The American military now suffers suicides at the rate of one a day. That does not include veterans, who also suffer high rates of suicide, mental illness, and homelessness. Our Irving newspapers don't give enough of a damn to find out what the figures are for Canada. Nor have they mentioned the Canadian veterans' recent protest in Ottawa. But some hypocrite will write a glowing editorial for Nov. 11 on how much we are grateful to those who served. (And it will be no problem to find a clergyman to echo that.)
2. The Colombia gangsters in the cocaine trade make billions a year out of the traffic to the US and Canada, and with support from a national government backed by the US. . Ever wonder where they put it to keep it safe? Why, into our western banks, of course.Yesiree. We can be proud of our banks making fortunes out of the drug trade. It's not new, though. Western business has been making big money out of drug trafficking at least since the Opium Wars of over a hundred and fifty years ago.
3.Republican Governor Scott Wallace of Wisconsin was so unpopular for his union-busting and his harsh treatment of the poor that citizens demanded a recall - that is, an election to vote him out. Historically, governors usually lose such votes.But Wallace got such a flood of money from extremely wealthy donors, most of them out of state, that he won. How could so much money be raised? Because in the US, now, corporations are people and can give without limit. From now on, money wins elections in the US - even more so than in New Brunswick.
This is bad news for Obama. He's been the most successful money raiser in US history - but that may now be over. Harper is moving the same way to make money count so that here, too, some people will become even more equal than others.
4. Sam Walton of Walmart left all his money to six heirs. Those six now have more money than the whole bottom third of the US population - 95 million people. Congress is now cutting off food to the hungriest of those people so it can reduce taxes on people like the Waltons.
5. In fairness, the TandT does mention the killing of 78 women and children in Syria, and Hilary Clinton's condemnation of it. But two things are not mentioned. a) we don't know who did the killing and b) the indignant Hilary Clinton belongs to a government that kills more than that number of women and children every day.
The editorial says nothing in particular. The cartoon will offend nobody who's rich. Norbert writes a good article on the dangers of tanning salons. But we all know he would never have written it if the Irvings owned tanning salons.
Excellent commentaries by Alec Bruce, Lynda MacGibbon, and David Suzuki. Many will not like what ms. MacGibbon has to say. But that is because it is intelligent, insightful and compassionate - qualities which must be rare in a province in which a majority of the voters support either the Liberals or the Conservatives.
Excellent letters to the editor by John Whitmore, Leslie Chandler, Ruth Richard and Don Copp.
Dave Daigle has a sensible letter on how to cope with winning the lottery. But that is a problem I have not had to face.
Then there's a story by Brent Mazerolle about how Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Wilson explained why Royal Oaks was chosen for the new high school. The only weakness in the story is that he didn't explain anything. He gave us the old line about how it has fields, etc. - but no hint of how this compared with other sites. In fact, he wouldn't even name half the other sites.
For fuller information, he said people could fill out forms for access to information. Really? and he is prepared to handle hundreds of thousands of requests for access to information (something this province has a dismal record for responding to.) If people have a right to this information, why put them through a cumbersome and expensive access system? Why not just tell them, you pompous twit? Isn't that what the news media are for?
Brent Mazerrole, you are a reporter, not a stenographer. You are supposed to ask questions, not just to write down whatever drivel some politician hands you.
The minister said he cannot name sites without the permission of the owners since that is private information. No, it's not. They made bids involving the spending of public money on a public matter. Claude Williams is full of it. We have a right to know. Williams has told us nothing whatever - and Brent Mazerolle simply played his stooge.
There is also a story on the design of the new school which looks exactly like a thousand other high schools that have been built in the last sixty years. Nor do I see any intellectual stimulation or excitement in spending one's days looking out the school windows to look over a flat expanse of grass in Fall and Spring, and snow in summer with, in the near distance, rows of banal suburban bungalows.
I do, though, understand why we are building a school that will require an immense additional cost ($68 million dollars) for municipal services. That's because it will result in nice, fat contracts for friends of the government. Then there's the cost of the school itself which will make this - school plus services - the most expensive high school in Canada - and for the thrill of having a lawn and looking out over bungalows as architecturally banal as the school.
Meanwhile, the new school, like all the others, will have to hold fudge sales and chocolate bar drives to buy office paper and books for the library.
In a related example, the school system now supplies computers to teachers and to some students. Money is not problem because you can bet the schools have to buy them from a supplier whose a good ol' boy with the government. But don't let your computer break down. They get enough money for only one repairman for the whole province - which means that most of the time people don't have computers. My son has such a computer that we haven't seen for months.
Like everything else in this province the whole project is designed to make money for private contractors - with leftover pennies going to anything that has to do with education.
What a sleazy, slimy government!
Meanwhile, a poll shows the Conservatives still in the lead with the other stooge party in second place. Well, that's what happens when you have an education minister who thinks the most important things a school needs for intellectual stimulation is a lawn - and a profit for contractors. But it's too bad our children have to suffer for what we have deserved.
There's nothing much in NewsToday - but a lot that was missed.
1, The American military now suffers suicides at the rate of one a day. That does not include veterans, who also suffer high rates of suicide, mental illness, and homelessness. Our Irving newspapers don't give enough of a damn to find out what the figures are for Canada. Nor have they mentioned the Canadian veterans' recent protest in Ottawa. But some hypocrite will write a glowing editorial for Nov. 11 on how much we are grateful to those who served. (And it will be no problem to find a clergyman to echo that.)
2. The Colombia gangsters in the cocaine trade make billions a year out of the traffic to the US and Canada, and with support from a national government backed by the US. . Ever wonder where they put it to keep it safe? Why, into our western banks, of course.Yesiree. We can be proud of our banks making fortunes out of the drug trade. It's not new, though. Western business has been making big money out of drug trafficking at least since the Opium Wars of over a hundred and fifty years ago.
3.Republican Governor Scott Wallace of Wisconsin was so unpopular for his union-busting and his harsh treatment of the poor that citizens demanded a recall - that is, an election to vote him out. Historically, governors usually lose such votes.But Wallace got such a flood of money from extremely wealthy donors, most of them out of state, that he won. How could so much money be raised? Because in the US, now, corporations are people and can give without limit. From now on, money wins elections in the US - even more so than in New Brunswick.
This is bad news for Obama. He's been the most successful money raiser in US history - but that may now be over. Harper is moving the same way to make money count so that here, too, some people will become even more equal than others.
4. Sam Walton of Walmart left all his money to six heirs. Those six now have more money than the whole bottom third of the US population - 95 million people. Congress is now cutting off food to the hungriest of those people so it can reduce taxes on people like the Waltons.
5. In fairness, the TandT does mention the killing of 78 women and children in Syria, and Hilary Clinton's condemnation of it. But two things are not mentioned. a) we don't know who did the killing and b) the indignant Hilary Clinton belongs to a government that kills more than that number of women and children every day.
The editorial says nothing in particular. The cartoon will offend nobody who's rich. Norbert writes a good article on the dangers of tanning salons. But we all know he would never have written it if the Irvings owned tanning salons.
Excellent commentaries by Alec Bruce, Lynda MacGibbon, and David Suzuki. Many will not like what ms. MacGibbon has to say. But that is because it is intelligent, insightful and compassionate - qualities which must be rare in a province in which a majority of the voters support either the Liberals or the Conservatives.
Excellent letters to the editor by John Whitmore, Leslie Chandler, Ruth Richard and Don Copp.
Dave Daigle has a sensible letter on how to cope with winning the lottery. But that is a problem I have not had to face.
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