I am beginning this in the early evening of Sept. 7 because of outrage at what Stephen Harper has done. It is dangerous, potentially murderous- and it cannot be excused simply as stupidity. Harper is too high- focused a scoundrel for that.
I am beginning it now because I know that the Moncton Times and Transcipt, if it covers this story at all, will get its information from the highly biased PostMedia or Reuters. A report from either is certain to be beneath contempt. And, I'm quite sure, there is nobody at the Moncton Times and Transcript with the brains or integrity to give this story any meaning..
Canada has cut diplomatic relations with Iran. Diplomats in both countries will return home. No big deal?
Actually, it's the last step before war. Now please tell me a single incident in history when Canada has taken the lead in such a step. (Yes, the US has broken diplomatic ties to Iran. But that was many years ago.) This is a huge step in any case, an unheard of one for Canada to take the lead in. Why did Harper do it?
The reasons he gives are laughable. ( But there are plenty of Canadian foolish enough to take them seriously.) He says Iran is the most serious threat to world peace. Let's see.....
Iran has not attacked anybody in over a century. It has no capacity to launch attacks much beyond its borders even if if did have plans to attack. Far from attacking others, it has been attacked in the past century by Britain, then by Britain, and the US who overthrew its democratically elected government to install a dictator; then by Iraq's Saddam who attacked with major support from western Europe and the US in a war that killed over a million. The motive in all cases was the same, to plunder Iran's oil fields, and make huge profits for those nice people in the oil industry.
Israel has been calling for an attack on Iran for at least ten years, always saying that Iran is just a month from getting a nuclear bomb. (What the hell. If people are so stupid as to believe a lie repeated so often, who can blame Israel for repeating it?) In fact, and despite all the misleading stories in our hack journalism world, there is no evidence that Iran is even planning to develop a nuclear bomb.
Iran is the biggest threat to world peace? Not China which is threatening Japan and Taiwan and is widening its sphere of influence? Not Russia which was the evil one for so many years? Not Pakistan which has been the world's biggest proliferator of nuclear weapons? Not the US which has killed somewhere well over four million people in Asia, Central America, the Middle East, and Afghanistan and Africa in the last seventy years? And which is fighting a war of aggression now against Afghanistan as well as unadvertised wars in Yemen, Somalia, and nobody knows how many other places? And which is the world's largest supplier of weapons and torture implements?
Iran is threatening Israel? Israel has been demanding a war against Iran for ten years, and has routinely murdered Iranian scientists over that time.
There are a lot of aggressive and heavily-armed nations out there - China, Russia, the US, Britain, France, Pakistan, India, Israel - and they have thousands of nuclear weapons. Iran has a navy that can barely handle coastal patrols, an air force with no long range capacity, no nuclear weapons, and no long range missile ability. And Harper says this is the most dangerous country in the world. The US has over 500 military bases all over the world;and has been at war almost constantly for the lifetimes of most readers. But that's good. That's to spread peace and democracy. Like when they slaughtered a quarter million civilians in Guatemala to install a dictatorship.
Oh - I forgot. Iran is guilty of human right abuses. Wow! Torture on our side doesn't count? Not even when the Canadian government hands over Canadian citizens to be tortured? The mass murder of a quarter milllion Guatemalans doesn't count? The use of drones to kill indiscriminately and illegally in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia doesn't count? Guantanamo doesn't count?
Harper doesn't give a damn about threats to world peace or about human rights abuses. He's proven that he doesn't give a damn. He happily turned over Canadian citizens for torture at the hands of the US. Canada is the only western country that did not demand that it's citizens captured in Afghanistan be returned for fair trial. So what's this all about? And why is Harper playing such a leading role?
Part of the answer is that Harper depends heavily on the Israeli lobby to get out the Jewish vote. Though many Jewish Canadians are no great admirers of the Israeli lobby, it has lots of money and influence. (Yes, Virginia, there is an Israeli lobby in Canada, the US and other countries - and it has lots and lots of money to buy support and spread propaganda for Netanyahu.)
The break in relations will have no effect on Iran. So why is the Harper government lying so hard? (And the break will have no effect on the US plan to attack Iran. The war was long ago decided on by the US oil industry which is picking up the tabs for both the Democrats and the Republicans. (It's like New Brunswick that way.) Obama is trying to delay the war, not to avoid it.
So why the lying and posturing?
This can only be a guess. Two people stand to gain from our announcement. One is Netanyahu who is furious at President Obama for not going to war immediately against Iran.
The other is Mitt Romney, who is painting Obama as weak and indecisive.for slowness in attacking Iran. (though there is no doubt Obama will attack in his own time - gotta make those oil people happy. He just wants to keep things cool till the election is over.)
Only one person is hurt - President Obama. who has now been publicly humiliated for trying to keep cool about Iran; and that humiliation comes in the midst of an election campaign.
In short, Harper is currying favour with Mitt Romney and the oil industry.
A great many people are going to die in the coming year and, in the pattern for war for the past century, most of them will be civilians, children, the elderly. Harper has pretty well committed us to help out with the slaughter. So much for parliament deciding on war.
It's quite likely that Canadians will die, too - just as they died in Afghanistan "to protect our freedom and spread democracy."
In my teaching days, I taught at least one military history course every year. Many of the students were militiamen and women who were planning for military careers. They were good students, admirable people, and highly idealistic. They were proud of their uniforms, and had a high sense of the honour of military service.
I often wonder how they feel now that they have been used to bomb Libya, to kill in Afghanistan, to hand over people for torture, to inflict starvation and unspeakable hardships on millions of people....
Now, Mr. Harper, from the comfort of his office in Ottawa, will send them off to kill and be killed not only in Iran but in the impossible to predict effects of the war's spread out of control, and even into a world war.
But not to worry. On Nov. 11, a year from now, some stuffed shirt will step up to a microphone to say how grateful we are to our young people for giving their lives to protect Canadian freedom.
And I'm sure the leaders of the oil industry will second those kind words.
Neither Canada nor Harper has ever sunk so low. I'm ashamed to be a Canadian.
p.s. As I expected, The TandT simply planted the story in C section as a story of no great distinction. PostMedia offered it with not the slightest attempt to raise any questions about it, or to examine the implications of it.
God help us - because it is obvious that our government and the Irving Press won't.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Sept. 7: ..without actually lying... I mean...
....not really lying... like---not really....
The story should be a pretty clear one. It's about a poll that shows support for the NB Conservatives has dropped. They still lead. But the drop has been substantial - and with all of its lost support going to the NDP. The Liberals, though still in second, haven't gained an inch
This is the biggest earth tremor in the politcal history of New Brunswick. Ever since time began, New Brunswickers have voted Liberal, then Conservative, then back again. A change in that pattern is astonishing. That is the news story, and the headline is supposed to give the general point of the news story.
But, gee, we don't want to say that, do we? No. So how else can we put it? "Liberals maintain position?" No. The boss doesn't want us to be nice to the Liberals yet. "Alward wets pants over joyous poll results?" No. We don't want to suggest that Conservatives - you know - eliminate body wastes like other people. No -
"Tories still ahead: poll" Yeah. There's a head that hides the drop, and says, "We're number one. We're number one."
But what about the sub-head? I mean, the NDP was the one that picked up ALL of that lost Conservative support. Okay. We can play that part of it down. Just stay away from real numbers. "Survey shows growing support for NDP in N.B.: polling firm.
The first paragraph reinforces the idea this is still a two horse province with its first paragraph which portrays the Liberals as catching up to the Conservative (while standing still), and the NDP is only "also in pursuit".
Eventually, the story tells the truth. But, hey, lots of readers don't go past the head and sub-head and, in any case, the tone has already been set.
So, relax, everybody. Nothing has happened.
Oh, it gets even better. The story is continued on A15 with the head" "Tories still enjoy support." That's something like "Drowning Alward still afloat."
Hot news on A6. Two real estate companies have merged. Well, that certainly changes my life plans.
Brent Mazerolle has a two-fisted, tough nosed story on A10 that you won't want to miss. A funeral home is planning to modernize its building.Wow! In the usual TandT reportorial style, Mazerolle doesn't ask a single question. He's just just a stenographer for a press release (ad).
But the Tand T doesn't print just lies and trivia. Not all the time. The NewsToday section actually has a story about shale gas on C7. (Remember how, a year ago, the government was going to keep us up to date on shale gas development? Well, we now have one, whole article on it.) And they actually quoted a geology professor who is at least a little bit critical of the government. But, fundamentally, they picked a story they could put a positive spin on - nothing of that nasty stuff about shale gas accidents and poisons.
Reuters reports that Syrian troops are using cluster bombs. These are especially dangerous because they can lie around long after the war, then blow up to kill civilians, especially children who are tempted to play with them. Where would those terrible Syrian troops get such an idea? Reuters doesn't mention it, but they might have got the idea from the US and Israel which have routinely used cluster bombs (though Reuters has rarely mentioned that part of the story.)
There is a bizarre editorial about a new shopping centre on Mapleton. Apparently, Moncton leads the world again, because this is an important sign that all of North America, maybe the world world, is recovering from the recession. How does that editor manage to type with his nose always so deep in his own bellybutton? (possible cartoon for de Adder?)
I agree with Alec Bruce's column on Quebec - as far as it goes. But there is still one hell of a problem with that province. It's true that Quebeckers are turned off politics. But the problem is that no party in Quebec shows the slightest sign of realism in planning the future of that province. Nobody in the worlds of scholarship or politics have come up with anything. All parties are committed to catering to the hatreds and fears that have characterized Quebec, particularly in regard to language, but also in regard to anyone who is not pure-bred (pur laine) Quebecois. It's so strong, it's really a form of racism.
There is a real world that Quebec, whether separate or a part of Canada, has to live in. As things are, it's going to be a disaster for most French-speaking Quebeckers. No party at any level has come to grips with that.
As well, the chatter about 50% plus one being adequate for separation is ridiculously naive. Whatever laws or agreements might say, to separate the province on such a basis would mean chaos in Quebec.
The danger today is not that Quebeckers have a PQ minority government or that they are bored with politics. The danger is there is no party in Quebec or in Canada which has a realisitic position on the future of Quebec. And there is nothing in a society more dangerous than a vacuum. Quebec, especially Montreal, is probably in for a very rough time.
On op ed, Suzuki has a wake-up call. The melting of Arctic ice signals serious and dangerous changes for all of us. Time is short. I don't know of any government at any level in this country that is making any plans to help us cope with what is going to happen.
While the burning of fossil fuels, like oil, is driving us into the destruction caused by global warming, Moncton city council is actually planning to provide more parking space downtown, and it's encouraging the spread of automobile suburbs (one of which will have a giant high school requiring the transportation of students from downtown).
Harper sees the Arctic melt that is hastening global warming, and says, "Wow! What a great chance to do more oil drilling and make even bigger profits for oil companies!"
And so I think, "Don't worry about Quebec. We'll destroy this country and Quebec- and ourselves - long before separatism can do it."
But, duh, oil drilling and fracking for shale gas could create some jobs.
Yep. So could burying the dead. It's a win-win situation.
Some good reading in letters to the editor, notably one on bilingualism in NB, and one on Crandall University's eternal witch hunt, partially financed by our taxes. (I hope I didn't excite anybody at Crandall when I made that remark about Alward wetting his pants.)
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Sept. 6: It rained yesterday....
...yes, it did. It said so right there on the front page of The Moncton Times and Tribune. It's an up-to-the minute fast-breaking story on p.1 that carries over to p. 2. And, get a grip on yourselves, folks, there's another huge story on p. 3 with big pictures of the new U de Moncton cafeteria and it has tables and chairs and everythng.
P. 1 has another big story. They're still building the the Mapleton Shopping Centre. And they've got pictures to prove it. Boy. This is a paper that really digs to get at the truth.
There's also a sad story on p. 1. Moncton needs a hospice to provide close to a million dollars a year to help terminally ill people - some 120 a year - die in care and dignity. Most of it has to be done by charity. And that's reasonable. Most of our government money is tied up in building an expensive new high school out of town; and the government has to put aside a hundred million for a hockey rink - not to mention the problem of keeping taxes down for our aristocracy, and making sure they get lots of nice, road contracts.
It's a situation a lot like the bus drivers. The bus drivers aren't worth it. The terminally ill aren't worth it, either. Screw'em.
The news reports on Quebec aren't much use because they come from PostMedia which doesn't know a whole lot about Quebec. The election night shooting is scarcely the first incident of political violence in Quebec. I can well remember bombs going off in mail boxes that stood in anglo districts. I remember a policeman killed in one of those incidents. I can remember separatist heroes who kidnapped and murdered a cabinet minister.
They were captured - and all got light sentences. One day, not many years later as I entered a French/English college at which I was to speak. There was a man behind me. I held the door for him. He was the leader of the kidnappers, and almost certainly the one who had strangled cabinet minister Pierre Laporte. He had been invited to the school as a hero to address a school assembly.
Nobody said he was deranged or dangerous or any of that. Somehow, I don't think James Bain will be as lucky.
"The Language Debate" is the great red herring of Quebec polititics. It easily stirs up emotions and hatreds, and that makes it useful for Quebec political leaders (all of them) who don't want to deal with the real issues.
Issue 1 - Quebec society is closer to the seventeenth century than the twenty-first. It is run by a privileged class of francophones, the ones who can afford to send their children to excellent and expensive private schools. Every premier of Quebec but one has come from those private schools (and the one attended such a school but didn't finish.) Almost all cabinet ministers and professionals come out of those schools. And those schools all provide superb training in bilingualism. They are what produced a Trudeau.
Historically, francophone public schools of Quebec have been for the riff-raff. Until recently, one couldn't even enter university from them. And they still offer appallingly bad instruction in English. That's deliberate. It keeps the wealthier francophones in their positions of power and wealth by condemning the working class to remain forever a working class.
And why is it important for francophones in Quebec to be bilingual? That takes us to the other, ignored reality.
2. Quebec lives by doing business, primarily with Canada and the United States. Its big corporations like Bombardier and SNC-Lavalin do business globally - where the prevailing language is English. A PQ government once warned Bombardier that it must use French in its work. Bombardier said it has to get engineers and other specialists from all over the world - and they speak English. It told the government to get stuffed. And just to rub the point home, it bought a large property just over the border in upstate New York, and threatened to move there. You will have noticed that Mrs. Marois proposed tough laws to make small businesses work in French. She didn't say a word about Lavalin or Bombardier.
It may not be fair. But it's a reality. Quebec, separate or Canadian, has to do business with a largely English world. It has to be broadly bilingual if most French are going to improve their status. Holland has the same problem, though on a much larger scale. When I taught there, I learned that most Dutch could speak French, English, German, and commonly Spanish and Italian. All of them well. Papers written for me in French or English were done so well that they seemed to have been written by native French and English rather than by Dutch students. (and I did not see any loss of Dutch culture.)
But it's not going to happen in Quebec - largely because if it did, the rich francophones who also dominate the political leadership would lose their privileged position. Instead, Marois fought a campaign to fan the hysteria over language, and to spread fear and hatred. It's an old game in Quebec. And it works every time.
For forty years and more, Quebec political leaders have warned about the danger of Quebeckers learning English. And they all have had one thing in common. They all speak excellent English.
The great danger facing Quebec is that it has no political leadership willing to face the realities of what Quebec needs. That will produce at least one of two results in the near future. One is a Parti-Quebecois that will continue to feed on fear and hatred. The other, even more dangerous, is a general population, angry and frustrated without knowing exactly why, will turn loose against government in general. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
But don't expect to get any sense of that from the pages of The Moncton Times and Transcript.
The lead editorial wants to get city buses back on the road. Well, yes. But there's an even bigger problem behind that one. According to Citigroup ( not a fanatical, bomb-throwing group of environmentalists, but an investment house) Saudi Arabia will run out of oil by 2030. That's just eighteen years away. And it's not the only place that's running dry. And, it's happening at a time when world demand is skyrocketing.
There's a reason why oil companies are scrounging for dirty oil as in Alberta, for oil in risky places like the Arctic and the sea bottoms, and for shale gas with all its proven dangers. We are in serious trouble for energy supply. And gas is going to become very, very expensive, very, very, very soon.
So, the editorial writer would like to get those buses going again. So would I. But that is one hell of a short term solution. How are we going to move people and goods ten years from now? Maybe five years. Maybe less. What are our far-sighted city planners doing, (when they aren't doodling pictures of an events centre with a five thousand car parking lot, and putting parking meters on Main St.?
From what I can see, the bus company employees are worth the pay they want. The city planners aren't. Nor is most of the council worth the cost of its janitorial services.
There's also a very scarey column by Gwynne Dyer that planners and councillors might want to think about. I know Moncton is the hub of the universe - but if climate changes as Dyer suggests it is doing, it might have serious implications for the plan of Moncton - and in the very near future.
A quite decent column by Norbert but, oh, Norbert. Our public school systems don't come from England. They come from Scotland. And the Scots were not learning to read and write 100 years ago; it was more like 300. It was Scots, raised in Gaelic, who learned English to teach the English how to read. Got a Bible from 1800 or so lying around the house? It's probably Gaelic. The Presbyterian church insisted on literacy so everybody would read The Bible, and think about it. The English went to Anglican churches because there they weren't required to read or think.
On the op ed page, Jody Dallaire is worth a read. Rod Allen -and this seems to be a characteristic of the staff writers at the TandT - is irrelevant. It there's a story here, I can't find it. If it's an attempt to be funny, it's bloody feeble. How can a man spend so long in Journalism - and have so little to say about anything?
There's a good letter to the editor about Crandall University and how, despite defying the law by discriminating against gays, it gets $150,000 from the city of Moncton. 150 grand a year. That would be a big step to supporting a terminal care centre for the city. But I can't help noticing that city council has been remarkably silent on this issue. It makes you wonder. Who had the muscle to get that 150,000 - and to keep it coming after all the criticism?
If the council won't tell us, perhaps Crandall will. As Baptists, aren't they committed to telling the truth? Or is discriminating against gays the only part of the The Cospel they have to obey? (Actually, it's not in the Gospels).
P. 1 has another big story. They're still building the the Mapleton Shopping Centre. And they've got pictures to prove it. Boy. This is a paper that really digs to get at the truth.
There's also a sad story on p. 1. Moncton needs a hospice to provide close to a million dollars a year to help terminally ill people - some 120 a year - die in care and dignity. Most of it has to be done by charity. And that's reasonable. Most of our government money is tied up in building an expensive new high school out of town; and the government has to put aside a hundred million for a hockey rink - not to mention the problem of keeping taxes down for our aristocracy, and making sure they get lots of nice, road contracts.
It's a situation a lot like the bus drivers. The bus drivers aren't worth it. The terminally ill aren't worth it, either. Screw'em.
The news reports on Quebec aren't much use because they come from PostMedia which doesn't know a whole lot about Quebec. The election night shooting is scarcely the first incident of political violence in Quebec. I can well remember bombs going off in mail boxes that stood in anglo districts. I remember a policeman killed in one of those incidents. I can remember separatist heroes who kidnapped and murdered a cabinet minister.
They were captured - and all got light sentences. One day, not many years later as I entered a French/English college at which I was to speak. There was a man behind me. I held the door for him. He was the leader of the kidnappers, and almost certainly the one who had strangled cabinet minister Pierre Laporte. He had been invited to the school as a hero to address a school assembly.
Nobody said he was deranged or dangerous or any of that. Somehow, I don't think James Bain will be as lucky.
"The Language Debate" is the great red herring of Quebec polititics. It easily stirs up emotions and hatreds, and that makes it useful for Quebec political leaders (all of them) who don't want to deal with the real issues.
Issue 1 - Quebec society is closer to the seventeenth century than the twenty-first. It is run by a privileged class of francophones, the ones who can afford to send their children to excellent and expensive private schools. Every premier of Quebec but one has come from those private schools (and the one attended such a school but didn't finish.) Almost all cabinet ministers and professionals come out of those schools. And those schools all provide superb training in bilingualism. They are what produced a Trudeau.
Historically, francophone public schools of Quebec have been for the riff-raff. Until recently, one couldn't even enter university from them. And they still offer appallingly bad instruction in English. That's deliberate. It keeps the wealthier francophones in their positions of power and wealth by condemning the working class to remain forever a working class.
And why is it important for francophones in Quebec to be bilingual? That takes us to the other, ignored reality.
2. Quebec lives by doing business, primarily with Canada and the United States. Its big corporations like Bombardier and SNC-Lavalin do business globally - where the prevailing language is English. A PQ government once warned Bombardier that it must use French in its work. Bombardier said it has to get engineers and other specialists from all over the world - and they speak English. It told the government to get stuffed. And just to rub the point home, it bought a large property just over the border in upstate New York, and threatened to move there. You will have noticed that Mrs. Marois proposed tough laws to make small businesses work in French. She didn't say a word about Lavalin or Bombardier.
It may not be fair. But it's a reality. Quebec, separate or Canadian, has to do business with a largely English world. It has to be broadly bilingual if most French are going to improve their status. Holland has the same problem, though on a much larger scale. When I taught there, I learned that most Dutch could speak French, English, German, and commonly Spanish and Italian. All of them well. Papers written for me in French or English were done so well that they seemed to have been written by native French and English rather than by Dutch students. (and I did not see any loss of Dutch culture.)
But it's not going to happen in Quebec - largely because if it did, the rich francophones who also dominate the political leadership would lose their privileged position. Instead, Marois fought a campaign to fan the hysteria over language, and to spread fear and hatred. It's an old game in Quebec. And it works every time.
For forty years and more, Quebec political leaders have warned about the danger of Quebeckers learning English. And they all have had one thing in common. They all speak excellent English.
The great danger facing Quebec is that it has no political leadership willing to face the realities of what Quebec needs. That will produce at least one of two results in the near future. One is a Parti-Quebecois that will continue to feed on fear and hatred. The other, even more dangerous, is a general population, angry and frustrated without knowing exactly why, will turn loose against government in general. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
But don't expect to get any sense of that from the pages of The Moncton Times and Transcript.
The lead editorial wants to get city buses back on the road. Well, yes. But there's an even bigger problem behind that one. According to Citigroup ( not a fanatical, bomb-throwing group of environmentalists, but an investment house) Saudi Arabia will run out of oil by 2030. That's just eighteen years away. And it's not the only place that's running dry. And, it's happening at a time when world demand is skyrocketing.
There's a reason why oil companies are scrounging for dirty oil as in Alberta, for oil in risky places like the Arctic and the sea bottoms, and for shale gas with all its proven dangers. We are in serious trouble for energy supply. And gas is going to become very, very expensive, very, very, very soon.
So, the editorial writer would like to get those buses going again. So would I. But that is one hell of a short term solution. How are we going to move people and goods ten years from now? Maybe five years. Maybe less. What are our far-sighted city planners doing, (when they aren't doodling pictures of an events centre with a five thousand car parking lot, and putting parking meters on Main St.?
From what I can see, the bus company employees are worth the pay they want. The city planners aren't. Nor is most of the council worth the cost of its janitorial services.
There's also a very scarey column by Gwynne Dyer that planners and councillors might want to think about. I know Moncton is the hub of the universe - but if climate changes as Dyer suggests it is doing, it might have serious implications for the plan of Moncton - and in the very near future.
A quite decent column by Norbert but, oh, Norbert. Our public school systems don't come from England. They come from Scotland. And the Scots were not learning to read and write 100 years ago; it was more like 300. It was Scots, raised in Gaelic, who learned English to teach the English how to read. Got a Bible from 1800 or so lying around the house? It's probably Gaelic. The Presbyterian church insisted on literacy so everybody would read The Bible, and think about it. The English went to Anglican churches because there they weren't required to read or think.
On the op ed page, Jody Dallaire is worth a read. Rod Allen -and this seems to be a characteristic of the staff writers at the TandT - is irrelevant. It there's a story here, I can't find it. If it's an attempt to be funny, it's bloody feeble. How can a man spend so long in Journalism - and have so little to say about anything?
There's a good letter to the editor about Crandall University and how, despite defying the law by discriminating against gays, it gets $150,000 from the city of Moncton. 150 grand a year. That would be a big step to supporting a terminal care centre for the city. But I can't help noticing that city council has been remarkably silent on this issue. It makes you wonder. Who had the muscle to get that 150,000 - and to keep it coming after all the criticism?
If the council won't tell us, perhaps Crandall will. As Baptists, aren't they committed to telling the truth? Or is discriminating against gays the only part of the The Cospel they have to obey? (Actually, it's not in the Gospels).
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Sept. 5: Page one....
In most newspapers, page one is for the big news of the day. But the front page of The Moncton Times and Tribune is always one that would stun a moose in heat. We are reminded, once again, that Highfield Square - where nobody goes, anyway - will close at the end of the month. And a Moncton car dealership has been sold. Wow!
At the top of the page is a self-promotion. "Up-to-the-minute breaking news every day"
The breaking news on p. 2, is that city council approved a name for the street the new high school will be on. Why? Well, that was the name the developer wanted. In Moncton, city planning means doing whatever a developer wants. And, as councillor Pierre Boudreau said, with all the oratorical flair of Perry Mason addressing a jury, "I sincerely believe that any further delay approving this subdivision would be contrary to the law of natural justice, the best interests of the city, and in the long term, would send a bad message." Then he gathered his cloak about him, and ran out to the Batmobile.
(Never trust a person who opens a sentence with I sincerely believe... They're like the ones who open with, "I'll be truthful with you..." It carries the clear hint that they usually lie - and still are lying.)
Oh - the street name - it'sLongfellow, the American poet. Well, they had to do that. New Brunswick has never produced a poet or any of them there writin' folks.
There's a long column of pure gush about Wayne Gretzky coming to town, and how the whole world is talking about Moncton. But, with a return to sanity, there is a slightly longer one about the visit of locked out transit workers to city council. There were, of course, largely ignored by council - except for one of the speakers. He was not a locked out worker, he was a man who appeared with his guide dog to explain what a hardship the lockout was to people like him, as well as to students and the elderly and many others.
City council gave him a standing ovation - a move that was pure, self-righteous hypocrisy since they declined to do anything for him. I'm sure that standing and clapping made them all feel saintly. But it did nothing to help a man who, with a great many others, is severely handicapped by their insistence on a lock-out.
By the way, how much does the city pay those transit planners who are not locked-out? You know, the differently advantaged ones who designed the bus routes.
NewsToday has, as always, lots of great ads and pictures of smiling people giving each other cheques. Page C8 has what looks like a story, but isn't. It's about a book by a member of the assassination team that killed Bin Laden. The story claims to tell about why the American government is angered by the book - but it doesn't really tell anything. The real story, as reported in newspapers around the world, is that the book leaves the impression that there was no attempt to capture Bin Laden, just to kill him. The TandT's uninformative report comes, of course, from Reuters.
The editorial looks sensible. But it isn't.
The theme is how schools should teach students how to manage their money - and how business should be brought into the planning and teaching of it. It sounds reasonable. But it would be one hell of an irresponsible thing for us to allow.
1. Business has no business being in our schools. We don't allow students or teachers to play any role in deciding how business is run. Businesses are not educational institutions. They are not charitable institutions. They exist to make money for themselves. That is what they know how to do. That is all they know how to do. The notion that business should have a direct role in every area of life, including government and education, has already gone way too far, dangerously too far in this province. It has already gone so far that democracy has effectively ceased to exist.
2. Business is the last institution in the world which wants people to manage their money wisely. It wants people to spend their money - on what business has to sell. They don't give a damn if it's wise for you to buy it. Just spend it. We are now living in a world-wide recession that is almost certainly going to get worse. That recession was caused by the greed of big business, and by it's short sighted encouragement of wild spending. We are now watching private business making huge profits and paying skyrocketing bonuses to top executives while poverty rates, even in North America, are reaching record levels, and the middle class is being destroyed.
But, of course, we know whose side the Times and Transcript is on. Get expert advice from business? Right. Let's start with the thriving payday loan business in Moncton. They have lots of experience managing income.
I often wonder whether editorial writers for the TandT are lacking ethics or brains. I think this editorial indicates it's both.
Norbert's ranting again. It could be tolerable, if silly. The problem is that nasty question of ethics again. Norbert never writes criticisms of big business or of private business of any sort. For all his stridency, he's just another TandT kiss-up who dresses in armour like a St. George going out to fight butterflies.
Alec Bruce has an intriguing column on universities and the future job-market. I'd just like to add to his final point about how universities train the mind. The trouble is - they don't - and that's not just the artsy-fartsy classes.
I'll start with my own field, History. Most of the history taught is simple, rote-learning. For those (most) who don't go on, most of it is forgotten within a few years. History could teach lifetime skills important for a changing market - reasoning power, judgement, organization of ideas and work time, skills of presentation ----- But, for the most part, it doesn't. Teachers take pride, instead, in teaching the latest, most up to date information. And, since most of it is soon forgotten, that's a waste of time. The teachers have no training to teach anything but information (and really no training to teach even that.). In forty years of teaching university, I cannot recall ever hearing an informed discussion of teaching, or of exactly what it is we should be teaching under the various subject titles.
Business courses are just as bad. In fact, they are frequently worse because they are wide open to the teaching of political and economic propaganda. I was once chaired a large meeting of business leaders, economists, political scientists and mid-level executives (the latter were doing MBA degrees for a major university, and the conference was aimed at them.0 I was appalled to realize that the programme was largely one of teaching bias and propaganda.
Nor did it seem the quality of teaching and learning was any better than it was in the arts. I saw no evidence that these students were learning the flexible skills they needed for a changing job market, skills like analysis, judgement, reasoning. In fact, the pro-business propaganda was so heavy it was like being caught at a faith-healing rally. In university, as in other levels of education, the interference of business has not been helpful.
The op ed page is for people who are bored and lonely, whose TV is broken, and who can't afford a cab to go anywhere in this city.
At the top of the page is a self-promotion. "Up-to-the-minute breaking news every day"
The breaking news on p. 2, is that city council approved a name for the street the new high school will be on. Why? Well, that was the name the developer wanted. In Moncton, city planning means doing whatever a developer wants. And, as councillor Pierre Boudreau said, with all the oratorical flair of Perry Mason addressing a jury, "I sincerely believe that any further delay approving this subdivision would be contrary to the law of natural justice, the best interests of the city, and in the long term, would send a bad message." Then he gathered his cloak about him, and ran out to the Batmobile.
(Never trust a person who opens a sentence with I sincerely believe... They're like the ones who open with, "I'll be truthful with you..." It carries the clear hint that they usually lie - and still are lying.)
Oh - the street name - it'sLongfellow, the American poet. Well, they had to do that. New Brunswick has never produced a poet or any of them there writin' folks.
There's a long column of pure gush about Wayne Gretzky coming to town, and how the whole world is talking about Moncton. But, with a return to sanity, there is a slightly longer one about the visit of locked out transit workers to city council. There were, of course, largely ignored by council - except for one of the speakers. He was not a locked out worker, he was a man who appeared with his guide dog to explain what a hardship the lockout was to people like him, as well as to students and the elderly and many others.
City council gave him a standing ovation - a move that was pure, self-righteous hypocrisy since they declined to do anything for him. I'm sure that standing and clapping made them all feel saintly. But it did nothing to help a man who, with a great many others, is severely handicapped by their insistence on a lock-out.
By the way, how much does the city pay those transit planners who are not locked-out? You know, the differently advantaged ones who designed the bus routes.
NewsToday has, as always, lots of great ads and pictures of smiling people giving each other cheques. Page C8 has what looks like a story, but isn't. It's about a book by a member of the assassination team that killed Bin Laden. The story claims to tell about why the American government is angered by the book - but it doesn't really tell anything. The real story, as reported in newspapers around the world, is that the book leaves the impression that there was no attempt to capture Bin Laden, just to kill him. The TandT's uninformative report comes, of course, from Reuters.
The editorial looks sensible. But it isn't.
The theme is how schools should teach students how to manage their money - and how business should be brought into the planning and teaching of it. It sounds reasonable. But it would be one hell of an irresponsible thing for us to allow.
1. Business has no business being in our schools. We don't allow students or teachers to play any role in deciding how business is run. Businesses are not educational institutions. They are not charitable institutions. They exist to make money for themselves. That is what they know how to do. That is all they know how to do. The notion that business should have a direct role in every area of life, including government and education, has already gone way too far, dangerously too far in this province. It has already gone so far that democracy has effectively ceased to exist.
2. Business is the last institution in the world which wants people to manage their money wisely. It wants people to spend their money - on what business has to sell. They don't give a damn if it's wise for you to buy it. Just spend it. We are now living in a world-wide recession that is almost certainly going to get worse. That recession was caused by the greed of big business, and by it's short sighted encouragement of wild spending. We are now watching private business making huge profits and paying skyrocketing bonuses to top executives while poverty rates, even in North America, are reaching record levels, and the middle class is being destroyed.
But, of course, we know whose side the Times and Transcript is on. Get expert advice from business? Right. Let's start with the thriving payday loan business in Moncton. They have lots of experience managing income.
I often wonder whether editorial writers for the TandT are lacking ethics or brains. I think this editorial indicates it's both.
Norbert's ranting again. It could be tolerable, if silly. The problem is that nasty question of ethics again. Norbert never writes criticisms of big business or of private business of any sort. For all his stridency, he's just another TandT kiss-up who dresses in armour like a St. George going out to fight butterflies.
Alec Bruce has an intriguing column on universities and the future job-market. I'd just like to add to his final point about how universities train the mind. The trouble is - they don't - and that's not just the artsy-fartsy classes.
I'll start with my own field, History. Most of the history taught is simple, rote-learning. For those (most) who don't go on, most of it is forgotten within a few years. History could teach lifetime skills important for a changing market - reasoning power, judgement, organization of ideas and work time, skills of presentation ----- But, for the most part, it doesn't. Teachers take pride, instead, in teaching the latest, most up to date information. And, since most of it is soon forgotten, that's a waste of time. The teachers have no training to teach anything but information (and really no training to teach even that.). In forty years of teaching university, I cannot recall ever hearing an informed discussion of teaching, or of exactly what it is we should be teaching under the various subject titles.
Business courses are just as bad. In fact, they are frequently worse because they are wide open to the teaching of political and economic propaganda. I was once chaired a large meeting of business leaders, economists, political scientists and mid-level executives (the latter were doing MBA degrees for a major university, and the conference was aimed at them.0 I was appalled to realize that the programme was largely one of teaching bias and propaganda.
Nor did it seem the quality of teaching and learning was any better than it was in the arts. I saw no evidence that these students were learning the flexible skills they needed for a changing job market, skills like analysis, judgement, reasoning. In fact, the pro-business propaganda was so heavy it was like being caught at a faith-healing rally. In university, as in other levels of education, the interference of business has not been helpful.
The op ed page is for people who are bored and lonely, whose TV is broken, and who can't afford a cab to go anywhere in this city.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Sept. 4: I confess to malice....
Last night, I was studying the major news stories for today. That's part of what a news editor does. He or she is a person of training (or at least of experience) in the news - what's important, what isn't, which sources are good, which ones are biased or unreliable. I found four stories that seemed to stand out - and made a bet with myself that the The Moncton Times and Transcript would miss all of them.
And I lost. It got three of the four.
It carried the final report of Quebec's election campaign.(There was a small blooper. It announced the election as being held tomorrow. In fact, it's today.The error happened, probably, because the report was prepared by PostMedia yesterday - and one would think a news editor would notice that. The story is on p. A2, and it carries no useful information whatever about the election.
There is a more useful story on the subject on C 12. C1 has a lesser story about robocalls in the election.
Much of the problem is that the TandT gets its national news from Postmedia, one of our more highly biased news sources - and often a shallow one. There's no hint of just what a dangerous situation Quebec (and all of us) face. And, no, I don't mean a referendum - though that will be dangerous enough with a government in Ottawa that has virtually no support in Quebec.
The big threat is that none of the parties running in Quebec has a credible platform. The PQ is running almost entirely on anti-English bigotry and hysteria. The Liberal party (like most previous governments in Quebec) is up to its ears in corruption. The other parties, like the previous two, are nowhere close to any analysis of Quebec's real problems - let along having any solution.
That means the election could leave us with an increasingly angry and dissatisfied Quebec population- and with a demonstrated predisposition to violence. That won't do any of us any good.
A2 has a very important story on the Mackenzie River watershed. It's essential to us not only for fresh water (which is about to become a very scarce commodity), but also to absorb carbon emissions and so to slow down global warming. And it has already suffered damage from the oilsands project.
And what will Mr. Harper do? Well, he's made that pretty clear. Oil comes first. He continues to ram through oil projects. Tomorrow will be somebody else's problem. If there is a tomorrow.
The T and T also has the story on Obama cooling off Netanyahu on any ideas of attacking Iran. (The story is a week old, but, what the hell, they got it at last.) It began when Obama sharply reduced the American forces taking part in a military exercise with Israeli forces. That wiped out any hope Netanyahu had of having a large American force on hand for the attack.
Suddenly, Netanyahu and his favourite news media have stopped beating the drum for war which he obviously wanted to start before the US election. Obviously, Obama has warned him. This comes as a great relief to US military chiefs, Israeli military chiefs,, Israeli intelligence, and the majority of Israelis. many of whom think Netanyahu is so wildly unrealistic as to be dangerous. But do we care in Moncton?
Maybe not. But we should. An attack on Iran now would show us what a real gasoline crisis looks like - and maybe even what a real world war looks like.
The report doesn't come close to being a full one, of course. That's because it's from Reuters, the TandT's only source of foreign news.
Oh, Reuters plays its usual game of demonizing government soldiers in Syria. "Syrian army destroys houses."
Yes, it does. What does Reuters think other armies do - give out chocolate bars and build schools for little girls?
The deliberate destruction of houses and the deliberate killing of civilians has become a major purpose of war for ALL countries since the invention of HE artillery and the aerial bomber. In World War Two, the US deliberately firebombed wooden cities in Japan, causing more deaths that the nuclear bombs did.
There was the deliberate bombing of civilians in Camodia that killed a half a million. There was the deliberate bombing of civilians in Vietnam that killed millions. Remember the Iraq war and the special attention to Falujah, the city where people die and babies are born with horrible defects from depleted uranium that the city was shelled with? There are drones daily fired at countries we are not at war with - Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia - and they are killing large numbers of civilians. (But don't worry about. it. The TandT doesn't think it important enough to mention.)
Yes. The Syrian army does terrible things. But neither we nor Syrians rebels are the ones to point self-righteous fingers.
And the missing story?
Arctic ice is disappearing at a much faster rate than earlier realized. And that has greatly accelerated the pace of global warming. But neither Canada nor the US has taken significant steps to deal with global warming. And they're not going to, not so long as there's an oil industry. )Duh, yeah, duh, I know we'll destroy the earth. But, duh, it could create some good jobs for a while.)
A6 and A7 are all pictures - of people smiling, jumping, etc. on Labour Day. Real newspapers for grownups don't do that. The implication is clear - and it happens often - the TandT thinks its buyers are too stupid to read. So give them lots of pictures, irrelevant pictures. It's cheap. It fills space. And it says nothing whatever. And once again, the TandT gets through a whole Labour Day weekend without ever mentioning what it's about.
How about we rename it Irving Day? Boy, then it would get serious coverage.
On the op ed page, Alan Cochrane tells us a story about the Dieppe Raid. But what he tells us is a story that the paper has already carried at least twice - and he has nothing new to add. This is the story that the raid was really a success because it was a cover for a commando raid to get vital information. All Cochrane does is to add mistakes. In Fleming, for example, was not "the top" British intelligence officer. In fact, he was widely regarded as a bit of a kook in the intelligence service.
And if there was such a special group, the Canadians could have been landed at a better spot so that half of them would not have been killed or captured. Nor was there any point in landing them at all after the Germans realized they were on their way. It was not a brilliant tactic. It was a costly blunder.
In the middle of his article, Cochrane does say "I have trouble believing the entire attack was staged for just a "pinch raid." " But then he spends the rest of the article believing it.
And again, in a Canada full of military historians, he does not ask any of them for their reactions. Tell you what, Allan, I could give you a list of names - and how to get in touch with them.
Oh, and think about this sentence. "The historian..... spent fifteen years digging through war documents that were just recently declassified by the British government." ???????
If there were "just recently" declassified, how could he have spent fifteen years digging through them?
But above all people at the TandT should learn to ask questions - from people who know what they're talking about (which means not people who are the usual academic hacks they ask.)
And I lost. It got three of the four.
It carried the final report of Quebec's election campaign.(There was a small blooper. It announced the election as being held tomorrow. In fact, it's today.The error happened, probably, because the report was prepared by PostMedia yesterday - and one would think a news editor would notice that. The story is on p. A2, and it carries no useful information whatever about the election.
There is a more useful story on the subject on C 12. C1 has a lesser story about robocalls in the election.
Much of the problem is that the TandT gets its national news from Postmedia, one of our more highly biased news sources - and often a shallow one. There's no hint of just what a dangerous situation Quebec (and all of us) face. And, no, I don't mean a referendum - though that will be dangerous enough with a government in Ottawa that has virtually no support in Quebec.
The big threat is that none of the parties running in Quebec has a credible platform. The PQ is running almost entirely on anti-English bigotry and hysteria. The Liberal party (like most previous governments in Quebec) is up to its ears in corruption. The other parties, like the previous two, are nowhere close to any analysis of Quebec's real problems - let along having any solution.
That means the election could leave us with an increasingly angry and dissatisfied Quebec population- and with a demonstrated predisposition to violence. That won't do any of us any good.
A2 has a very important story on the Mackenzie River watershed. It's essential to us not only for fresh water (which is about to become a very scarce commodity), but also to absorb carbon emissions and so to slow down global warming. And it has already suffered damage from the oilsands project.
And what will Mr. Harper do? Well, he's made that pretty clear. Oil comes first. He continues to ram through oil projects. Tomorrow will be somebody else's problem. If there is a tomorrow.
The T and T also has the story on Obama cooling off Netanyahu on any ideas of attacking Iran. (The story is a week old, but, what the hell, they got it at last.) It began when Obama sharply reduced the American forces taking part in a military exercise with Israeli forces. That wiped out any hope Netanyahu had of having a large American force on hand for the attack.
Suddenly, Netanyahu and his favourite news media have stopped beating the drum for war which he obviously wanted to start before the US election. Obviously, Obama has warned him. This comes as a great relief to US military chiefs, Israeli military chiefs,, Israeli intelligence, and the majority of Israelis. many of whom think Netanyahu is so wildly unrealistic as to be dangerous. But do we care in Moncton?
Maybe not. But we should. An attack on Iran now would show us what a real gasoline crisis looks like - and maybe even what a real world war looks like.
The report doesn't come close to being a full one, of course. That's because it's from Reuters, the TandT's only source of foreign news.
Oh, Reuters plays its usual game of demonizing government soldiers in Syria. "Syrian army destroys houses."
Yes, it does. What does Reuters think other armies do - give out chocolate bars and build schools for little girls?
The deliberate destruction of houses and the deliberate killing of civilians has become a major purpose of war for ALL countries since the invention of HE artillery and the aerial bomber. In World War Two, the US deliberately firebombed wooden cities in Japan, causing more deaths that the nuclear bombs did.
There was the deliberate bombing of civilians in Camodia that killed a half a million. There was the deliberate bombing of civilians in Vietnam that killed millions. Remember the Iraq war and the special attention to Falujah, the city where people die and babies are born with horrible defects from depleted uranium that the city was shelled with? There are drones daily fired at countries we are not at war with - Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia - and they are killing large numbers of civilians. (But don't worry about. it. The TandT doesn't think it important enough to mention.)
Yes. The Syrian army does terrible things. But neither we nor Syrians rebels are the ones to point self-righteous fingers.
And the missing story?
Arctic ice is disappearing at a much faster rate than earlier realized. And that has greatly accelerated the pace of global warming. But neither Canada nor the US has taken significant steps to deal with global warming. And they're not going to, not so long as there's an oil industry. )Duh, yeah, duh, I know we'll destroy the earth. But, duh, it could create some good jobs for a while.)
A6 and A7 are all pictures - of people smiling, jumping, etc. on Labour Day. Real newspapers for grownups don't do that. The implication is clear - and it happens often - the TandT thinks its buyers are too stupid to read. So give them lots of pictures, irrelevant pictures. It's cheap. It fills space. And it says nothing whatever. And once again, the TandT gets through a whole Labour Day weekend without ever mentioning what it's about.
How about we rename it Irving Day? Boy, then it would get serious coverage.
On the op ed page, Alan Cochrane tells us a story about the Dieppe Raid. But what he tells us is a story that the paper has already carried at least twice - and he has nothing new to add. This is the story that the raid was really a success because it was a cover for a commando raid to get vital information. All Cochrane does is to add mistakes. In Fleming, for example, was not "the top" British intelligence officer. In fact, he was widely regarded as a bit of a kook in the intelligence service.
And if there was such a special group, the Canadians could have been landed at a better spot so that half of them would not have been killed or captured. Nor was there any point in landing them at all after the Germans realized they were on their way. It was not a brilliant tactic. It was a costly blunder.
In the middle of his article, Cochrane does say "I have trouble believing the entire attack was staged for just a "pinch raid." " But then he spends the rest of the article believing it.
And again, in a Canada full of military historians, he does not ask any of them for their reactions. Tell you what, Allan, I could give you a list of names - and how to get in touch with them.
Oh, and think about this sentence. "The historian..... spent fifteen years digging through war documents that were just recently declassified by the British government." ???????
If there were "just recently" declassified, how could he have spent fifteen years digging through them?
But above all people at the TandT should learn to ask questions - from people who know what they're talking about (which means not people who are the usual academic hacks they ask.)
Monday, September 3, 2012
Sept. 3: SPECIAL REPORT
It was, I guess, a special Labour Day gesture by The Moncton Times and Transcript -
A boy, a child, had worked for over a year delivering the TandT every morning. He never missed a day.Then he decided he couldn't carry on, and so he informed them.
But he didn't give two weeks notice. So they withheld his last week's pay. Okay. Not unreasonable I mean, you have to get tough with kids.
Then they pulled another week's pay out of his bank account.
________ (on the dotted line, write in the word that best describes the management at The Times and Transcript. I have provided room for eight letters.)
Following the same tone, most of the paper contains not a word about the meaning of Labour Day, what its origins were, what things used to be like in the labour world. The only mention of it, a brief one, is in Alec Bruce's column.
Oh, I know. Labour unions are unreasonable. Workers ask too much. etc.etc. May I suggest you take a look at what things were like before labour unions? - at things like child labour, fifteen hour days, no pay for holidays, no pensions, no safety measures.... In a Canadian city in the 1880s, a child labourer was working on a machine which had no protective shields. He lost his arm. The company immediately fired him, stopped his pay, and sent him home. So far as the company was concerned, it had no more responsibility.
Nor do you have to go back to the 1880s.
It happened all over again in the 1930s. It's happening again now; and we're going to see a lot more of it.
For an idea of our future without unions, read Terry Copp "The Anatomy of Poverty". Also check to see if the library has "Report on the Royal Commission of Price Spreads and Mass Buying". That was published in 1935. Read it, and you'll understand how Canadians suffered in the great depression while the rich (just like today) were taking home their biggest profits in history.
But don't expect to learn anything about that in a newspaper chain owned by Irving. He doesn't approve of workers banding together and taking action unless they are respectable workers, like corporation presidents.Then they're allowed to become official budget advisors to the provincial government. Can you imagine the storm if union leaders appointed themselves to be official budget advisors to the government?
There is a bizarre story about a giant cross going up at Moncton Prayer Garden. Though it is not mentioned, I should be most curious to know whether this is public ground.
Now, I am a Christian. And I take that very seriously.But I would not assume a right to put up my religious symbol on public property. You would? Okay. How about a thirty foot high Star of David? Or a thirty foot high Crescent of Islam?
People of all faiths are invited to the Prayer Garden - though with its very ornate cross and its stations of the cross, it is clearly Roman Catholic. (I confess to a bias here. I am not big on ritual of any sort, or fancy crosses with angels, etc.)
The writing of the report is a little on the bizarre side, too. It is, we are told, a "glorified" cross. Well - uh - is there another kind of cross? If so,could we be told where to find an unglorified one?
And, it seems, the new cross is even more "symbolic" than the old one. I have no idea what that means. Perhaps it refers to the ornate metal decoration, the 36 carved flowers, and the five, imitation angels that were so sadly lacking at Calvary. As just plain wood, that one was hardly symbolic at all, I guess.
The article also thanks the city for its constant support. Oh? And what constant support would that be referring to? Was any of it financial or some other material form of support? After all, this is a city that picks up some tabs for a religious university.
The big attraction is to be found as the final note in a website for Prayer Garden. Nearby, it says, are wonders like a zoo, a MacDonald's and the unique Atlantic (sound of trumpets) Irving Big Stop. Halleluja!
I am happy to see that all faiths are welcome. And I'm happy to see other Moncton churches cooperating in this effort. But a prayer place to which all faiths are welcome should look like one in which all faiths - Protestants, Jews, Moslem, Hindus, Taoists.....can be at home, where we all can meet and share the great deal we have in common. The Moncton Prayer Garden does not look like such a place.
And, no, I am not anti-RC. Indeed, my experience in Montreal was that the Roman Catholic church was admirably active in social gospel work -and I have no reason to doubt the same is true in Moncton. And I have had Roman Catholic connections in the social gospel movement. I was also interviewed by a papal examiner for the recent elevation of St. Andre. I even have a relative, Reverend Zenon Decarie, who is now under consideration for sainthood. (And, boy, do I intend to make the most of that.) But I think there are a lot of questions that should be asked about the Garden of Prayer.
(I'm surprised the story didn't mention that there was an Irving's Big Stop nearby. After all, the connection to faith should be obvious.)
The drought in the US is going to cause mass hunger and starvation all over the world. The Moncton Times and Transcript captures the full horror this in the Your Investments page, C2.
"Drought could drive up price of popcorn"
And that's really the only story worth reading in NewsToday.
They don't mention that Obama has drastically cut US participation in a joint military exercise with Israel. What does that mean? Well, don't worry about it. It has something to do with a possible world war. But who has time for that when the price of popcorn is going up?
The editorial is mostly of the SOMETHING MUST BE DONE variety - vague and uninformed.
Norbert has a good point to make. But he seems incapable of writing anything without some ignorant rant slipping in. He writes in favour of a catastrophic drug programme for the province. It's expensive, but necessary. No quarrel there.
Then he blames the civil service for it! Why? Because the civil service is bloated,he says. What does he know about the civil service and whether it's bloated? Nothing. But it seems impossible for him to write a column without saying that.
Then, for some reason, he says that if the Harper government were to do something illegal, the papers would be full of it - but they would ignore it if the NDP did it. In fact, half of his column on drugs is really attacks on civil servants, the NDP, "liberal" conspiracies, and general paranoia.
Norbert - you are full of it. The Harper government has done a number of things illegally and/or improperly. And they have not received attention in the press. Certainly, they have not received attention in the BrunswickMedia or the Cunningham column. Remember Brian Mulroney, the pm who accepted bribes while in office? What has Harper done about that case? Where is the big investigation on robocalls that the Conservatives were accused of using? What about wild spending on international conferences? Where are the stories about lavish contracts for friends of the government?
And the media ignored the case of the NDP? Bullshit, Norbert. I read it in papers all over Canada. You, Norbert, are our Clint Eastwood, with a paranoia about the "liberalism" of the news media. Norbert, look at your own paper. Is it "liberal" in any sense but being in favour of the provincial Liberal Party when it's the bought one of the year? Who the hell do you think owns virtually all the news media in Canada? It's bosses like your own - who hire only hacks like you.
Tell you what, Norbert, you want to look at bloated services that really drain money out of this province so we can't afford catastrophic drug programs. Okay, Look at the lavish pay of corporate directors. Look at the bloated salaries of corporate executives. Look at the scandalously low taxes they pay. Look at the favours, grants and loans they get. Look at the cost of private/public partnerships. Look at the bonuses they hand out to each other for ripping us off.
Look at former leaders of government who become wealthy in the private sector. (Nor is it just in New Brunswick. "Socialist" UK premier, Tony Blair now earns millions a year for his cooperation with oil companies in setting up the Iraq war. Bishop Tutu, who was to speak for free at a conference, withdrew because Tony Blair would be a speaker, and he believed Blair should be tried as a war criminal. Blair conscientiously spoke, anyway - for a fee of some $200,000.)
Look at a newspaper chain, the one you work for, that deliberately keeps us ignorant of all that's going on.
But you won't do that, will you, Norbert. No. It's easier to pick on civil servants who have no power to pull your strings, and at bus drivers who would like to earn a living wage - and who can't get a cushy, one hour a day job like yours writing ignorant and abusive crap.
Forget the op ed page. It's two articles by people who get well paid to write about nothing. And who never, never write anything critical about the boss. What the hell. It's better than driving a bus.
Tomorrow evening, Tuesday at the Moncton Library. 7 pm. Current events - and we're talking about language in New Brunswick. And culture. and what words mean.
Oh, I'll also be at City Hall to protest in favour of the bus drivers - and to pick up a freedom of information form so we can find out what's under Highgate Square. The demo is on Tuesday, Sept. 7 at 4 pm.
A boy, a child, had worked for over a year delivering the TandT every morning. He never missed a day.Then he decided he couldn't carry on, and so he informed them.
But he didn't give two weeks notice. So they withheld his last week's pay. Okay. Not unreasonable I mean, you have to get tough with kids.
Then they pulled another week's pay out of his bank account.
________ (on the dotted line, write in the word that best describes the management at The Times and Transcript. I have provided room for eight letters.)
Following the same tone, most of the paper contains not a word about the meaning of Labour Day, what its origins were, what things used to be like in the labour world. The only mention of it, a brief one, is in Alec Bruce's column.
Oh, I know. Labour unions are unreasonable. Workers ask too much. etc.etc. May I suggest you take a look at what things were like before labour unions? - at things like child labour, fifteen hour days, no pay for holidays, no pensions, no safety measures.... In a Canadian city in the 1880s, a child labourer was working on a machine which had no protective shields. He lost his arm. The company immediately fired him, stopped his pay, and sent him home. So far as the company was concerned, it had no more responsibility.
Nor do you have to go back to the 1880s.
It happened all over again in the 1930s. It's happening again now; and we're going to see a lot more of it.
For an idea of our future without unions, read Terry Copp "The Anatomy of Poverty". Also check to see if the library has "Report on the Royal Commission of Price Spreads and Mass Buying". That was published in 1935. Read it, and you'll understand how Canadians suffered in the great depression while the rich (just like today) were taking home their biggest profits in history.
But don't expect to learn anything about that in a newspaper chain owned by Irving. He doesn't approve of workers banding together and taking action unless they are respectable workers, like corporation presidents.Then they're allowed to become official budget advisors to the provincial government. Can you imagine the storm if union leaders appointed themselves to be official budget advisors to the government?
There is a bizarre story about a giant cross going up at Moncton Prayer Garden. Though it is not mentioned, I should be most curious to know whether this is public ground.
Now, I am a Christian. And I take that very seriously.But I would not assume a right to put up my religious symbol on public property. You would? Okay. How about a thirty foot high Star of David? Or a thirty foot high Crescent of Islam?
People of all faiths are invited to the Prayer Garden - though with its very ornate cross and its stations of the cross, it is clearly Roman Catholic. (I confess to a bias here. I am not big on ritual of any sort, or fancy crosses with angels, etc.)
The writing of the report is a little on the bizarre side, too. It is, we are told, a "glorified" cross. Well - uh - is there another kind of cross? If so,could we be told where to find an unglorified one?
And, it seems, the new cross is even more "symbolic" than the old one. I have no idea what that means. Perhaps it refers to the ornate metal decoration, the 36 carved flowers, and the five, imitation angels that were so sadly lacking at Calvary. As just plain wood, that one was hardly symbolic at all, I guess.
The article also thanks the city for its constant support. Oh? And what constant support would that be referring to? Was any of it financial or some other material form of support? After all, this is a city that picks up some tabs for a religious university.
The big attraction is to be found as the final note in a website for Prayer Garden. Nearby, it says, are wonders like a zoo, a MacDonald's and the unique Atlantic (sound of trumpets) Irving Big Stop. Halleluja!
I am happy to see that all faiths are welcome. And I'm happy to see other Moncton churches cooperating in this effort. But a prayer place to which all faiths are welcome should look like one in which all faiths - Protestants, Jews, Moslem, Hindus, Taoists.....can be at home, where we all can meet and share the great deal we have in common. The Moncton Prayer Garden does not look like such a place.
And, no, I am not anti-RC. Indeed, my experience in Montreal was that the Roman Catholic church was admirably active in social gospel work -and I have no reason to doubt the same is true in Moncton. And I have had Roman Catholic connections in the social gospel movement. I was also interviewed by a papal examiner for the recent elevation of St. Andre. I even have a relative, Reverend Zenon Decarie, who is now under consideration for sainthood. (And, boy, do I intend to make the most of that.) But I think there are a lot of questions that should be asked about the Garden of Prayer.
(I'm surprised the story didn't mention that there was an Irving's Big Stop nearby. After all, the connection to faith should be obvious.)
The drought in the US is going to cause mass hunger and starvation all over the world. The Moncton Times and Transcript captures the full horror this in the Your Investments page, C2.
"Drought could drive up price of popcorn"
And that's really the only story worth reading in NewsToday.
They don't mention that Obama has drastically cut US participation in a joint military exercise with Israel. What does that mean? Well, don't worry about it. It has something to do with a possible world war. But who has time for that when the price of popcorn is going up?
The editorial is mostly of the SOMETHING MUST BE DONE variety - vague and uninformed.
Norbert has a good point to make. But he seems incapable of writing anything without some ignorant rant slipping in. He writes in favour of a catastrophic drug programme for the province. It's expensive, but necessary. No quarrel there.
Then he blames the civil service for it! Why? Because the civil service is bloated,he says. What does he know about the civil service and whether it's bloated? Nothing. But it seems impossible for him to write a column without saying that.
Then, for some reason, he says that if the Harper government were to do something illegal, the papers would be full of it - but they would ignore it if the NDP did it. In fact, half of his column on drugs is really attacks on civil servants, the NDP, "liberal" conspiracies, and general paranoia.
Norbert - you are full of it. The Harper government has done a number of things illegally and/or improperly. And they have not received attention in the press. Certainly, they have not received attention in the BrunswickMedia or the Cunningham column. Remember Brian Mulroney, the pm who accepted bribes while in office? What has Harper done about that case? Where is the big investigation on robocalls that the Conservatives were accused of using? What about wild spending on international conferences? Where are the stories about lavish contracts for friends of the government?
And the media ignored the case of the NDP? Bullshit, Norbert. I read it in papers all over Canada. You, Norbert, are our Clint Eastwood, with a paranoia about the "liberalism" of the news media. Norbert, look at your own paper. Is it "liberal" in any sense but being in favour of the provincial Liberal Party when it's the bought one of the year? Who the hell do you think owns virtually all the news media in Canada? It's bosses like your own - who hire only hacks like you.
Tell you what, Norbert, you want to look at bloated services that really drain money out of this province so we can't afford catastrophic drug programs. Okay, Look at the lavish pay of corporate directors. Look at the bloated salaries of corporate executives. Look at the scandalously low taxes they pay. Look at the favours, grants and loans they get. Look at the cost of private/public partnerships. Look at the bonuses they hand out to each other for ripping us off.
Look at former leaders of government who become wealthy in the private sector. (Nor is it just in New Brunswick. "Socialist" UK premier, Tony Blair now earns millions a year for his cooperation with oil companies in setting up the Iraq war. Bishop Tutu, who was to speak for free at a conference, withdrew because Tony Blair would be a speaker, and he believed Blair should be tried as a war criminal. Blair conscientiously spoke, anyway - for a fee of some $200,000.)
Look at a newspaper chain, the one you work for, that deliberately keeps us ignorant of all that's going on.
But you won't do that, will you, Norbert. No. It's easier to pick on civil servants who have no power to pull your strings, and at bus drivers who would like to earn a living wage - and who can't get a cushy, one hour a day job like yours writing ignorant and abusive crap.
Forget the op ed page. It's two articles by people who get well paid to write about nothing. And who never, never write anything critical about the boss. What the hell. It's better than driving a bus.
Tomorrow evening, Tuesday at the Moncton Library. 7 pm. Current events - and we're talking about language in New Brunswick. And culture. and what words mean.
Oh, I'll also be at City Hall to protest in favour of the bus drivers - and to pick up a freedom of information form so we can find out what's under Highgate Square. The demo is on Tuesday, Sept. 7 at 4 pm.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Sept. 1: Did I miss something?
It was the scariest thing I have ever seen, a monster gathering of braying jackasses to choose the man who could be the next leader of the most powerful country in the world. A centrepiece was the appearance of Clint Eastwood.
Now, I like Clint Eastwood flics. Call me lowbrow, but I like 'em.
But, oh, it was embarrassing to see a man so awkward and stumbling on stage that I often wondered if he might be suffering an early stage of dementia. What was worse was his colossal ignorance (a kind word in this case) of the record of the party he was defending.
He actually accused Obama of blundering by invading Afghanistan, saying he should have taken note of what happened to the Russians when they tried that. And he advised that the troops be taken home immediately.
Hello, Clint. It was the Bush Republicans who invaded Afghanistan. I'm no great admirer of Obama. But he did not invade Afghanistan. Similarly, the crack about bringing the troops home tomorrow shows a stunning ignorance of how difficult that would be to do. (For a hint, look up old footage on Youtube for the horror of the retreat from Vietnam.)
And the recession was no caused by Obama. It was caused by a Republican government following exactly the same economic policies that Romney advocates.
And the audience, the people who chose the next Republican leader, was such a collection of ignorant yahoos they thought all this was hilarious and that it really showed how silly the Democrats are. (Not that it matters a whole lot. Democrat policies have not been very different from Republican ones.)
All this made front pages all over the world - even on the Times of India. But The Moncton Times and Transcript, as always, seems to have had its nose buried in the boss' bellybutton.
On the good side, the lead story on A1 is an important one. We are facing one hell of a mass transit problem in Moncton and across the province. We probably have very little time to come up with an answer. And, so far, our political leaders seem to to standing around with their faces hanging out.
And, a very important story just below it. Starting today, muncipalities will have to respect our right to information regulations. (Don't cheer yet. Our federal and provincial governments were supposed to be respecting them a long time ago.) However, I must go to city hall ASAP to get the appropriate forms to find out what pollutants are under Highfield Square.
The only story worth reading in NewsToday is on B3 "Haiti struggles to cope with cholera".
It's simple enough. Cholera kills. In the last two years, it has killed 7,400 Haitians and sickened 600,000. The cure is simple enough - clean water. But Haiti is short on clean water. Most recently, it has been short because of an earthquake which devastated the country. The world promised help. But, mostly, what it sent was troops and police to deport the elected and popular president. Contracts for little things like clean water went mostly to private contractors who were buddies of the US government, and who spent most of the money on themselves. But there wasn't much clean water even before that, anyway.
For a hundred years, Haiti has been ruled either directly by the US government or through dictators it sponsored. The result has been wonderful for billionaire owners of fruit farms, clothing factories, etc.- though almost none of those owners have ever been Haitians. The people of Haiti got virtually nothing - very little education, no health care, incredibly low pay, vast slums, filth, no sewage, no services, and robbery, rape, torture and murder by the dictator's soldiers.
Haiti has been living a hundred years as the very model of the free market capitalism that Mitt Romney advocates. And it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. And today its people are dying from something that could be cured by water - clean water.
Got a joke about that, Clint?
The editorial, dealing with feeding the hungry in Moncton, is pretty vague. But one statement is both alarming and confusing. A food bus was serving 300,000 meals a ---a what? And it was serving the equivalent of 300,000 meals. What on earth is the equivalent of 300,000 meals? It ends with the bland assurance that the closing of the food bus service will make no difference. Really? So why have an editorial on it?
This is an editorial is the best tradition of the TandT's mission to say nothing of any use to anybody.
"Bill" Beliveau was pretty bland and shallow. (But that's better than the usual Liberal propaganda spiel.) Norbert is sticking with trivia. Brent Mazerolle seems to start from somewhere - but goes nowhere.
The op ed piece by Harold Nicholson of Transport Action Atlantic is well worth a read. I was particularly struck by the wisdom of the statement that private business is NOT the solution to our transport problems. Despite the babble of TandT editors, private business is frequently NOT more efficient than government, and is commonly MORE expensive than government service. It is a massive problem, and one with profound economic consequences as well as social ones.
I know almost nothing of Transport Action Atlantic. But this opinion piece is a warning worth taking seriously.
A reminder that the current events group will meet at the Moncton Library on Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. The topic will be language and culture in New Brunswick.
Oh, there's a letter to the editor that seniors should all be re-tested to keep their drivers' licenses. Thirty years ago, I would have applauded this. Today, I denounce it as prejudiced and ignorant. I guess that just proves how the years have added wisdom to me. Today, as a senior driver, I drive safely and sensibly at 10K, and exactly straddling the middle of the road.
And - a very
Now, I like Clint Eastwood flics. Call me lowbrow, but I like 'em.
But, oh, it was embarrassing to see a man so awkward and stumbling on stage that I often wondered if he might be suffering an early stage of dementia. What was worse was his colossal ignorance (a kind word in this case) of the record of the party he was defending.
He actually accused Obama of blundering by invading Afghanistan, saying he should have taken note of what happened to the Russians when they tried that. And he advised that the troops be taken home immediately.
Hello, Clint. It was the Bush Republicans who invaded Afghanistan. I'm no great admirer of Obama. But he did not invade Afghanistan. Similarly, the crack about bringing the troops home tomorrow shows a stunning ignorance of how difficult that would be to do. (For a hint, look up old footage on Youtube for the horror of the retreat from Vietnam.)
And the recession was no caused by Obama. It was caused by a Republican government following exactly the same economic policies that Romney advocates.
And the audience, the people who chose the next Republican leader, was such a collection of ignorant yahoos they thought all this was hilarious and that it really showed how silly the Democrats are. (Not that it matters a whole lot. Democrat policies have not been very different from Republican ones.)
All this made front pages all over the world - even on the Times of India. But The Moncton Times and Transcript, as always, seems to have had its nose buried in the boss' bellybutton.
On the good side, the lead story on A1 is an important one. We are facing one hell of a mass transit problem in Moncton and across the province. We probably have very little time to come up with an answer. And, so far, our political leaders seem to to standing around with their faces hanging out.
And, a very important story just below it. Starting today, muncipalities will have to respect our right to information regulations. (Don't cheer yet. Our federal and provincial governments were supposed to be respecting them a long time ago.) However, I must go to city hall ASAP to get the appropriate forms to find out what pollutants are under Highfield Square.
The only story worth reading in NewsToday is on B3 "Haiti struggles to cope with cholera".
It's simple enough. Cholera kills. In the last two years, it has killed 7,400 Haitians and sickened 600,000. The cure is simple enough - clean water. But Haiti is short on clean water. Most recently, it has been short because of an earthquake which devastated the country. The world promised help. But, mostly, what it sent was troops and police to deport the elected and popular president. Contracts for little things like clean water went mostly to private contractors who were buddies of the US government, and who spent most of the money on themselves. But there wasn't much clean water even before that, anyway.
For a hundred years, Haiti has been ruled either directly by the US government or through dictators it sponsored. The result has been wonderful for billionaire owners of fruit farms, clothing factories, etc.- though almost none of those owners have ever been Haitians. The people of Haiti got virtually nothing - very little education, no health care, incredibly low pay, vast slums, filth, no sewage, no services, and robbery, rape, torture and murder by the dictator's soldiers.
Haiti has been living a hundred years as the very model of the free market capitalism that Mitt Romney advocates. And it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. And today its people are dying from something that could be cured by water - clean water.
Got a joke about that, Clint?
The editorial, dealing with feeding the hungry in Moncton, is pretty vague. But one statement is both alarming and confusing. A food bus was serving 300,000 meals a ---a what? And it was serving the equivalent of 300,000 meals. What on earth is the equivalent of 300,000 meals? It ends with the bland assurance that the closing of the food bus service will make no difference. Really? So why have an editorial on it?
This is an editorial is the best tradition of the TandT's mission to say nothing of any use to anybody.
"Bill" Beliveau was pretty bland and shallow. (But that's better than the usual Liberal propaganda spiel.) Norbert is sticking with trivia. Brent Mazerolle seems to start from somewhere - but goes nowhere.
The op ed piece by Harold Nicholson of Transport Action Atlantic is well worth a read. I was particularly struck by the wisdom of the statement that private business is NOT the solution to our transport problems. Despite the babble of TandT editors, private business is frequently NOT more efficient than government, and is commonly MORE expensive than government service. It is a massive problem, and one with profound economic consequences as well as social ones.
I know almost nothing of Transport Action Atlantic. But this opinion piece is a warning worth taking seriously.
A reminder that the current events group will meet at the Moncton Library on Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. The topic will be language and culture in New Brunswick.
Oh, there's a letter to the editor that seniors should all be re-tested to keep their drivers' licenses. Thirty years ago, I would have applauded this. Today, I denounce it as prejudiced and ignorant. I guess that just proves how the years have added wisdom to me. Today, as a senior driver, I drive safely and sensibly at 10K, and exactly straddling the middle of the road.
And - a very
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