But let's warm up with the small stuff....
On page A1 we find a story by Alan Cochrane that seniors are furious at companies which impose extra charges on people who pay their monthly bills by mail rather than computer. Quite true. And it's typical of many, many companies, and it's rather like our banks which impose ATM charges for a service that actually saves money for the banks. Not a bad story...but....
It doesn't mention what most news services mentioned two days ago, that the NDP has introduced a bill in the House of Commons to prevent such a practice. So what we have on the front page is a story that's two days old - maybe three - and that leaves out a rather important piece of information. And that piece of information was easy to find. Just go to Google news. So why was it left out?
Hard to tell with the Moncton Times and Transcript. It's chronically a sloppy paper; so that could be it. Or it could be that the editor took out any mention of that nasty NDP.
So much for Section A.
Then there's an amusing headline at the top of the Sports section, "Miracles have some noteworthy feats".
The sound of that conjured images of a lineup of miracles showing how interesting their feet are, an image strengthened by the photo of a Miracle player with an impressively large foot. But what really caught my eye was the word "some".
"Some" implies "not many". In fact, it's bit derogatory. Worse, it all adds up to a boring headline. It's flat. And it's confusing. After all feats are things that you DO, not that you have. The editor probably wrote that headline; and it's a real stinker. Better might have been "Despite record, Miracles have strong points to watch for".
NewsToday has nothing to speak of. Its "Your Business" page is a story of three business leaders being honoured. Well, a)if I'm reading to check my business, I'm not interested in a story that has nothing to do with my business. b) the Tand T ran the same story yesterday.
On the editorial page, good cartoon by de Adder. Norbert's column is okay but, really Norbert, three days on bicycle helmets is a bit much.Alec Bruce has a grim column on the state of the American economy, its politics, and its future. If anything, he may be understating just how grim it is.
There are two pages of letters to the editor. I have no idea why. I imagine it's cheaper than putting together a real newspaper.
One letter is interesting - if only for what it hints at. "Investment survey was well conceived." It replies to a survey by the Fraser Institute on provincial friendliness to business. The Fraser Institute is, of course, a just-pretend 'think tank' that pumps out (pimps out?) propaganda for big business. Alec Bruce's column had wondered how its survey could put NB top of the list for one extraction industry, and bottom for another. (That puzzled me, too, since our government is usually pretty supine for any big business.) The letter glibly explained it all away.
What interested me was that the letter was very well written - the product of a writer who has experience in this sort of writing to explain away things to the public. Then I read his name and his home - Calgary.
Imagine, a reader of the Moncton Times in Calgary. Now, where is that Fraser Institute located? Well, it has its western office in Calgary. What a coincidence! And the coincidences just keepp coming. The letter was signed by a Gerry Angevine. And a person of that very same name just happens to be a senior counsellor for the Fraser Institute in Calgary. I guess Gerry Angevine must be a really common name out west.
A good editor would have noticed all that, and would have indicated Angivine's connection to the institute at the bottom of the letter. That's what's called honest journalism.
Then there's the opinion page and the editorial. These are quite something.
Two days ago, a large number of prominent Acadians published a letter critical of the Irving press for setting a tone that encouraged language division and quarreling in New Brunswick. It was a quite clear, calm and logical letter. The Moncton Times didn't report it. (I knew about it only because I heard it on CBC).
Then the TandT did what papers like it do.
It published the letter as an opinion - but only when it had a long editorial disputing it ready for the same edition. When you face a serious attack, smother it by giving out your side at the same time.
I won't argue the case of either side because bigots and those who are just plain scared of the way the world is going won't pay attention to any argument. I'll just briefly suggest that the opinion column is specific and sensible. The editorial is rarely specific, often completely off the point, and usually vague. It's what's called a smokescreen. The bigots will love it.
Yesterday, I posed a question. If World War Two was a war to defend freedom and democracy, why did the US take so long to get into it? It had been well know for over a decade what Hitler was about; and for over two years it had calmly watched it's old ally, Britain, get pushed to the edge of defeat.
This is in no way a criticism of Americans. Most Americans had nothing whatever to do with the decision to go to war. What this is is an attempt to be realistic about why nations go to war.
The do not go to war, despite lurid news stories, to fight against "bad men", to help little girls go to school, to relieve suffering, or to bring democracy. Usually, they go to war for one reason, and only one. It is in the interests of those who control the country to go to war. And, in most western countries, those controllers are the business leaders.
In the case of World War Two, prominent American business leaders supported Hitler. In the depression years, Hitler was the man who was protecting capitalism from a spread of socialism or even communism.
As to Britain, well, American big business stood a good chance to grab a large part of the British Empire if it should be defeated - Hong Kong, Singapore. Then there were the Dutch East Indies, French Indo-China (Vietnam)...all were attractive targets for American big business.
In the end, in fact, it didn't declare war on Germany. Germany declared war on the US in very late December of 1942. That was when Britain and the UN became united in a war for democracy (neatly ignoring that both of them denied democracy to the countries they controlled.) Why did Roosevelt change his mind on Hitler?
Well, there was Japan. The greatest aim of US big business was control of the trade of Asia and, most especially, of China. But the Japanese invasions of China and east Asia were cutting that off. It needed a war with Japan. (In fact, if you study American naval building from 1920 on, it was clearly designed for war against Japan - with an emphasis on long range warships, fast supply ships, aircraft carriers..)
That's why the US cut off Japan's oil supply. It had to stop the Japanese advances.
Why did the Japanese, knowing they could not hope to invade the US or to defeat it, attack Pearl Harbour?
To grab as much territory as possible before the US military machine could respond.
This is what took the US into war, the desire of American business to get control of Asian trade. It wasn't Hitler. It was Japan.
But Hitler had a treaty with Japan. That's why he, not the US, declared war between the US and Germany. Of course, it would soon obvious that the US had to get involved in Europe as the Soviet armies acted in unexpected strength, threatening to create an even bigger threat to the US.
But the ambition to inherit the British, French and Dutch colonies in Asia was alway up front. When the Free French told the US it was going to retake IndoChina by sending a warship to Hanoi, the US government warned it not to. When the French ignored the warning and entered Hanoi harbour, American aircraft bombed it.
The British were warned not to liberate Hong Kong. They, too, defied the order and, led by a Canadian ship, re-took Hong Kong. Luckily for the British, their fleet in the Pacific was too big to dispose of as they had a French destroyer.
Nobody fights wars for the reasons that the news media talk about. Wars are fought to protect and forward the interests of those who have real power in a country.
And the citizen voters are rarely a part of that real power.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Nov. 7:
There's little to say about today's Moncton Times and Transcript that has not been said before.
Page A3 is cute. It has a story about inductions into the Junior Achievement New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame. (Curiously, though, the inductees all seem to be pretty senior juniors.) All are, of course, the usual suspects. But it is the existence of such a Hall of Fame that is intriguing.
People in some fields, not many, lust after public recognition and awards and titles. People in most fields don't.
Professors, for example, crave titles, preferably in Latin, and ever more letters after their names. The champs are probably athletes. It must a very minor sport, indeed, that does not have its Hall of Fame. There was a period when I was frequently invited to suppers, roasts, testimonials for professional athletes; and they were always wonderful, character-filled, just great guys. These were always feasts of testimonials, love, praise - with more for dessert.
Yon don't usually see that for accountants, dentists, even politicians.
However, a Hall of Fame for aging junior businessmen actually exists in New Brunswick.
The editorial and op ed pages are slightly better than usual. de Adders has managed a funny cartoon. Quite clever, really. The editorial does its usual pimping, this time (again) for the 'events centre'. Norbert has a good column on bicycle helmets. (But this is a pretty trivial issue when one considers what he could be dealing with - shale gas, absurdly low taxes for business, the level of business intrusion into government.....
Jim Irving, for example, a member of the Junior Achievement New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame (and therefore now to be referred to as Jim Irving, JANBHF), was once advisor to the Minister of Finance. Isn't that nice? Yes, just like hiring a wolf to look after the sheep.
Alec Bruce has s sobering column on the outcome of the US election. It is one of the few intelligent summaries I have seen of the campaign, the election, and what is likely to happen in the next four years.. Obama may be better than Romney. But not much and not nearly enough. And, in any case, there has been no change in the people who really run the country.
Eric Lewis and Brian Cormier, as usual, manage to fill an otherwise attractive blank space with babbling.
So what to expect now that Obama has defeated Romney? The same as what happened after Obama defeated Bush - more of the same old same old.
The American election, as usual, was financed by the super-wealthy. Who even knows the names of those parties which also ran but did not have the support of the super-wealthy? Obama (the 'leftist" in American terms) won. But Obama collected as least as much from the super-wealthy as Romney did. In fact, there is no left or right, no conservative or liberal in American politics. There is only big business and what it wants.
Big business depends on its control of foreign markets and foreign resources. It must have the cheap labour of Haita and most of Central America, the cheap labour and resources of Africa. It must spend heavily on 'defence' because that is the only way it can stop China and Russia from moving in on the resources and markets of Africa, Latin America and Asia. American business has always been built on the military - from the invasions of Canada and Mexico, the annexation of The Phillipines, the creation of dictatorships in Central America, the support and the shuffling of dictators (as in Libya and Iraq where Saddam and Ghadaffi were originally close friends to US business).
But the American empire is in serious trouble.
It began when its puppet in China, Chiang Kai-Shek was defeated. This not only meant that US big business had lost its dream of controlling China. As we now know, it meant the US would face a powerful competitor.
That is the reason for most of the wars since 1950. Not only must American big business hang on to the old, European empires it has inherited, it must also recapture old colonies it lost - as in Latin America. That's why there have been Canadian 'peacekeepers' and police in Haiti. They aren't there to protect Haitians. The US invented a crisis, used it to send the democratically elected president into exile, then set up what was really an army of occupation so it could then hold a largely phony election to install another American puppet. There are many more Haitis still to come all over the world. (Why was he president of Haiti bad? He was going to tax American businesses in Haiti and waste the money on hospitals and schools.)
But the money for eternal war has long since run out. And the American people are so fed up with war that recruits, even in a recession, are hard to find. In Afghanistan today, well over half of the American army is made up of hired thugs, the mercenaries called private contractors.
Reading the daily news is little help in understanding what is happening. You have to have some sense of the bigger picture in which the day's news is happening.
What's happening is that a vast, commercial empire built on military power is collapsing. And it has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Do you think countries go to war to bring justice and peace or, perhaps, to punish bad people like Saddam?
If tomorrow's paper is as dull as today's, I'll touch on that. To get ready for it, think of this....
World War Two was, we were told, a war fought to defend freedom. Okay. So here's the question. If the war was fought to save freedom, why did it take the US so long to join in?
Page A3 is cute. It has a story about inductions into the Junior Achievement New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame. (Curiously, though, the inductees all seem to be pretty senior juniors.) All are, of course, the usual suspects. But it is the existence of such a Hall of Fame that is intriguing.
People in some fields, not many, lust after public recognition and awards and titles. People in most fields don't.
Professors, for example, crave titles, preferably in Latin, and ever more letters after their names. The champs are probably athletes. It must a very minor sport, indeed, that does not have its Hall of Fame. There was a period when I was frequently invited to suppers, roasts, testimonials for professional athletes; and they were always wonderful, character-filled, just great guys. These were always feasts of testimonials, love, praise - with more for dessert.
Yon don't usually see that for accountants, dentists, even politicians.
However, a Hall of Fame for aging junior businessmen actually exists in New Brunswick.
The editorial and op ed pages are slightly better than usual. de Adders has managed a funny cartoon. Quite clever, really. The editorial does its usual pimping, this time (again) for the 'events centre'. Norbert has a good column on bicycle helmets. (But this is a pretty trivial issue when one considers what he could be dealing with - shale gas, absurdly low taxes for business, the level of business intrusion into government.....
Jim Irving, for example, a member of the Junior Achievement New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame (and therefore now to be referred to as Jim Irving, JANBHF), was once advisor to the Minister of Finance. Isn't that nice? Yes, just like hiring a wolf to look after the sheep.
Alec Bruce has s sobering column on the outcome of the US election. It is one of the few intelligent summaries I have seen of the campaign, the election, and what is likely to happen in the next four years.. Obama may be better than Romney. But not much and not nearly enough. And, in any case, there has been no change in the people who really run the country.
Eric Lewis and Brian Cormier, as usual, manage to fill an otherwise attractive blank space with babbling.
So what to expect now that Obama has defeated Romney? The same as what happened after Obama defeated Bush - more of the same old same old.
The American election, as usual, was financed by the super-wealthy. Who even knows the names of those parties which also ran but did not have the support of the super-wealthy? Obama (the 'leftist" in American terms) won. But Obama collected as least as much from the super-wealthy as Romney did. In fact, there is no left or right, no conservative or liberal in American politics. There is only big business and what it wants.
Big business depends on its control of foreign markets and foreign resources. It must have the cheap labour of Haita and most of Central America, the cheap labour and resources of Africa. It must spend heavily on 'defence' because that is the only way it can stop China and Russia from moving in on the resources and markets of Africa, Latin America and Asia. American business has always been built on the military - from the invasions of Canada and Mexico, the annexation of The Phillipines, the creation of dictatorships in Central America, the support and the shuffling of dictators (as in Libya and Iraq where Saddam and Ghadaffi were originally close friends to US business).
But the American empire is in serious trouble.
It began when its puppet in China, Chiang Kai-Shek was defeated. This not only meant that US big business had lost its dream of controlling China. As we now know, it meant the US would face a powerful competitor.
That is the reason for most of the wars since 1950. Not only must American big business hang on to the old, European empires it has inherited, it must also recapture old colonies it lost - as in Latin America. That's why there have been Canadian 'peacekeepers' and police in Haiti. They aren't there to protect Haitians. The US invented a crisis, used it to send the democratically elected president into exile, then set up what was really an army of occupation so it could then hold a largely phony election to install another American puppet. There are many more Haitis still to come all over the world. (Why was he president of Haiti bad? He was going to tax American businesses in Haiti and waste the money on hospitals and schools.)
But the money for eternal war has long since run out. And the American people are so fed up with war that recruits, even in a recession, are hard to find. In Afghanistan today, well over half of the American army is made up of hired thugs, the mercenaries called private contractors.
Reading the daily news is little help in understanding what is happening. You have to have some sense of the bigger picture in which the day's news is happening.
What's happening is that a vast, commercial empire built on military power is collapsing. And it has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Do you think countries go to war to bring justice and peace or, perhaps, to punish bad people like Saddam?
If tomorrow's paper is as dull as today's, I'll touch on that. To get ready for it, think of this....
World War Two was, we were told, a war fought to defend freedom. Okay. So here's the question. If the war was fought to save freedom, why did it take the US so long to join in?
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Nov. 6: How to say nothing....
It's another slim day in the Moncton Times and Transcript. I got a sense of that even before I saw the paper. As I drove my children to school, I heard on CBC radio that the government knew months ago that its spending was going to go substantially into the red, despite promises to the contrary. That was at the end of the first quarter for the budget year. Normally, that would be rather an important news story. But someone at the top (naming no names, but his last name begins with A) decided there was no need for the voters of NB to know he'd screwed up again.
And, apparently, it never occurred to the news blood hounds at the Irving press to ask. But CBC asked, and it did what a news service is supposed to to do; it found the news and got it out to the public.
CBC is the news service that Norbert Cunningham constantly rants at. But every day, it beats the pants off the newspaper that Norbert works for.
______________________________________________________________________
The headline on p. 1 is an excellent example of how to take a news story, and write it up as propaganda. The story is that the purchase of Highland Square as a site for the "events centre" has been postponed for six months. But that's not what the headline says. "Downtown events centre to open by 2017?" Isn't that a strange way to announce a postponement?
Well, not if you work for a newspaper that's pimpimg for the sale. A delay is a setback. A setback is a downer. The editor didn't want a downer. He wanted a headline that would pump up excitement for the sale. So most of the article isn't about the real story. The only thing that has happened is that the sale has been postponed. But none of the headline and less than half the story is about that. It's about keeping up the excitement. Wow! 2017!
My guess? It won't happen.
_________________________________________________________________________
The second biggest story in Section A is that a woman found a dead pigeon hanging from her roof. Police do not suspect foul play. The pigeon's relatives have been informed..
And that pretty well sums up section A.
_______________________________________________________________________
NewToday has not a word on the utter chaos gripping Syria and Libya, two more cases of the western powers (with the help of their Moslem allies in Turkey and the emirates), encouraging civil wars in countries - and hopelessly botching the whole operation, and doing so at a dreadful cost in human life and suffering.
On the good side, The Tandt did get the story I mentioned earlier about how Veteran's Affairs has been turning down most requests for funeral subsidies for impoverished veterans. It's a good three days late. But they did at last get it.
Perhaps the most important article for local readers is on place C3. It's a highly critical article about the treatment of Ashley Smith, with new information that makes our prison system look even worse. And this is supposed to represent how Harper will deal with crime. It is not an impressive start.
______________________________________________________________________
Norbert Cunningham contributes a decent column on bicycle helmets. That's important because the newspapers owner almost certainly doesn't give a damn about helmets one way or the other. So it's a safe topic.
Alec Bruce's column is an important one; and I could wish he had taken it a step further. He talks about the trend of the well-connected (and often very wealthy) to gather is solemn conferences to discuss the world's problems. The danger here is that these well-connected people (often owners of newspapers and other news media) can use these conferences to influence government - and even to push government aside.
I think here of the conference, almost two years ago, of business leaders and university presidents, etc. to discuss New Brunswick's problems. All the fixes, of course, involved doing nice things for large corporations. (Ordinary people, us peasants, don't get invited to give their opinions.) As a result, Mr. Irving ended up making a public statement that he was now in coalition with the government. That means - he was a member of it - and that is unconstitutional. But it worked. The official advisers on financial policy for our government are now chosen by and from the corporate world. What the hell are they doing advising on our financial future? We didn't elect them.
Nor am I cheered to read that a gang of propagandists for the very rich, the Atlantic Instititute for Market Studies is joining the game with more of their shallow and heavily biased "studies". What is happening is that big business and the very wealthy are taking over government. Their tools are the news media, 'think tanks', many professors and university presidents.
__________________________________________________________________________
In a closely related story, a reader dropped a note to me about something I had not noticed. This appeared in the proudly independent and world-respected Telegraphy-Journal. It's about some advice given by Donald Savoie, retired professor of Important Things at U de Moncton, and now a favourite source for interviews by the Irving Press. It seems he blamed the Greek economic crisis on the oversized and expensive civil service.
That is such a blatant untruth, I find it hard to imagine a professor of anything, let alone Important Things, could talk such nonsense. The Greek crisis, like all the crises we are seeing, has a lot to do with thieving and possibly even criminal behaviour by our corporate leaders. The idea that the cost of a civil service, even considering the expense of wines, cocaine, and dancing girls, could have caused the world catastrophe, the one that struck down Greece among others, is bizarre. So why say it?
It gets said because there is a concentrated attack in the West on civil servants. By cutting down on civil servants, you seriously weaken government., making it far less important in setting and enforcing policies. (That's why Norbert and other TandT writers are encouraged to rant about civil servants. The boss approves of it.)
And why would the wealthy approve of it? Because the power vacuum we create for our elected representatives will be filled by someone else. There is always someone to fill a power vacuum. And the vacuum will be filled (as a good deal of it already is, by corporate leaders - with plenty of help from retired professors of Important Things.)
We are watching the deliberate erosion of democracy so that it can be replaced with the power of money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember - this evening at 7 at the Moncton Library -I'll be talking about the very broad picture of what is happening in the world - yes, and even New Brunswick.
And, apparently, it never occurred to the news blood hounds at the Irving press to ask. But CBC asked, and it did what a news service is supposed to to do; it found the news and got it out to the public.
CBC is the news service that Norbert Cunningham constantly rants at. But every day, it beats the pants off the newspaper that Norbert works for.
______________________________________________________________________
The headline on p. 1 is an excellent example of how to take a news story, and write it up as propaganda. The story is that the purchase of Highland Square as a site for the "events centre" has been postponed for six months. But that's not what the headline says. "Downtown events centre to open by 2017?" Isn't that a strange way to announce a postponement?
Well, not if you work for a newspaper that's pimpimg for the sale. A delay is a setback. A setback is a downer. The editor didn't want a downer. He wanted a headline that would pump up excitement for the sale. So most of the article isn't about the real story. The only thing that has happened is that the sale has been postponed. But none of the headline and less than half the story is about that. It's about keeping up the excitement. Wow! 2017!
My guess? It won't happen.
_________________________________________________________________________
The second biggest story in Section A is that a woman found a dead pigeon hanging from her roof. Police do not suspect foul play. The pigeon's relatives have been informed..
And that pretty well sums up section A.
_______________________________________________________________________
NewToday has not a word on the utter chaos gripping Syria and Libya, two more cases of the western powers (with the help of their Moslem allies in Turkey and the emirates), encouraging civil wars in countries - and hopelessly botching the whole operation, and doing so at a dreadful cost in human life and suffering.
On the good side, The Tandt did get the story I mentioned earlier about how Veteran's Affairs has been turning down most requests for funeral subsidies for impoverished veterans. It's a good three days late. But they did at last get it.
Perhaps the most important article for local readers is on place C3. It's a highly critical article about the treatment of Ashley Smith, with new information that makes our prison system look even worse. And this is supposed to represent how Harper will deal with crime. It is not an impressive start.
______________________________________________________________________
Norbert Cunningham contributes a decent column on bicycle helmets. That's important because the newspapers owner almost certainly doesn't give a damn about helmets one way or the other. So it's a safe topic.
Alec Bruce's column is an important one; and I could wish he had taken it a step further. He talks about the trend of the well-connected (and often very wealthy) to gather is solemn conferences to discuss the world's problems. The danger here is that these well-connected people (often owners of newspapers and other news media) can use these conferences to influence government - and even to push government aside.
I think here of the conference, almost two years ago, of business leaders and university presidents, etc. to discuss New Brunswick's problems. All the fixes, of course, involved doing nice things for large corporations. (Ordinary people, us peasants, don't get invited to give their opinions.) As a result, Mr. Irving ended up making a public statement that he was now in coalition with the government. That means - he was a member of it - and that is unconstitutional. But it worked. The official advisers on financial policy for our government are now chosen by and from the corporate world. What the hell are they doing advising on our financial future? We didn't elect them.
Nor am I cheered to read that a gang of propagandists for the very rich, the Atlantic Instititute for Market Studies is joining the game with more of their shallow and heavily biased "studies". What is happening is that big business and the very wealthy are taking over government. Their tools are the news media, 'think tanks', many professors and university presidents.
__________________________________________________________________________
In a closely related story, a reader dropped a note to me about something I had not noticed. This appeared in the proudly independent and world-respected Telegraphy-Journal. It's about some advice given by Donald Savoie, retired professor of Important Things at U de Moncton, and now a favourite source for interviews by the Irving Press. It seems he blamed the Greek economic crisis on the oversized and expensive civil service.
That is such a blatant untruth, I find it hard to imagine a professor of anything, let alone Important Things, could talk such nonsense. The Greek crisis, like all the crises we are seeing, has a lot to do with thieving and possibly even criminal behaviour by our corporate leaders. The idea that the cost of a civil service, even considering the expense of wines, cocaine, and dancing girls, could have caused the world catastrophe, the one that struck down Greece among others, is bizarre. So why say it?
It gets said because there is a concentrated attack in the West on civil servants. By cutting down on civil servants, you seriously weaken government., making it far less important in setting and enforcing policies. (That's why Norbert and other TandT writers are encouraged to rant about civil servants. The boss approves of it.)
And why would the wealthy approve of it? Because the power vacuum we create for our elected representatives will be filled by someone else. There is always someone to fill a power vacuum. And the vacuum will be filled (as a good deal of it already is, by corporate leaders - with plenty of help from retired professors of Important Things.)
We are watching the deliberate erosion of democracy so that it can be replaced with the power of money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember - this evening at 7 at the Moncton Library -I'll be talking about the very broad picture of what is happening in the world - yes, and even New Brunswick.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Nov. 5: slim pickings
Today's edition of the Moncton Times and Transcript is a short read. Readership of section A will be limited to those who are all excited about the wine expo and/or the dog show. Sports is interesting mainly for its story headlines. Readers just love those macho verbs. "Miracles blast Jazz" "Huskies oust grid Mounties"
Real he-man stuff. It always reminds me of an old radio sportscaster who would announce the hockey scores as "Montreal edges Toronto 12 to nothing" "Chicago destroys Los Angeles three to two"
But that pretty much skims the cream of what's in the paper as the Moncton TandT maintains its stunning record of telling us nothing but trivia and propaganda. Among the missing is the story that Senator Downes is trying hard to get the federal government's Revenue department has never filed a charge against those wealthy Canadians and their corporations who hide billions of dollars in overseas bank accounts. Senator Downes has quite list of companies and numbers. But he seems unable to attract Mr. let's get tough on crime Harper.
I don't know why the TandT wouldn't mention this. After all, I can't imagine anyone connected with the paper who would do such a thing as avoid taxes, leaving us to make up the difference. I know it happens in other countries. Some sources put the total figure for the world into the trillions.
But, of course, Mr. Harper is always one to temper justice with mercy. Remember how Brian Mulroney got caught accepting payments and not reporting them for taxes when he was prime minister? It was at least a couple of hundred thousand. But did Mr. Harper punish him with a fine or jail. (I mean, stealing that much money in taxes is surely as serious as stealing cigarettes in a convenience story.) But, no. Harper, ever the Christian gentleman, imposed no penalties. Go forth, he said, and sin no more. And I'm sure that Mulroney is now a better man for that.
There is still no mention of the deliberate dumping of iron pyrites just off our Pacific coast, even though the whole world is concerned about the damage it may cause far beyond Canadian shores. Even Mr. Harper has (briefly) said it was not nice. And I'm sure he'll do something about it. Some day. Maybe.
I know the TandT is busily covering up the very idea that there is such a thing as environmental damage and there are consequences to it. That's why the paper avoids such topics to concentrate on village idiot news.
There was no mention at all of a language demo in Montreal yesterday. It's surprising that the TandT has shown no interest in the rising language tensions in that city. They have quite an impact on how people react in this province. On both sides in NB, I hear too much of the emotionally-loaded but not terribly accurate sloganeering that is copied from Quebec. Keeping people ignorant and letting them blow off emotion steam isn't going to help.
For an example of how it isn't going to help, read "Sees few benefits to bilingualism" in letters to the editor. Despite the letter being long, it misses the whole point of what bilingualism is about. We cannot improve the level of discussion by withholding information.
Oh, and with Nov. 11 coming up., we need to know another story that might affect what we want to think about on that day we remember our military losses, and all those who served. The federal government has a fund to pay funeral expenses for destitute veterans. Since 2006, the feds have rejected two-thirds of the requests it received for such help. This joins many other cases of governments backtracking on promises to our veterans.
Something to remember on that day of remembrance.
But none of this is in the paper. Section C of Canadian, American and World news has one and a half pages of news, and five and a half of ads.
Real he-man stuff. It always reminds me of an old radio sportscaster who would announce the hockey scores as "Montreal edges Toronto 12 to nothing" "Chicago destroys Los Angeles three to two"
But that pretty much skims the cream of what's in the paper as the Moncton TandT maintains its stunning record of telling us nothing but trivia and propaganda. Among the missing is the story that Senator Downes is trying hard to get the federal government's Revenue department has never filed a charge against those wealthy Canadians and their corporations who hide billions of dollars in overseas bank accounts. Senator Downes has quite list of companies and numbers. But he seems unable to attract Mr. let's get tough on crime Harper.
I don't know why the TandT wouldn't mention this. After all, I can't imagine anyone connected with the paper who would do such a thing as avoid taxes, leaving us to make up the difference. I know it happens in other countries. Some sources put the total figure for the world into the trillions.
But, of course, Mr. Harper is always one to temper justice with mercy. Remember how Brian Mulroney got caught accepting payments and not reporting them for taxes when he was prime minister? It was at least a couple of hundred thousand. But did Mr. Harper punish him with a fine or jail. (I mean, stealing that much money in taxes is surely as serious as stealing cigarettes in a convenience story.) But, no. Harper, ever the Christian gentleman, imposed no penalties. Go forth, he said, and sin no more. And I'm sure that Mulroney is now a better man for that.
There is still no mention of the deliberate dumping of iron pyrites just off our Pacific coast, even though the whole world is concerned about the damage it may cause far beyond Canadian shores. Even Mr. Harper has (briefly) said it was not nice. And I'm sure he'll do something about it. Some day. Maybe.
I know the TandT is busily covering up the very idea that there is such a thing as environmental damage and there are consequences to it. That's why the paper avoids such topics to concentrate on village idiot news.
There was no mention at all of a language demo in Montreal yesterday. It's surprising that the TandT has shown no interest in the rising language tensions in that city. They have quite an impact on how people react in this province. On both sides in NB, I hear too much of the emotionally-loaded but not terribly accurate sloganeering that is copied from Quebec. Keeping people ignorant and letting them blow off emotion steam isn't going to help.
For an example of how it isn't going to help, read "Sees few benefits to bilingualism" in letters to the editor. Despite the letter being long, it misses the whole point of what bilingualism is about. We cannot improve the level of discussion by withholding information.
Oh, and with Nov. 11 coming up., we need to know another story that might affect what we want to think about on that day we remember our military losses, and all those who served. The federal government has a fund to pay funeral expenses for destitute veterans. Since 2006, the feds have rejected two-thirds of the requests it received for such help. This joins many other cases of governments backtracking on promises to our veterans.
Something to remember on that day of remembrance.
But none of this is in the paper. Section C of Canadian, American and World news has one and a half pages of news, and five and a half of ads.
The remaining page has a long article telling us that Professor Savoie has risen from his dark place to take up the torch for shale gas drilling. (Ever notice you can always predict whose side Professor Savoie will be on? After all, he says, we need to develop our resources. By implication, in fact, what he says is that we must develop our resources no matter what the damage. Even leaving aside the point we have no evidence that there will be any big money for New Brunswick in shale gas - and even if there were, could it possibly be so big as to justify poisoning so many of us as well as destroying our land and water for any other use? That seems a remarkably silly statement, even for a professor.
Or it could be good thinking. Following that line of reasoning, we could sell another provincial resource, our children, to the international sex trade. That would be even better than shale gas because a)we could make some sure money out of it b)it would cause no environmental damage and c)it's a renewable resource that would provide employment for all New Brunswickers. It would fit right into the logic of Professor Savoie's argument.
We really need the Dr. Lapierres and Savoies of this world. They're a useful warning that man was not created perfect. And now on to the editorial page and op ed.
On minor points, Norbert has yet again made the terrible mistake of writing as an expert on a topic in which he has no expertise. Having sources does not make up for that. You also need the expertise to be able to judge (and, often, to understand) the sources.
Norbert may quite likely be right in this case. What's wrong is his belief that he understands a fact when what he understands is simply a current state of scientific thought. A century ago and much less, there were eminent,respected and scientific sources aplenty to prove that Christians were superior to Jews, and Whites to Blacks. How soon we forget!
de Adder's cartoon would be funny if, as it suggests, Hurricane Sandy had destroyed Romney's campaign. But if de Adder would read his own paper, he would know that Romney and Obama are still neck and neck.
Alec Bruce examines the terrible facts of how our penal system dealt with a mentally disturbed girl named Ashley Smith. Craig Babstock deals with a very similar failure of our prisons, a failure that resulted in the murder of an inmate. Both articles suggests serious failings in the system, failings that actually create more crime and are being made worse by Harper's "cheap shot" get-tough-on-crime policies. So who's responsible for these travesties. Alec Bruce answers that. We are.We sit back with our faces hanging out. That's why these things happen. That's why the very rich can hide billions of dollars in overseas bank accounts, and nothing happens - while a mentally disturbed girl who threw crab apples at a postman was humiliated, frightened, and driven to death in a prison.
Allan Abel contributes his usual, cutesy story about some incident in Washington which is quite readable, but indicates nothing, and certainly does nothing to support the pretentious headline above it.
Now, to make sure I get my events right:
Nov. 6. Tuesday. 7 p.m. Me and current events at the Moncton Library - this time it's about how one cannot understand the news by reading or hearing it. There are some very broad principles that we always have to bear in mind.
Nov. 14. Wednesday. Dr. Cleary at Peace Institute, 22 Church St.
Finally, Today, for the first time, the weekly readership of this column in the US is bigger than it is in Canada.
I really wish an American reader would tell me why. I can't imagine why anyone outside Moncton would read the Moncton Times and Transcript. An American response might help me to understand why anyone inside Moncton reads it.
On minor points, Norbert has yet again made the terrible mistake of writing as an expert on a topic in which he has no expertise. Having sources does not make up for that. You also need the expertise to be able to judge (and, often, to understand) the sources.
Norbert may quite likely be right in this case. What's wrong is his belief that he understands a fact when what he understands is simply a current state of scientific thought. A century ago and much less, there were eminent,respected and scientific sources aplenty to prove that Christians were superior to Jews, and Whites to Blacks. How soon we forget!
de Adder's cartoon would be funny if, as it suggests, Hurricane Sandy had destroyed Romney's campaign. But if de Adder would read his own paper, he would know that Romney and Obama are still neck and neck.
Alec Bruce examines the terrible facts of how our penal system dealt with a mentally disturbed girl named Ashley Smith. Craig Babstock deals with a very similar failure of our prisons, a failure that resulted in the murder of an inmate. Both articles suggests serious failings in the system, failings that actually create more crime and are being made worse by Harper's "cheap shot" get-tough-on-crime policies. So who's responsible for these travesties. Alec Bruce answers that. We are.We sit back with our faces hanging out. That's why these things happen. That's why the very rich can hide billions of dollars in overseas bank accounts, and nothing happens - while a mentally disturbed girl who threw crab apples at a postman was humiliated, frightened, and driven to death in a prison.
Allan Abel contributes his usual, cutesy story about some incident in Washington which is quite readable, but indicates nothing, and certainly does nothing to support the pretentious headline above it.
Now, to make sure I get my events right:
Nov. 6. Tuesday. 7 p.m. Me and current events at the Moncton Library - this time it's about how one cannot understand the news by reading or hearing it. There are some very broad principles that we always have to bear in mind.
Nov. 14. Wednesday. Dr. Cleary at Peace Institute, 22 Church St.
Finally, Today, for the first time, the weekly readership of this column in the US is bigger than it is in Canada.
I really wish an American reader would tell me why. I can't imagine why anyone outside Moncton would read the Moncton Times and Transcript. An American response might help me to understand why anyone inside Moncton reads it.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Nov. 2: A long time ago, I got lost....
....while driving on a back road somewhere near Halifax. There was forest on both sides then, suddenly, a clearing on my right, and big house, isolated, gaunt and shabby, with a dreadful air of evil about it, like the opening scene of a horror movie. A huge sign, stark in its black lettering on a white background, covered most of the second floor. "Nova Scotia Home For Coloured Children".
I immediately thought of the sign on Dante's entrance to Hell, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
It wasn't all that long ago - and it characterized the intense racism not just of Nova Scotia, not just of Atlantic Canada but of all Canada at the time. Of course, few Canadians noticed it; and most would have been indignant if anyone had suggested it. It took me years to see the racism that, in fact, I had grown up with, a racism that extended to African-Canadians, Oriental Canadians, Jewish Canadians, native peoples... It was only later, working with people in those groups, that I learned how powerful and damaging it was and, frankly, often still is.
I thought of all this as I looked at TV footage just yesterday of charges of years of severe physical and sexual abuse as well as neglect at an orphanage. There was no mistaking the building on my screen. It was the old, Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children.
The story has not, of course, made today's Moncton Times and Transcript. But I just thought you should know.
______________________________________________________________
It also still does not have the story of the iron pyrites dumped into the waters of our West coast, though it was early yesterday that the UN announced it was gravely concerned about the effect of this. And they weren't talking of the effect it would have on the waters off one of the poorest native villages in Canada. They were talking of what it can do to their own waters.
There is extreme danger in private attempts to tinker with the environment by using chemicals, usually with no regulations or guidelines or supervision; but with effects all over the world that can be extremely damaging.
Harper (like Alward) is notoriously indifferent to what happens to our environment. But even he is feeling pressure to react in this case. Of course, he isn't actually doing anything about it. And the TandT isn't bothering to tell us, anyway.
___________________________________________________________________________
The TandT did notice that poverty is still growing in Canada, with over 800.000 Canadians, including many in low-paid jobs, now dependent on food banks.
Funny thing. Not many years ago, the western world was rolling in money. How could it all get lost like that? Answer - it didn't get lost. It still exists. Not a penny has been destroyed or burned or vanished into space. It's all still there, sitting in bank accounts held by the very, very rich - commonly offshore. That's why the very, very rich still show profits while so many others are lining up at food banks.
The TandT story missed that good news. Across Canada, including NB, figures show the rich are getting richer. So, there's a sunny side. Let's not be negative.
___________________________________________________________________________
Way down at the bottom left of B7, is tiny story "Syrian video raises concerns". It refers to a video that "appears" to show rebels in Syria murdering captives. "Appears"? I've seen the video. to say it appears to show rebels murdering captives is like saying a porn flick appears to show kissing.
It if had been government troops, Reuters would not have used the word appears. That's part of the subtle language that news services use to play down a story they can no longer ignore. "Appears" softens the message. It hints that it may not be true. I looked this story up in several papers; and I noticed all them used 'appears' or a similar sort of word.
Then it says UN officials and human rights groups still see government forces as the worst rights abusers. Well, yeah. But that depends on WHICH UN official and human rights groups you are talking to. Almost the only human rights group that Reuters ever refers to is a one-man organization working for the rebels.
In any case, when you see abuse on this scale, does it really matter which side is worst? I mean, is there a trophy or something for being worst?
As always, Reuters has little to say about the wholesale slaughter of Christians in Syria by the rebels. And the TandT has had nothing to say about it.
Nor does it mention reports that the rebels who are fighting out of patriotism are over eighty percent foreigners, many of them mercenaries paid by freedom loving democrats like the king of Saudi Arabia.
Then there's a line about the US government working to set up a rebel government it can work with. Oh? If people are fighting for democracy, why should they have a government the US wants them to have? Isn't it the idea of democracy that you choose your own government?
Then the story says, in another hint of government brutality, that the uprising began peacefully. The implication is clear that what sent it out of control was government brutality. There is no mention that the peaceful demonstrations began with encouragement from freedom-loving Saudi Arabia and the emirate dictatorships. It became violent when they supplied the peaceful demonstrators with weapons, money, and mercenaries. The US and other western countries supplied intelligence, propaganda, indirect and sometimes direct help through special ops.
This, like Libya, is a proxy war, this one fought largely on the rebel side by non-Syrians. It's a war being fought to benefit US foreign policy. Libya is now a mess. Syria looks much worse because good news services point out the the majority of the rebels now seem to be Islamic Jihadists, perople like Al-Quaeda. That's why Obama is not eager to see a quick victory for the rebels; and that is why he wants to reconstruct the rebel leadership.
But you would never guess any of this from the Reuters report. Nor will they or the TandT tell you about the demonstrations and killings going on among our friends in Saudi Arabia and the emirates.
____________________________________________________________________________
The editorial is on the MacLean's university rankings. I have taught at all levels of education from grade seven to graduate school. I have taught in at least a couple of universities that MacLean's ranks highly. I can tell you that the MacLean's rankings are a crock. There is no such thing as a 'best' university.
The editorial says ranking have much to do with the qualifications of the teaching staff. Qualifications for what? In all of Canada (and the US), I would doubt whether one percent of university professors have any teaching qualifications whatever. Certainly, the level of teaching skill in universities (on three continents) that I taught in was appalling.
The MacLean's ranking is a pseudo-scientific gimmick put together by magazine editors to sell their magazine. It's been very successful in that respect. The damage it has done to universities has been enormous. Never good teaching institutions in the first place, they find themselves scrambling, desperate for students, to get high scores that will please magazine editors who know nothing whatever about education.
Now, the editor thinks the universities should also be measured by the wealth they create. Damn right. Everything has a price. Universities are wasting a lot of money on people who are economically worthless to us. I mean, who makes a buck out of clergy? Or out of deadweight literary figures like the bronze guy sitting on a bench outside the Moncton Library? Or out of political science grads who go into silly political parties that have no connection with big money? We have too many smart people who have wasted our education dollar by thinking about useless stuff where the world is going and what we should do about it.
Anyway, we're on the right track. Corporations and MacLean's have so taken over our universities that we'll some be producing nothing but young people who never think of anything at all but 'creating wealth'.
Glory. Glory. Hallelujah.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Important column by Bill Belliveau on the editorial page. It's especially important because it's on a topic we will have to live with - at great risk - for over thirty years if Harper get his way. It's important to read Belliveau's column because this miserable newspaper has never even carried what might be the most important story of the year for Canadians.
As usual, the weak parts of the editorial and op ed pages are in the stunning ignorance of the editorial writer, and the utter irrelevance of Brent Mazerolle's offering.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Oh - a curiosity puzzles me. This blog is about a small newspaper in a small city in Canada. It draws quite a decent audience which is, I presume, mostly New Brunswick. But it draws an audience from the US which is almost as big, and growing. I can understand there are people who accidentally hit the site -like my readers in China. But my American readership is large, consistent and growing.
Why? Why are American interested in a small city paper in Canada?
I immediately thought of the sign on Dante's entrance to Hell, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
It wasn't all that long ago - and it characterized the intense racism not just of Nova Scotia, not just of Atlantic Canada but of all Canada at the time. Of course, few Canadians noticed it; and most would have been indignant if anyone had suggested it. It took me years to see the racism that, in fact, I had grown up with, a racism that extended to African-Canadians, Oriental Canadians, Jewish Canadians, native peoples... It was only later, working with people in those groups, that I learned how powerful and damaging it was and, frankly, often still is.
I thought of all this as I looked at TV footage just yesterday of charges of years of severe physical and sexual abuse as well as neglect at an orphanage. There was no mistaking the building on my screen. It was the old, Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children.
The story has not, of course, made today's Moncton Times and Transcript. But I just thought you should know.
______________________________________________________________
It also still does not have the story of the iron pyrites dumped into the waters of our West coast, though it was early yesterday that the UN announced it was gravely concerned about the effect of this. And they weren't talking of the effect it would have on the waters off one of the poorest native villages in Canada. They were talking of what it can do to their own waters.
There is extreme danger in private attempts to tinker with the environment by using chemicals, usually with no regulations or guidelines or supervision; but with effects all over the world that can be extremely damaging.
Harper (like Alward) is notoriously indifferent to what happens to our environment. But even he is feeling pressure to react in this case. Of course, he isn't actually doing anything about it. And the TandT isn't bothering to tell us, anyway.
___________________________________________________________________________
The TandT did notice that poverty is still growing in Canada, with over 800.000 Canadians, including many in low-paid jobs, now dependent on food banks.
Funny thing. Not many years ago, the western world was rolling in money. How could it all get lost like that? Answer - it didn't get lost. It still exists. Not a penny has been destroyed or burned or vanished into space. It's all still there, sitting in bank accounts held by the very, very rich - commonly offshore. That's why the very, very rich still show profits while so many others are lining up at food banks.
The TandT story missed that good news. Across Canada, including NB, figures show the rich are getting richer. So, there's a sunny side. Let's not be negative.
___________________________________________________________________________
Way down at the bottom left of B7, is tiny story "Syrian video raises concerns". It refers to a video that "appears" to show rebels in Syria murdering captives. "Appears"? I've seen the video. to say it appears to show rebels murdering captives is like saying a porn flick appears to show kissing.
It if had been government troops, Reuters would not have used the word appears. That's part of the subtle language that news services use to play down a story they can no longer ignore. "Appears" softens the message. It hints that it may not be true. I looked this story up in several papers; and I noticed all them used 'appears' or a similar sort of word.
Then it says UN officials and human rights groups still see government forces as the worst rights abusers. Well, yeah. But that depends on WHICH UN official and human rights groups you are talking to. Almost the only human rights group that Reuters ever refers to is a one-man organization working for the rebels.
In any case, when you see abuse on this scale, does it really matter which side is worst? I mean, is there a trophy or something for being worst?
As always, Reuters has little to say about the wholesale slaughter of Christians in Syria by the rebels. And the TandT has had nothing to say about it.
Nor does it mention reports that the rebels who are fighting out of patriotism are over eighty percent foreigners, many of them mercenaries paid by freedom loving democrats like the king of Saudi Arabia.
Then there's a line about the US government working to set up a rebel government it can work with. Oh? If people are fighting for democracy, why should they have a government the US wants them to have? Isn't it the idea of democracy that you choose your own government?
Then the story says, in another hint of government brutality, that the uprising began peacefully. The implication is clear that what sent it out of control was government brutality. There is no mention that the peaceful demonstrations began with encouragement from freedom-loving Saudi Arabia and the emirate dictatorships. It became violent when they supplied the peaceful demonstrators with weapons, money, and mercenaries. The US and other western countries supplied intelligence, propaganda, indirect and sometimes direct help through special ops.
This, like Libya, is a proxy war, this one fought largely on the rebel side by non-Syrians. It's a war being fought to benefit US foreign policy. Libya is now a mess. Syria looks much worse because good news services point out the the majority of the rebels now seem to be Islamic Jihadists, perople like Al-Quaeda. That's why Obama is not eager to see a quick victory for the rebels; and that is why he wants to reconstruct the rebel leadership.
But you would never guess any of this from the Reuters report. Nor will they or the TandT tell you about the demonstrations and killings going on among our friends in Saudi Arabia and the emirates.
____________________________________________________________________________
The editorial is on the MacLean's university rankings. I have taught at all levels of education from grade seven to graduate school. I have taught in at least a couple of universities that MacLean's ranks highly. I can tell you that the MacLean's rankings are a crock. There is no such thing as a 'best' university.
The editorial says ranking have much to do with the qualifications of the teaching staff. Qualifications for what? In all of Canada (and the US), I would doubt whether one percent of university professors have any teaching qualifications whatever. Certainly, the level of teaching skill in universities (on three continents) that I taught in was appalling.
The MacLean's ranking is a pseudo-scientific gimmick put together by magazine editors to sell their magazine. It's been very successful in that respect. The damage it has done to universities has been enormous. Never good teaching institutions in the first place, they find themselves scrambling, desperate for students, to get high scores that will please magazine editors who know nothing whatever about education.
Now, the editor thinks the universities should also be measured by the wealth they create. Damn right. Everything has a price. Universities are wasting a lot of money on people who are economically worthless to us. I mean, who makes a buck out of clergy? Or out of deadweight literary figures like the bronze guy sitting on a bench outside the Moncton Library? Or out of political science grads who go into silly political parties that have no connection with big money? We have too many smart people who have wasted our education dollar by thinking about useless stuff where the world is going and what we should do about it.
Anyway, we're on the right track. Corporations and MacLean's have so taken over our universities that we'll some be producing nothing but young people who never think of anything at all but 'creating wealth'.
Glory. Glory. Hallelujah.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Important column by Bill Belliveau on the editorial page. It's especially important because it's on a topic we will have to live with - at great risk - for over thirty years if Harper get his way. It's important to read Belliveau's column because this miserable newspaper has never even carried what might be the most important story of the year for Canadians.
As usual, the weak parts of the editorial and op ed pages are in the stunning ignorance of the editorial writer, and the utter irrelevance of Brent Mazerolle's offering.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Oh - a curiosity puzzles me. This blog is about a small newspaper in a small city in Canada. It draws quite a decent audience which is, I presume, mostly New Brunswick. But it draws an audience from the US which is almost as big, and growing. I can understand there are people who accidentally hit the site -like my readers in China. But my American readership is large, consistent and growing.
Why? Why are American interested in a small city paper in Canada?
Friday, November 2, 2012
Nov.2: Wow! Big news..........
...that didn't make The Moncton Times and Transcript - even though it came out in plenty of time.
The Alberta oilsands may be running into serious trouble. Its processing is so expensive that the energy bosses are cutting back on investing because the profits are so small. Oilsands is the main driver of the Canadian economy.
How do we know oilsands is in trouble? Because the CBC did some digging to get the story when it came across a government memo about it. Get the hint, Norbert? It wasn't the Irving press. It wasn't Rogers. It was that terrible, government-owned service, the CBC.
In other news, the New Brunswick deficit is way up, growth in New Brunswick, Canada, and the US is expected to be very, very slow.
Oh! I know. What a great time this would be to borrow a hundred million to build an events centre so that all the unemployed from all over can flock to Moncton to watch hockey games and shop in the boutiques of Main St.!
______________________________________________________________________________
I notice in some papers that people are told where the tax money comes from and what it goes on. I have never seen that in New Brunswick. Exactly how much do corporations take out of this province in profits and grants and favours? In real income tax, what percentage of that profit is taxed. I don't mean the official rate. I mean how much do they actually pay? And, please - give the percentage. Don't play games with numbers.
In US papers, to their credit, it is possible to find such figures - and to learn that some of some of the wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest individuals in the US commonly pay no taxes at all. That's right. Billions of dollars in profits - and not a penny for income tax. So what's the scoop on where our money goes and where it doesn't come from? If other people can find out, why can't we?
So, perhaps if Rod Allen could lay aside his pumpkin knife, and if "the Hump" would put a lid on the latest hot news about a birthday party he went to, we could learn something we really have to know.
________________________________________________________________________
Funny thing about the American election that most of the American media has missed as, of course, has the TandT.
In the American election campaign, neither Obama nor Romney has mentioned climate change. Then we get Hurricane Sandy with suggestions that it might have something to do with global warming. And still neither Obama nor Romney is saying a word about climate change. In a campaign which has generally avoided serious issues (most of the debate has been empty sloganeering), the absence of climate, especially after that storm and its death toll, is surely astonishing.
Why aren't they talking about it? Because Obama and Romney are fighting the most expensive election in world history. And both of them need the donations of the energy industry.And the industry in not interested in hearing discussion about the impact of oil and other fuels on our world.
So don't hold your breath waiting for any story on this to appear in the TandT.
_________________________________________________________________________
Also stunningly absent in the Tand T is any news about the very dangerous turn the language debate has taken in Quebec, and about the levels of corruption in provincial and municipal government of that province.
In reality, the corruption in Quebec has been common knowledge for generations. My elementary school classmates in Montreal were the children of the mafioso. By grade seven, I knew all about how they controlled construction, how the Irish mob controlled the docks, how the Jewish mob controlled illegal gambling, and the West End Gang bank robbery and drugs. (In fact, I would later teach at least two members of the West End Gang.) Us kids even knew how the police cooperated with the mobs by helping them dispose of leftover bodies. Later, I would learn how the prison system was open house to drug dealers.
We New Brunswickers should be told how Quebec is ripped off by gangs of low-class bums.
Then, we could take pride that we are ripped off by a much higher class of bums.
_________________________________________________________________________
P. C11 has a report on a talk by a CEO about how New Brunswick could prosper. It could attract companies that operate outside the province, but could be based here with all the high paying jobs that a head office has. Right. And why would they move head offices here?
Well, of course, there would be concessions, loans, subsidies.... Tell y' what, Mr. CEO, wouldn't it be cheaper to do that simply by raising the salaries of municipal bus employees?
__________________________________________________________________________
The editorial is its usual village idiot level with a defence of the intrusion of private medical services in New Brunswick in the form of an MRI clinic.
"We Say: Private clinics have not 'destroyed' medicare," trumpets the blurb.
1. Very few people care what you say.
2. Nobody ever said private clinics have destroyed medicare. Given the obvious presence of medicare, that would be a pretty silly thing to say. What has been said, and accurately, is that this is a weakening of the principle of medicare.
3. The principle of medicare is that health is not a commodity to be bartered in the market place, that we all should have equal access to medicare. Private health care, especially for such an expensive service, means that its not equal. Health becomes a commodity again - like a luxury car or a new gown. It hasn't destroyed medicare. But it certainly has delivered it a kick in the crotch.
4. It also costs more than medicare. Common sense tells you (or should tell you) that a service which has to make a profit has to cost more than one that doesn't make a profit.
5. In sum, then, all this means that more money will be spent on medicare in this province - and most of the additional money will be spent on and for the better off.
Tell you what, Mr. editor, if we don't have enough MRI machines and if there are enough people with enough spare money to pay more for special service, then maybe we should be taking a closer look at the tax structure of this province.
_________________________________________________________________________
Norbert has a superb column. It's reasonable. It's intelligent. It's well written. He raises some very thoughtful points about Hurricane Sandy and it's meaning - at least one point that I have not seen raised anywhere else. This is good stuff. Nothing fancy. No rant. Just good sense clearly explained so that we can all follow it. This is what journalistic opinion is supposed to be.
_________________________________________________________________________
Alec Bruce has an important column, too. It's about the cuts the federal government is making in scientific research.What Harper is doing is throwing this country wide open to environmental damage from which, quite possibly, it can never recover. We have never had such a prime minister before - a blinkered ideologue,a man who has contempt for democracy - and close to absolute power based on the support of only a third of the population. (and, no, there is nothing anti-conservative about this.. If you think there is, then open a dictionary and look up conservative. There is nothing conservative about Harper. On the contrary, when it comes to the economy, he is the most radical liberal this country has ever produced. And we are gong to pay one hell of a price for it.
__________________________________________________________________________
And there's a very readable op ed page. That means almost two good pages in today's Moncton Times and Tribune. And that ties the record.
________________________________________________________________________
For those of you who collect letters that are both smug and ill-informed, there are two in letters to the editor that deserve attention. The smuggest and most ill-informed one was chosen, predictably, as the letter of the day. The runner-up is "Little point in learning French"
But to end your reading on a happy note, there's a very clever letter from Don Leblanc of Moncton.
Remember 1. Tuesday Nov. 4 - current events - Moncton Library. 7 p.m.
2. Wednesday, Nov. 16 - Dr. Cleary - 22 Church St. 7.pm.
The Alberta oilsands may be running into serious trouble. Its processing is so expensive that the energy bosses are cutting back on investing because the profits are so small. Oilsands is the main driver of the Canadian economy.
How do we know oilsands is in trouble? Because the CBC did some digging to get the story when it came across a government memo about it. Get the hint, Norbert? It wasn't the Irving press. It wasn't Rogers. It was that terrible, government-owned service, the CBC.
In other news, the New Brunswick deficit is way up, growth in New Brunswick, Canada, and the US is expected to be very, very slow.
Oh! I know. What a great time this would be to borrow a hundred million to build an events centre so that all the unemployed from all over can flock to Moncton to watch hockey games and shop in the boutiques of Main St.!
______________________________________________________________________________
I notice in some papers that people are told where the tax money comes from and what it goes on. I have never seen that in New Brunswick. Exactly how much do corporations take out of this province in profits and grants and favours? In real income tax, what percentage of that profit is taxed. I don't mean the official rate. I mean how much do they actually pay? And, please - give the percentage. Don't play games with numbers.
In US papers, to their credit, it is possible to find such figures - and to learn that some of some of the wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest individuals in the US commonly pay no taxes at all. That's right. Billions of dollars in profits - and not a penny for income tax. So what's the scoop on where our money goes and where it doesn't come from? If other people can find out, why can't we?
So, perhaps if Rod Allen could lay aside his pumpkin knife, and if "the Hump" would put a lid on the latest hot news about a birthday party he went to, we could learn something we really have to know.
________________________________________________________________________
Funny thing about the American election that most of the American media has missed as, of course, has the TandT.
In the American election campaign, neither Obama nor Romney has mentioned climate change. Then we get Hurricane Sandy with suggestions that it might have something to do with global warming. And still neither Obama nor Romney is saying a word about climate change. In a campaign which has generally avoided serious issues (most of the debate has been empty sloganeering), the absence of climate, especially after that storm and its death toll, is surely astonishing.
Why aren't they talking about it? Because Obama and Romney are fighting the most expensive election in world history. And both of them need the donations of the energy industry.And the industry in not interested in hearing discussion about the impact of oil and other fuels on our world.
So don't hold your breath waiting for any story on this to appear in the TandT.
_________________________________________________________________________
Also stunningly absent in the Tand T is any news about the very dangerous turn the language debate has taken in Quebec, and about the levels of corruption in provincial and municipal government of that province.
In reality, the corruption in Quebec has been common knowledge for generations. My elementary school classmates in Montreal were the children of the mafioso. By grade seven, I knew all about how they controlled construction, how the Irish mob controlled the docks, how the Jewish mob controlled illegal gambling, and the West End Gang bank robbery and drugs. (In fact, I would later teach at least two members of the West End Gang.) Us kids even knew how the police cooperated with the mobs by helping them dispose of leftover bodies. Later, I would learn how the prison system was open house to drug dealers.
We New Brunswickers should be told how Quebec is ripped off by gangs of low-class bums.
Then, we could take pride that we are ripped off by a much higher class of bums.
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P. C11 has a report on a talk by a CEO about how New Brunswick could prosper. It could attract companies that operate outside the province, but could be based here with all the high paying jobs that a head office has. Right. And why would they move head offices here?
Well, of course, there would be concessions, loans, subsidies.... Tell y' what, Mr. CEO, wouldn't it be cheaper to do that simply by raising the salaries of municipal bus employees?
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The editorial is its usual village idiot level with a defence of the intrusion of private medical services in New Brunswick in the form of an MRI clinic.
"We Say: Private clinics have not 'destroyed' medicare," trumpets the blurb.
1. Very few people care what you say.
2. Nobody ever said private clinics have destroyed medicare. Given the obvious presence of medicare, that would be a pretty silly thing to say. What has been said, and accurately, is that this is a weakening of the principle of medicare.
3. The principle of medicare is that health is not a commodity to be bartered in the market place, that we all should have equal access to medicare. Private health care, especially for such an expensive service, means that its not equal. Health becomes a commodity again - like a luxury car or a new gown. It hasn't destroyed medicare. But it certainly has delivered it a kick in the crotch.
4. It also costs more than medicare. Common sense tells you (or should tell you) that a service which has to make a profit has to cost more than one that doesn't make a profit.
5. In sum, then, all this means that more money will be spent on medicare in this province - and most of the additional money will be spent on and for the better off.
Tell you what, Mr. editor, if we don't have enough MRI machines and if there are enough people with enough spare money to pay more for special service, then maybe we should be taking a closer look at the tax structure of this province.
_________________________________________________________________________
Norbert has a superb column. It's reasonable. It's intelligent. It's well written. He raises some very thoughtful points about Hurricane Sandy and it's meaning - at least one point that I have not seen raised anywhere else. This is good stuff. Nothing fancy. No rant. Just good sense clearly explained so that we can all follow it. This is what journalistic opinion is supposed to be.
_________________________________________________________________________
Alec Bruce has an important column, too. It's about the cuts the federal government is making in scientific research.What Harper is doing is throwing this country wide open to environmental damage from which, quite possibly, it can never recover. We have never had such a prime minister before - a blinkered ideologue,a man who has contempt for democracy - and close to absolute power based on the support of only a third of the population. (and, no, there is nothing anti-conservative about this.. If you think there is, then open a dictionary and look up conservative. There is nothing conservative about Harper. On the contrary, when it comes to the economy, he is the most radical liberal this country has ever produced. And we are gong to pay one hell of a price for it.
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And there's a very readable op ed page. That means almost two good pages in today's Moncton Times and Tribune. And that ties the record.
________________________________________________________________________
For those of you who collect letters that are both smug and ill-informed, there are two in letters to the editor that deserve attention. The smuggest and most ill-informed one was chosen, predictably, as the letter of the day. The runner-up is "Little point in learning French"
But to end your reading on a happy note, there's a very clever letter from Don Leblanc of Moncton.
Remember 1. Tuesday Nov. 4 - current events - Moncton Library. 7 p.m.
2. Wednesday, Nov. 16 - Dr. Cleary - 22 Church St. 7.pm.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Nov.1: Things I hate to think about.
I am beginning this blog on the evening of Oct. 31. It all began with a note I received that I am invited (you, too. Everybody is invited) to a talk by New Brunswick's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Cleary. It's Nov. 14, 7p.m. at 22 Church St. (That's the church building now known as Peace Centre.)
I'll certainly be there. But it forced home to me something I have known for a very long time - but have never grasped the full meaning of.
The government has ignored the warning of its Chief Medical Officer and of most, if not all, of the medical profession in the province. Quite apart from its long term effect on the environment, shale gas drilling is a threat to human health and even to human life. You know what I mean by human life? I mean you, of course. I mean the children you see going to school in the morning, the children you saw coming to your door on Halloween night. I mean the baby you saw in the stroller at the supermarket.
But as Dr. Lapierre said and as the government seems to agree, what the hell. There's risk in everything. And there could be jobs in this. Tough luck, kid.
In a way, I can understand that contempt for human life shown by the energy industry. It's quite accustomed to spreading danger to health and life. For evidence, check out the way it's handled some of its giant oil spills. It's even used to killing people in its wars. Think of the more than a million killed in Iraq. Think of the refugees, of the disabled for life,of the orphaned, of the ruin and poverty and strange disease that still haunts that country.
But the energy bosses don't live in the Iraqs of this world, so their children don't get killed or crippled or orphaned. Nor do they live close to the dirty work that they order even on this side of the world. . So I can understand their detachment.
But think of what it means to have a government that has sunk so low it has tried to kill Dr. Leary's report, and has been promoting a report by a man who had no qualifications to write it in the first place. Nor, by the way, did he conduct anything resembling a scientific study. But the government, with the active cooperation of the Irving press, has decided to promote the views of Dr. Lapierre. It has to decided to play dice with our lives.
I could understand it if they were actively evil. The shale gas companies are actively evil. They value money over all else. But the Conservatives and Liberals ( I don't kid myself that the Liberals are different or that their new leader is different) and the newspapers' management don't rise to the level of evil. These are the crawlers of our species.
I can understand greed. I can understand abuse. I guess what I'm trying hard to understand - and can't quite get - is the motivation of those who seem born to crawl.
_____________________________________________________________________________
There's really nothing to say about most of the paper - though a good deal to say but what is missing.
There is still no no mention of Harper's Canada-China trade deal - though this has the potential for disaster. The terms are incredible. Among other things, Chinese governments or investors can sue the Canadian governments (right down to the village level) for any legislation or regulation that affects their profits. Sorry - their expected profits. What they expect, of course, is up to them. They can also sue for any court decisions in Canada that go against them.
In other words, we have no right to any voice in how our own country is used or treated. And, just to rub it in, China is free to use any court in the world for its suit - and the suits may be heard completely in private.
Isn't that a great deal?
And, oh yes, parliament isn't allowed to discuss it, let alone vote on it. MPs will, however, be privileged with a one hour briefing on it.
What is the purpose of this treaty? Well, says Harper, it's to open up China to Canadian investment. Okay.
Funny, though. There's not a word about that in the treaty. We're giving up the farm - for nothing in return.
And not a word about anything in the TandT.
What does that say about the insights of the national or the world news editor?
____________________________________________________________________________
There's no word of what's going on in the language wars in Quebec despite language legislation that will make the use of English almost illegal. There's not even a story about Coast Guard Canada having to move its headquarters for Quebec to Halifax. Reason? Under Quebec law, they would not now be permitted to require bilingualism for medics and others - even though English people do drown, too.
I can feel sympathy for Acadians because I know what it is to live under an intolerant and even racist majority. The problem isn't language. The problem is people. New Brunswickers should be getting a good look at Quebec - so they can see themselves better, and where they are taking us.
______________________________________________________________________________
I don't think I ever told you the rest of the story about Canada's "protected" waters. Harper has been removing regulations for environmental regulations on most lakes and waterways so as not to get in the way of those nice people who dig mines and search for oil and shale gas. As a result, there are now almost no protected fresh water areas in Atlantic Canada. But take heart.
Though most lakes and waterways across Canada no longer have protection, a very small number still do. And 90% of them are in Conservative ridings, mostly in the Ontario cottage country for the very rich where summer shacks run to a million and more - mostly more.. In fact, most of those lakes are in the cottage country ridings of two, cabinet ministers.
Check it out, Norbert. Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 29.
______________________________________________________________________________
And now to the editorial and op ed pages.
The editorial is its usual, brainless and manipulative self. At a time when what just might be the biggest economic crisis in history is hanging over us, we really, really must go into the hole for a hundred million or more for an EVENTS CENTRE. Yeah. It will revive downtown.
1. I have yet to see anybody present any evidence that events centres anywhere in the world do any such thing. I have never seen one that revived any district. For over fifty years, the Montreal Forum, home of Les Canadiens was perhaps the greatest events centre in Canada. And over that fifty years, it was the commercial dead end of downtown Montreal. I can remember only two businesses being attracted to the area in that time - a MacDonald's and a nearly new shop for a local church.
2, And who is the new downtown going to attract? Big, trendy shops from Toronto and Vancourver and Halifax? Not likely. It won't even attract from Amherst. So if they do move, where are they going to come from? The only places they can come from are the malls.
But they aren't going to. Why should they? Move just to be near the EVENTS CENTRE? And if they did move, how are we ahead of the game if all we've done is shuffled the cards a bit?
This whole deal smells. We're getting ripped off big time. It smells. And, so far, most of City Council smells with it.
_______________________________________________________________
Alec Bruce raises a point that not much attention has been paid to. Was Hurricane Sandy just a taste of what's to come? If it is, we're in one hell of a target zone. Does City Council have any plans for that?
_________________________________________________________________________
de Adder continues to show an amazingly feeble sense of humour for a professional cartoonist. It's a cartoon of an NDP potential candidate saying that the new Liberal leader should not get a free pass into the assembly. And somebody says to him,"Who are you?"
Look. A political cartoonist is supposed to know something about politics. The ridiculous figure in this case is our premier who said he would give the Liberal leader a free pass. Why should he do that? In a democracy, people have a right to decide who will represent them. By Alward's decision, all the conservatives in that riding, the premier's own people, have lost that fundamental right to be a free people.
______________________________________________________________________________
Norbert begins, I think correctly, in dismissing the new Liberal leader as anything new and different from our usual political trash. Then he gets silly about how we have two, strong parties, and that's good for democracy. Our two, strong parties have been bad for democracy for almost two centuries. I don't know where he gets the idea that now they're good. Norbert really should not write on politics.
_______________________________________________________________________
Excellent column by Jody Dallaire.
Rod Allen, the assistant managing editor, uses his opinion column to talk about carving pumpkins. That tells us all we need to know about the management of the TandT.
_______________________________________________________________________________
I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, Nov. 6, at 7 pm for current events at the Moncton Library.
And at the Peace Centre on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 7 pm (22 Church St.) to hear Dr. Cleary.
I'll certainly be there. But it forced home to me something I have known for a very long time - but have never grasped the full meaning of.
The government has ignored the warning of its Chief Medical Officer and of most, if not all, of the medical profession in the province. Quite apart from its long term effect on the environment, shale gas drilling is a threat to human health and even to human life. You know what I mean by human life? I mean you, of course. I mean the children you see going to school in the morning, the children you saw coming to your door on Halloween night. I mean the baby you saw in the stroller at the supermarket.
But as Dr. Lapierre said and as the government seems to agree, what the hell. There's risk in everything. And there could be jobs in this. Tough luck, kid.
In a way, I can understand that contempt for human life shown by the energy industry. It's quite accustomed to spreading danger to health and life. For evidence, check out the way it's handled some of its giant oil spills. It's even used to killing people in its wars. Think of the more than a million killed in Iraq. Think of the refugees, of the disabled for life,of the orphaned, of the ruin and poverty and strange disease that still haunts that country.
But the energy bosses don't live in the Iraqs of this world, so their children don't get killed or crippled or orphaned. Nor do they live close to the dirty work that they order even on this side of the world. . So I can understand their detachment.
But think of what it means to have a government that has sunk so low it has tried to kill Dr. Leary's report, and has been promoting a report by a man who had no qualifications to write it in the first place. Nor, by the way, did he conduct anything resembling a scientific study. But the government, with the active cooperation of the Irving press, has decided to promote the views of Dr. Lapierre. It has to decided to play dice with our lives.
I could understand it if they were actively evil. The shale gas companies are actively evil. They value money over all else. But the Conservatives and Liberals ( I don't kid myself that the Liberals are different or that their new leader is different) and the newspapers' management don't rise to the level of evil. These are the crawlers of our species.
I can understand greed. I can understand abuse. I guess what I'm trying hard to understand - and can't quite get - is the motivation of those who seem born to crawl.
_____________________________________________________________________________
There's really nothing to say about most of the paper - though a good deal to say but what is missing.
There is still no no mention of Harper's Canada-China trade deal - though this has the potential for disaster. The terms are incredible. Among other things, Chinese governments or investors can sue the Canadian governments (right down to the village level) for any legislation or regulation that affects their profits. Sorry - their expected profits. What they expect, of course, is up to them. They can also sue for any court decisions in Canada that go against them.
In other words, we have no right to any voice in how our own country is used or treated. And, just to rub it in, China is free to use any court in the world for its suit - and the suits may be heard completely in private.
Isn't that a great deal?
And, oh yes, parliament isn't allowed to discuss it, let alone vote on it. MPs will, however, be privileged with a one hour briefing on it.
What is the purpose of this treaty? Well, says Harper, it's to open up China to Canadian investment. Okay.
Funny, though. There's not a word about that in the treaty. We're giving up the farm - for nothing in return.
And not a word about anything in the TandT.
What does that say about the insights of the national or the world news editor?
____________________________________________________________________________
There's no word of what's going on in the language wars in Quebec despite language legislation that will make the use of English almost illegal. There's not even a story about Coast Guard Canada having to move its headquarters for Quebec to Halifax. Reason? Under Quebec law, they would not now be permitted to require bilingualism for medics and others - even though English people do drown, too.
I can feel sympathy for Acadians because I know what it is to live under an intolerant and even racist majority. The problem isn't language. The problem is people. New Brunswickers should be getting a good look at Quebec - so they can see themselves better, and where they are taking us.
______________________________________________________________________________
I don't think I ever told you the rest of the story about Canada's "protected" waters. Harper has been removing regulations for environmental regulations on most lakes and waterways so as not to get in the way of those nice people who dig mines and search for oil and shale gas. As a result, there are now almost no protected fresh water areas in Atlantic Canada. But take heart.
Though most lakes and waterways across Canada no longer have protection, a very small number still do. And 90% of them are in Conservative ridings, mostly in the Ontario cottage country for the very rich where summer shacks run to a million and more - mostly more.. In fact, most of those lakes are in the cottage country ridings of two, cabinet ministers.
Check it out, Norbert. Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 29.
______________________________________________________________________________
And now to the editorial and op ed pages.
The editorial is its usual, brainless and manipulative self. At a time when what just might be the biggest economic crisis in history is hanging over us, we really, really must go into the hole for a hundred million or more for an EVENTS CENTRE. Yeah. It will revive downtown.
1. I have yet to see anybody present any evidence that events centres anywhere in the world do any such thing. I have never seen one that revived any district. For over fifty years, the Montreal Forum, home of Les Canadiens was perhaps the greatest events centre in Canada. And over that fifty years, it was the commercial dead end of downtown Montreal. I can remember only two businesses being attracted to the area in that time - a MacDonald's and a nearly new shop for a local church.
2, And who is the new downtown going to attract? Big, trendy shops from Toronto and Vancourver and Halifax? Not likely. It won't even attract from Amherst. So if they do move, where are they going to come from? The only places they can come from are the malls.
But they aren't going to. Why should they? Move just to be near the EVENTS CENTRE? And if they did move, how are we ahead of the game if all we've done is shuffled the cards a bit?
This whole deal smells. We're getting ripped off big time. It smells. And, so far, most of City Council smells with it.
_______________________________________________________________
Alec Bruce raises a point that not much attention has been paid to. Was Hurricane Sandy just a taste of what's to come? If it is, we're in one hell of a target zone. Does City Council have any plans for that?
_________________________________________________________________________
de Adder continues to show an amazingly feeble sense of humour for a professional cartoonist. It's a cartoon of an NDP potential candidate saying that the new Liberal leader should not get a free pass into the assembly. And somebody says to him,"Who are you?"
Look. A political cartoonist is supposed to know something about politics. The ridiculous figure in this case is our premier who said he would give the Liberal leader a free pass. Why should he do that? In a democracy, people have a right to decide who will represent them. By Alward's decision, all the conservatives in that riding, the premier's own people, have lost that fundamental right to be a free people.
______________________________________________________________________________
Norbert begins, I think correctly, in dismissing the new Liberal leader as anything new and different from our usual political trash. Then he gets silly about how we have two, strong parties, and that's good for democracy. Our two, strong parties have been bad for democracy for almost two centuries. I don't know where he gets the idea that now they're good. Norbert really should not write on politics.
_______________________________________________________________________
Excellent column by Jody Dallaire.
Rod Allen, the assistant managing editor, uses his opinion column to talk about carving pumpkins. That tells us all we need to know about the management of the TandT.
_______________________________________________________________________________
I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, Nov. 6, at 7 pm for current events at the Moncton Library.
And at the Peace Centre on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 7 pm (22 Church St.) to hear Dr. Cleary.
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