August 20: Well....

...I am still not using my own computer. Things were looking up as Bell installed the connection after only three weeks. But they did it wrong - and who can tell when they'll get it right? I have to call them again and again and listen to recorded voices saying "for instttkkent, press one"  And when I do that I get another recorded voice. It was faster when we communicated with smoke signals.

For pure gush, read today's lead story. It's all about how the whole world is watching Moncton. Well, the surfers are. So that's close enough. And this PHENOMENON will be marked in a coming issue of theWORLD-RENOWNED SURFING MAGAZINE - The Surfer's Journal. You've heard of it, of course. Everybody in China and Pakistan and Congo reads it, just everybody. It's the MOST PRESTIGIOUS AND RESPECTED (SURFING) JOURNAL IN THE WORLD.

It goes on and on with this pre-adolescent gush for a full half page.

Look, if you have tell people a journal is famous, then it's not. If it were, they'd know it without being told. and to say it's world-renowned? Hey, take a deep breath and cool it. An editor should have cleaned this up, cut it by two-thirds and then, puh-lease, should have put it in a trivia section, not at the top of the front page.

Yesterday, one of the paper's columnists bragged about how may journalism students have got their first, practical experience at the Irving press. So they have. And that may explain why there are so many bad journalists in this world.

Then there's a big story about local people who dress up in their idea of how cowboys dressed up a century and more ago. Then they shoot the guns that, according to movies, the old cowboys used. Whoo-ee. Some people really know how to have fun.

Actually, this is neither cowboy nor Canadian. This is pure Hollywood. The American cowboy clothing and words like riata were borrowed from the Mexicans who taught Americans how to be cowboys. The quick draw and the duel on Main St. never existed until the early movies. Anybody who got killed most likely got shot in the back, and often by a mentally disturbed moron like Billy the Kid.
A large number of cowboys, incidentally, were African-Americans. Of course. A cowboy was cheap labour, bottom of the ladder, and Texas had a long history of racism and slavery.

Why on earth is grown up people dressing as what they thought cowboys looked like to shoot old guns a front-page news story?

None of the Hollywood versions of cowboying existed in Canada until the early days of the Calgary Stampede. (Well, there was a fascinating guy from England who became a gambler in BC, then a general in the Chinese army of Sun Yat-Sen, imprisoned by the Japanese during World War Two, then settled in Montreal where he became brother-in-law to a journalist I knew.) His name was Two-Gun Cohen. Now, that's a story.

Then there's a big story on A5. A private clinic offering pain-killing guarantees you a cure or your money back. What the hell is this doing here? This isn't a news story. This is an ad. And a pretty trivial one at that.

And that sums up a Section A that's as trivial as they get.
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There are only two items in NewsToday worth reading. One is a slightly overripe story that a Toronto police officer has been charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of a teen-ager. I thought it rather strange at the time that it should have taken nine shots to stop a kid at very short range. Six of the shots were fired after he was down. He was also tasered.

This is bizarre. He was alone in a stopped streetcar. He had a knife. There was no way out. Nine shots at close range and a taser with six of the shots coming after he was down suggest either very, very bad training on the Toronto force - or an officer emotionally unsuited to the job.

Norbert won't comment on this until after the trial. That's because the court will almost certainly acquit the officer as it always has in such cases - and then Norbert can use that to prove he was right.
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There is a stunning story on C4. Our provincial government is in the last stages of a sixteen million dollar project to beautify the grounds of the legislative buildings. Over the last nine years, it has been spending an average of 1.6 million each year.

We live in a province that has cut funding for family services. We have a very large population that depends on food banks that are running out of food. We have one hell of a need for spending on social projects. And they've spent sixteen million of our tax money to make the grass look nice? A government with any brains would have kept that a secret.
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The editorial is yet another pitch for the incredibly distinguished prof Lapierre, and for going ahead on tracking. You've read it all before. Many times.

The editorial is quite right, though, about the limp fish response of the Liberals. I've never seen a new party leader make so little impact. I've rarely seen a party that seems to stand for nothing whatever. Of course, they're in a spot.

If they oppose shale gas, they won't get any nice money to run an election campaign. And the Liberal leader could kiss goodbye any dreams he had of being PM, kissing up to the big boys and then becoming a multimillionaire like another former premier.

But if he supports fracking, he could lose the election. It's so hard to stand for something when you really don't stand for anything at all.

The Liberals in power would be exactly the same as the Conservatives in power. We all know that. The trick is to try to look different. But Irving and friends won't allow that this time. They're determined to go ahead. No matter what.
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Norbert's column is quite a decent one - but strange. He argues, among other things, for a rejuvenation of our railway system. Very reasonable. But he does so on the argument that this would reduce the use of fossil fuels and, therefore, reduce the catastrophe of climate change.

Norbert, isn't your paper the one that frequently pooh-poohs climate change? And hasn't it and you consistently demanded fuller use of fossil fuels? Did you clear this column with Mr. Irving?

Still, it's a good column.

Alan Cochrane has nothing in particular to say. I guess that's why he's an editor.

Louise Gilbert (Seniority Rules) writes a simple and sentimental column on the Petitcodiac River and the tidal bore. And that simplicity and sentimentality is quite irresistable.
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And now back to life with Bell-Aliant that takes three weeks and more to install a connection.
'Press one for French" - "entrez deux pour anglais". "If you are waiting for service, first listen to a half hour of beautiful music by the Bell Orchestra humming on combs covered with tissue paper."

August 19: Damn, damn, damn....

I wrote a long blog this morning on my own system that it took Bell only two weeks to install. When I pushed publish, nothing happened. spent over an hour on the phone with Bell and, following instruction, lost the whole blog. I now have to wait until tomorrow because they said they need time.
Anyway - here's a quickie on what I wrote.

The lead story is one Robert Goguen who orates on a genuine problem - but really has nothing to say. Then there's another biggie on how we in Moncton will soon be able to order meals in a few restaurants using the computer. It's a full life.

Then there is yet another picture of a kite, followed by two more pages of pictures of kites and a photo of a stranger sitting on a tractor. A great thrill for people who get excited by pictures of kites and strangers sitting on tractors.

The only, real news story in section A is buried on A7 because it's so much less important than kites. A New Brunswick biologist has warned that herbicides used by our forest industry in this province are causing enormous damage to our wildlife, including deer who have fallen victim by over a hundred thousand. But what does he know? He's only a biologist, and has only 20 years on the job of studying the situation.

So the TandT includes a statement by a real authority, somebody impartial, the President and CEO of the New Brunswick Forest Products Association.  He says there's  no problem. There are places that ban such herbicides: but any real authority knows there's no problem in spraying the landscape with chemicals designed to kill living organisms.

That's it for section A.
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The NewsToday has one page of news.  The lead story is one that actually should be read. The national ombudsman for prison conditions has said there is no reason to keep Omar Khadr in maximum security.  Even the American authorities consider him to be no threat. So why is he there?

Because Harper plays to self-righteous bigots who make up a substantial part of his voters. Remember that racist questionnaire he circulated about native chiefs? That's Harper's style.

You think Khadr should be in prison and in maximum security? Okay. How about the American presidents who have now killed over two million people in Guatemala, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan with millions more to come - and all to please oil and mining billionaires?

How about the American soldier who killed a family, raped the surviving thirteen years old daughter, then killed her. American soldiers wouldn't rape? Hell, it's on record that they rape American women soldiers at the rate of tens of thousands a year. What do you think they do to Moslem women in the middle of a war?

If you were a fifteen year old boy in Afghanistan and those people were rushing toward you screaming and shooting, what would you do? Stand up and sing God Bless America?

He killed a medic? Who do you think the US has been killing - medics, civilians, women, children, elderly by the hundreds of thousands at least.


Khadr was arrested as a prisoner of war. That is illegal under international law. As a minor, that is illegal.

He was held in a detention centre for years. That is illegal under international law.

He was tortured. That is illegal.

In a real court, testimony based on torture is illegal. Four crimes, all committed by the US government.

Ever heard of any charges for the crimes above? Did you ever hear Harper say a peep about them? Khadr is a Canadian citizen with a right to expect Canadian help. Harper didn't lift a finger.

You still hate Khadr. okay. you can kiss ass on  facebook for your real buddies, the politicians and soldiers who have murdered, raped and looted. I'd prefer Khadr any day.
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The editorial is half-witted, as usual.  We are told that private business demands competition. What a twit! He works for a private business that insists on having a monopoly of the printed news. Do you ever think, Mr. editorial writer, before you write?

He says that capitalism produces the best goods at the cheapest prices. Sure. Tell that to all those happy people who work under capitalism in Haiti, Guatemala, and other parts of central America. Tell it to the  millions who work under brutal conditions in Congo, who are tortured and murdered to please billionaires. Tell it to the millions of Americans who lost their homes to crooked banks, and now have to pay heavy taxes to reward the banks for their criminal behaviour.

We should have a small government says the editorialist. That's exactly what we do have. Our government is one man.  Mr. Irving tells those politicians in Moncton what to do, and they jump. Business should be completely free? It is. That's why we're in a recession.

I don't know where the TandT finds these clowns.
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Norbert?

Remember how, about a month ago, he talked about how people who questioned the Toronto police about shooting a teenager in a streetcar were stupid and, he implied, were all dumber than him (Norbert), and probably anti-shale gas protestors? Well, one of those policemen has just been charged with second-degrree murder. Funny Norbert didn't mention it.

He also raves about how an inquiry is a must after the Campbellton tragedy. In fact, there is a very vigorous inquiry. I've seen no sign of anybody hiding anything.

But Norbert never mentions the need of a public inquiry over the killing or 47 people in Lac Megantic The TandT scarcely reports on it. And Harper is showing no special interest.

But if Norbert dared to mention that, he'd get his little bottom spanked.

What a self-righteous and ignorant creep!
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Alec Bruce is light, but very sensible and amusing at the same time.

Craig Babstock appears to be still recycling his old essays from grade nine. Read it only if you give a damn that he's been cleaning his basement.

Pat Malloy is missing today. Too bad. What they have is a Pat Murphy who has made (her?) living as a writer for big business. It shows. This one is a standard Tand T defence of fracking. And Pat Murphy obviously knows nothing about it.

She? signs herself off as having a degree in history and economics. (I can see Brent Mazerolle now writing a column about this brilliant columnists known around the world for having a degree in history and economics.) Actually, it means nothing. This person has a BA with a very superficial knowledge of anything, especially history and economics. If she had more - a major or honours in them, it would mean a little more - but not that much.

Hell, I have a degree in history - no major, no honours. That's because I seldom went to class, never studied, and knew damn little about history at the time. Murphy has written a highly prejudiced piece on a subject of which she knows nothing, and her sources are highly questionable ones.

Well, that's the kind of person who writes for the TandT.

August 14: Sleaze

The pages upon pages of pictures of kites were bad enough. Obviously, the Irvings must think we have no brains at all. (Well, of course they do. Who else would put up with their half-wit newspapers.). Most of the TandT  for Friday and Saturday was unpeakably childish, even moronic.
But the pure sleaze was Brent Mazerolle's story on Page A 1, (energy institute starts work.).

Obviously,  Irving and friends intend to steamroller this through - no matter what. Yessir, the Energy Institute is poised to give respectability - like putting a Sunday go to church hat on a hooker.
I'll just hit on a couple of points of this delberately slobbering, ignorant and misleading "Story"/

1. We read it constantly underlined that a "foreigner" going to such a conference  (by the way, Brent, was it a conference or a workshop? - there's a  difference_  - amyway that a foreigner getting invited to a conference is a big deal.
Brent, academic conferences commonly, even normally, have have foreigners at them. It's no big deal. It's not as if prof Lapierre were invited to the become chamberlain of the court of Genbhis Khan. You keep hammering that point as though it were a big deal. Brent - it means buggar all. And I don't think you're stupid. It think that was deliberately misleading writing.

He reports that the debate now has gone beyond whether there should be fracking. The issue is to ensure it's safe. Prof. Lapierre, what possibly qualification to you have to make such a statement? All the evidence I have seen suggests there is one hell of a debate over whether there should be fracking at all. . It's raging in the US and Canada. There's a debate in Europe. Some areas, like Quebec, have forbidden it - case closed.

Prof. Lapierre, are you really so stupid as to make such a statement in public? Is Brent Mazerolle really so stupid as to believe it? Be assured that I shall defend both of you against any charges of stupidity. Manipulative? Misleading? Unethical? Oh, yes. All of those in spades But not stupid.

The story includes an account of the setting up of the Energy Institute - an "independent" gathering of scientists and "fellows" What he's talking about is the typical structure of a "think tank" - of a propaganda institute like Atlantic Insitute of Market Studies or the CD Howe Insistute or the Fraser Institute - all of them claiiming to be independent, all of them with a sprinkling of respectable names, and with "fellows" who are given fancy titles to spin lies.

Around the world, scientists are very worried about the impact of processes like fracking. The Energy Institute will  pick out the ones who can be trusted to see things the right way. Get used to it. Our universities are owned by big business. Lots of professors are honest. But the pressure is on them to keep their mouths shut. And if they do say something, the Irving Press won't report it.

University administrators have been playing the game for a long time. Expect nothing useful or honest from them.

This is the big push. Exploration is going ahead no matter what. Discontented peasants will be ignored, if possible, by the Irving Press. And if they can't be ignored, the Irving press will support the severest measures.

These people are thorough bastards.

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Notice how Lac Megantic has disappeared from the news? We get lots of stuff on the Senate, lots on the investigation of pet shops in Campbellton.  Not a word about how 47 people were killed in Megantic. Not a word about whether oil is still being shipped to St. John and, if so, how.

Has Mr. Irving decided to forego his profits? That sounds unlikely, but possibly the result of a stroll through the beautiful gardens of the Irving Chapel among God's wonderful flowers, a sermon by a reverend doctor, and coffee and fellowship with other, ardent Christians in "The Barn".

Will Mr. "get tough on crime" Harper insist on a full and transparent investigation? Not bloody likely. Remember how Brian Mulroney accepted a bribe (crime one), then hid the money from taxation (crime two)? And his punishment? He had to pay the taxes. He would have been given worse for smoking in a restaurtant.

Will Mr. Alward, who assured us all our railways tracks were in great shape be taking a look at a small private line that runs from Maine into St. John? Well, it wouldn't matter if he did - would it" He'd just see whatever his boss told him to see
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The Faith page has its usual "safe" sermon. This one is we shouldn't gossip. Way to tell 'em baby. Gossping is wrong. forget the liars whose  stories and columns appear in our press every day. Forget the 47 dead that we're not going to do anythinig about. The world's no. 1 problem is gossip. After all, telling stories about people could be bearing false witness (though it often isn't). Funny Jesus hardly mentioned gossip at all. Good thing we have Reverend Hawksworth to take up the slack.
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There's a new face on Friday for the op ed slot, a reporter named Cole Hobson. I read it with, at first, some hope. He writes decently. He dances to the edge in his comment. But he just dances, and is very careful never to step over the line. We'll see.
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And now, quite unintentionally, to annoy some people.

As we close the annual celebration of the Acadian people - and I quite agrree that there should be such a celebration - but we humans are very choosy about what we care to remember and celebrate.

I'm a mix of French and Scottish. But my French ancestors like most French, didn't originally come from France Some were a Hunnish people from the East. Some as in Normandy, were the Normn Vikings The latter would later conquer English.

Scots like to kid themselves that Scotland was never conquered. In fact, it was. The Romans took the southern half, and pulled out because it wasn't worth the cost. then the Vikings conquered most of it. And there was a good deal of to and froing with the Irish. So, I guess I'm really French, Scot, Hun, Roman, Viking - and a whole lot of ancestors who pushed each other out of the way to grab land.

Now, the expulsion of the Acadians was certainly and act of cruelty and greed. The main force behind it was not "the English" - who were certainly capable of unlimited greed. It was in the people of the English colonies who wanted more land - the same force that would drive them to invade Canada in 1812 (a point not much covered in the 1823 "celebrations". Indeed, the US freqnently for a century after 1812 spoke of either invading or annexing Canada, so they could grab our minerals, lands, etc.. (So much for our history of friendship).

But how did the Acadians get this land? Weren't there people already here? And didn't they suffer from the Acadians just as the Acdians would suffer from the English?

We celebtrate the survival of the Acadians as a people - as well we should. I thought of that as I  saw the celebration cartoon in Friday's paper. But history is an eternal process of some people pushing others aside. We should certainly celebrate those who are determined enough to retain the contact with their past.

So how come we don't do it for native peoples?

 

August 14: Yesterday, two pigeons sat on my windowsill...

They sat there, unmoving, for five or six hours, eyes open, unblinking. They were more interesting than the Moncton TandT. They certainly beat the big, front page, read-it-now story about a leaky toilet. And for those who haven't noticed, the big, front picture and a big story are all about how we get mosquitoes in summer.  (Hint for the TandT - if we get mosquitoes in January, that's front page news. If we get them in August, it isn't.)

All news media put pressure on their editors and reporters to avoid certain stories. On CBC in Montreal, we were cautioned to avoid being critical about separatism. Generally, I had freedom - but not on that issue. And when I broke the rule, I got fired.

The Moncton TandT, along with the whole, Irving press, has rules, too.
1. Fill people's minds with trivia. Like leaky toilets. Or mosquitoes. Or two, whole pages on a kite festival.
2. Mention the Irvings only when they look good. This time, it's a big story about them giving thirty thousand dollars for a charity bicycle ride. Wow! Phil-an-thro- py. So there's a big photo of people holding up a giant cheque. (What a brilliant photographic innovation!)  And there's a big story.
This comes to us from a paper that never even mentioned Dr. Cleary getting a national award for her warnings about shale gas. But that takes us to rule three.
3. Never publish anything that even hints at criticism of the Irvings. Think hard. Have you ever seen a word of criticism of the Irvings in any edition of the Irving press?  Notice the continuing lack of any questions about the Megantic disaster.  - even though that  train was bound for a New Brunswick city.
4, NewsToday is mostly meaningless trivia, selected , seemingly, by throws of the dice from a few news agencies.  Anyone who reads this will be left almost entirely ignorant of what is happening anywhere in the world - including Canada. Whoever chooses these items is either under orders to keep readers ignorant or is hopelessly incompetent to be an editor of any sort.
5. And, in general, it's understood that the newspaper either lies or hides information whenever Mr. Irving wants it to. This is an extraordinary arrogance - and an anti-democratic one. Mr. Irving has, in effect, become the dictator of New Brunswick. Sieg Heil.

Good column by Alec Bruce about Harper and his effective destruction of the census. It is, as Bruce says, directed at maintaining ignorance in order to give Mr. Harper more control. But that's not because he's a conservative. In fact, there's nothing about him of conservatism or any other ideology. Harper is not a thinker of any sort. He's a man obsessed with power and control. And, with his mindless flunkies like Robert Goguen, he is one, very dangerous man for all the people of this country.

Norbert's column is, as usual, designed to impress the gullible with a respect for his scholarship - which appears to amount, mostly, to reading clippings.

Brian Cormier delivers a sermonette just like the ones on the faith page on Saturdays. Only even more boring.

Eric Lewis does his desperate best to write a column that takes a moral stance - and one that won't offend Mr. Irving.  That much succeeds. But I am, day after day, left in wonder at the rage directed at Russia for its anti-gay attitudes. Certainly, I think those attitudes are wrong. But I find it amazing we can work up so much rage about the sort of hatred that was common across Canada just a generation ago. And I am amazed that Eric Lewis et al never wrote a word about similar behaviour by a very local university.  Nor do I understand how we in the western world get the gall to criticize any country for anything.

On the wall of a priest's office in Guatemala are what's left of the priest's brains splattered on that wall. His killer was actively cooperating with American money and leadership in the massacre of a quarter million people. And, no, the TandT never even reported it - though one of the victims was a Catholic layman from a New Brunswick village not at all far from the temple of the Irvings. We in the west have killed or tortured or raped or orphaned millions just in the last dozen years in order to plunder oil and cheap labour and other resources. Who the hell are we to give moral direction to anybody?

Surely, Eric Lewis can find things in our own act we should be cleaning up - starting with the dreadful mistreatment of the people of this province by a handful of corporation bosses who have made themselves rich out of our work and our resources - and who then have the nerve to hand out the occasional cheque for a charity and expect to be praised for it.

Then there's a letter about the courage of Mr. Baird in expressing his outrage at the treatment of gays in Russia. Yes. What wonderful courage. Now, if only he would carry it a step further and express his outrage at the brutalities inflicted by Canadian companies in third world countries, at the mass murder and torture that is now normal for the US, at the treatment by our federal government of charities that doesn't toe the far right political line, and maybe even at a chain of newspapers that is manipulative, lying and demeaning.

Oh, and forget all this chatter about "the olympic way". The whole idea that the Olympics is devoted to anything but making money is pure myth. The Olympic movement has nothing to do with human rights. It never has.

This is, I know, a terribly negative day. There really was almost nothing to say about this paper that could be constructive. No person who works for the paper can have a shred of journalistic integrity.
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I am definitely off for a few days of RandR. But be warned. My apartment will be guarded by my son and a trained, killer cat.

I thank Terry Wishart for sending me copies of Media Co-op. I received them by mail so soon after I moved in that he must have known my mailing address before I did. Scary. Good thing he's on our side.

August 13: bring a mop....

This is late because I'm still using a borrowed computer. I may miss a couple of days to the 18th  to splash between the sandbars. Not sure.

Why the mop?  You'll need it for the front page story from Brent Mazerolle. He really wets his pants over how UdeM professor LaPierre will be speaking at the "prestigious" US science academy.Professor Lapierre "admits" he is "honoured" to be the "only non-American" invited to the conference.

Go change your pants, Brent.

1. When Dr. Cleary won a national award for her warnings about shale gas, your lying newspaper didn't even mention it.
2. The word "prestigious" doesn't belong in a newspaper. It's an opinion, not a fact.
3. He is the only "non-American" at the conference because it isn't a full conference. It's a workshop. Attendance will, in fact, be quite small.
4. It is the "storied NAS". Hell, Brent, I was in the academic world for some forty years. I never heard a single story about it.
5, For 150 years, it has been providing "independent, objective advice"? Well, if it has, it's the only such group I have ever heard of. Again, I lived with these people. Academics are not particularly independent or objective. And I would be particularly surprised if such a small group was chosen for its objectivity. Like anything else in American government (as in New Brunswick), such groups can be bought - especially if the numbers are kept down.
6. There will be - geegollywhiz - geologists, biologists, public policyists and   political scientists, and others.  Well, gee, Brent, if you have 29 people at this thing and if they represent so many fields, then there must be one hell of thin representation of experts in any field.
7. Mazerolle keeps emphasizing the independence of academics. It that like the independence of Professor Savoie who made public statements on subjects he knows nothing about? Does it include Professor LaPierre who played obvious games to please the shale gas industry in this province?
Is it like the independence of the "prestigious" university presidents of NB who all turned out, and quite improperly so, when Mr. Irving snapped his fingers to tell them they were on his committee to plan the financial future of NB.
8. Professor LaPierre closes with the old line that this sort of meeting is "peer review", and therefore demanding of the truth.
Bullbloodyshit.
Academics often live in their own world of arrogance, snobbery, pretence, and a hunger for recognition. Peer review is not at all a guarantee of truth. Too often , it is a play for personal fame, for competing egos, for whatever is in style. Not their fault. Academics are not machines. They are people. And they behave remarkably like people.

This is a dreadfully ass-kissing news story, especially coming in a paper that completely ignored Dr. Cleary's award. Any journalist who had anything to do with it should be ashamed.
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NewsToday is, as usual, mostly trivia. Someday, it would be nice if they would do a serious story on how the middle east became such a mess. It's a substantial story involving Britain, France, Spain and then, especially after 1945, the US. And perhaps the best starting point for it would be a much over-praised British officer of World War One who became known as "Lawrence of Arabia". There's a movie about him, starring Peter O'Toole. Don't believe a word of it.

The horror of the middle east is entirely of our creation.
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Gwynne Dyer is good.

Alan Chochrane's column reminds me of bubble gum.

Alec Bruce's column goes on and on about the Olympics and human rights. In fact, the games have nothing to do with rights of any sort, or any "Olympic ideals" of any sort.

They were begun as sports events for the upper class. That's why, originally, professional athletes were excluded. Anyone who had to accept money in order to play was a lower sort, and not a gentleman. The games were only for the better sort. The idea was that this would produce an upper class better able to lead society - the rather silly theory  being that playing games produces leadership skills.

From their start, the Olympic movement was controlled by a small number of very, very wealthy people.  It exists to make huge profits for them - and they don't give a damn about human rights. That's why Avery Brundage, long the most important figure in the movement, viciously opposed professionals in the Olympics but had no problem with Hitler.

Alec, try this. The US ignores human rights on a massive scale. It invades countries illegally , largely to steal their resources. It kills people by the million. It spies on the whole world, including its own people. Its president has the power to jail and even kill people without charge or trial. And it practices torture on on a huge scale all over the world.

Or this. Canada has dishonoured its pledges to its native peoples. It has placed them under a regime that encourages hopelessness and poverty. It has a prime minister who has recently circulated a political flyer that was openly racist in its treatment of native peoples.

Would you, therefore, join a campaign to ensure than neither Canada nor the US gets an Olympic games in future?

Or is being anti-anti-gay just the flavour of the month?
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Norbert gets tough, and asks questions about the tragedy of the two boys in Campbellton who died. And questions should be asked.   But...

Where the hell are the questions about the 47 were were killed in Lac Megantic?

1. Who changed the regulations to permit a lone engineer on that train?
2. Who asked for the change?
3. Who approved it?
4. According the news reports, the rails between Montreal and Campbellton are so bad, the engineer had orders to slow down and be especially careful at some 29 locations. Doesn't that raise questions about rail safety in general? Doesn't it cast doubt on Alward's statement that our rails are in prefect shape?
5. Why did the regulations permit the carriage of crude oil in carriers that were unsafe for it?
6. Why did   Irving Oil use a railway with such a bad safety record as the MMandA rwy?
7. I have no doubt Irving Oil was within the law. That's because people with big money get to have a pretty big influence on what laws are passed. Pet shop owners don't get that same respect from governments.

Irving Oil must have known all the above. It must have know all the risks. It must have been aware of the failings of the MMandA. The two businesses were, after all, closely related. It went ahead anyway with a lone engineer, improper tanker cars, bad track, and a railway with a bad record.  
And forty-seven people died.

Have you any courage or integrity at all, Norbert?

August 12: speaking out?

Alec Bruce's column got me thinking - as it usually does. This time, he's defending Baird for criticizing Putin's record on brutal treatment of gays. It's certainly reasonable that he should do so. But - I have trouble praising Baird for this one.

Putin is certainly an unlovable wretch, obsessed with power and control, and with no respect for human rights. How different, how very different, from our own, dear prime minister.

But I have trouble with critics like Baird who are so selective in their targets. The kings of Saudi Arabia have been pretty hard, to say the least, on gays. How come Baird has never mentioned them? Could it have something to do with Saudi Arabia being a key ally in the middle east?

How does Baird feel on the subject of illegal wars that kill people by the million, destroy nations for decades and more, and involve widespread torture - and all to get control of oil for our billionaires? So far, I haven't heard a word of criticism from Baird about Bush or Obama or Tony Blair.

But ain't that the way us people is?

I have right wing friends (yes, I really do) who foam at t he mouth over Mao Tse-Tung as a mass killer. And so he was. There was nothing nice about Mao. But they never criticize our boy in China, Chiang Kai-Shek, who killed, probably, as many as Mao did and, unlike Mao, encouraged opium addiction for his real boss, a big time dealer, and made no attempt to provide medical care or provide organization for the Chinese people. He was paid by western big business to act as he did.

Indeed (and though the movies never show this part), the west has a long history of brutality toward China going back to the early nineteenth century. Our business leaders saw China as a vast market to be looted and abused forever.

First, there were the opium wars to force China to accept the sale of opium. Indeed, the treaties specified a fortune to be paid to western capitalists if China did not buy enough opium in any year. The result was a vast nation of whom at least ten percent were addicted to opium.  (The opium, by the way, came from plantations taken by the British in an India that Britain had conquered precisely to create another country that could be looted.)

The result for China was a crash of a culture and of a form of government which had lasted longer than any other on earth. With that crash came violence, starvation, terror. At the turn of the century, a rebellion against the westerners developed in a desperate attempt to re-establish some functioning society. It was crushed, largely by western troops. The armies then divided Beijing and neighbouring areas into districts, each district being assigned to a squad of soldiers for unlimited looting, rape and killing.

There's an old movie about it, Seventy-Six Days at Peking, starring David Niven. And there's not a word of truth in the whole movie. It's a sort of cinematic version of the TandT.

Because of western greed, China suffered over a century of chaos and horror. But, oh gee, that Mao was a terrible man. Cluck. Cluck.

Any thoughts on that, Mr. Baird? Any thoughts on why Canadians were sent to Afghanistan? Or why Canadian planes bombed Libya? Any thoughts on the morality of drone attacks that kill "suspected" militants in nations we aren't at war with? Any thoughts on torture? On military assassination squads?On the slaughter of native peoples in Guatemala?

No. Of course not.
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There is still no follow-up on the Megantic disaster. Well, who gives a damn? It was only 47 people killed. And not a New Brunswicker among them.
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What was the most important happening in the world yesterday according to NewsToday? Well, it seems a judge in Tennessee rejected the case of a couple who had named their son Messiah. Yep. The judge ruled that the name had already been used by someone who earned it. Well, that probably makes sense in some of the hillier parts of Tennessee.
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Norbert writes a strong column on exotic pets - like pythons. Norbert, why pick on that topic when almost everybody agrees with you? What's the point?

Craig Babstock, who seems to be incapable of dealing with any serious subject, urges once more that we go big time with Magnetic Hill concerts in summer. He cites the example of the Osheaga Festival in Montreal which draws huge crowds.

Well, yeah. That can happen when you have some three million or more people within a subway ride.  Maybe if we built a really, really big subway going all the way to Boston.....think about it, Craig.
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Steve Malloy writes his usual, enjoyable column. It seems light - and it is - but it does raise a question about food prices - and about the lack of reality that's often reflected in discussion of them.
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Less thoughtful is a letter "Try living without oil". It says we need oil - so we shouldn't criticize the development of it. Well - it's really not up to us. We also need a cleaner atmosphere so the world can grow enough food, and so we can survive and our descendants will live.  At some point, soon, we begin dying with oil. As my mother used to tell me so often, "There are some things we cannot have." Tough.

Then there's "N.B. needs better management". This returns to a theme raised a few days ago - we should organize government like a business, with everything decided by a board of management before going ahead.
1. A government is NOT a business.
2. Big corporations with boards of management are not necessarily efficient at all. In fact, they are so inefficient that they frequently have to call on government help.
3. Big   corporations with boards of management know how to make money. That's all they know. A government has to work in a much larger framework.
4. We already have a board of management. You are on it. So am I. We meet periodically, just as business boards to, to make judgement. We call those meetings elections.
The problem is us.  We chose those clowns who run our "corporation".  And we limit our choice to just two parties, each of which is exactly the same as the other. So, of course, we're going to get one lousy government after another.
5. When you invite businessmen to become members of a board of management for government, what you are doing is what's called fascism. And it really doesn't have a very good record.

Nope. The decisions have to be made by us. So Maybe we should take them more seriously.

 

August 10: Letters....

I won't spend much time on the TandT news today because most of it reads like a tabloid, a really, really boring and trivial tabloid. It doesn't even have the story about how Camilla killed Prince Charles a year ago, and sold him for snacks at a church tea.

Section D (p. 1) is interesting because Baird condemns Russia for being anti-gay. Very courageous. I wonder why he and Goguen never spoke of Moncton Baptists in that way. He invokes the memory of Hitler and how he was allowed to stage the Olympics despite his behaviour toward Jews. Well, yeah. Could we have the names of all the Olympic hosts who have not been persecutors and killers of innocent people? The US? Wasn't there something about murdering people by the million in Vietnam? about overthrowing elected governments in Central America and installing dictators? Britain? France? The nations that murdered all over the world for profit?

More revealing is section D5 "Drones taking growing toll on Yemen militants".  These are American, remote-control fighter bombers which have been attacking people in several countries. And, apparently, the US says seven militants have been killed in recent strikes.  Or -----oops---

The story says "suspected" militants. That's not quite the same, is it? In fact, if you read a better range of news sources, the US has been illegally invading many countries with its drones, and killing, perhaps, thousands of people who are "suspected". Many of the suspects have turned out to be quite innocent people, many of them children. For children in some countries, the walk home from school can be a terror. Can you imagine the Christian indignation if   Pakistan drones were to attack the US in that way?

When newspapers present stories in the way this one is presented, it's called propaganda. And when robot bombers attack anybody who is down below, it's properly called terrorism.

Norbert loves to end his columns with a quotation from some notable. Today's is about how fear is a disease and inhuman. I yield to no-one in my respect for Marian Anderson; but she was a singer, not a philosopher. I might well quote something she said about music. But not about human psychology. In fact, fear is very human. It's been a major factor in keeping our species out of trouble and helping it to survive.
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Then there's the letters. I was struck by two of them, "Anti-development movement hurts" in the paper for August 9, and "Pipeline will be a game-changer" for August 10. Both are well-written - but just a little bit too well. Both show a considerable skill in using loaded words; and both praise shale gas and the pipeline. Both do it with skilful use of insinuation and suggestive words. They are, in short, written in the style of professional propaganda.

Yesterday's letter, for example, characterizes the critics of shale gas and the pipeline as "anti-development". Isn't that awful? I mean, who could be anti-development? That sets the tone for the letter.

In fact, I don't know of anyone who's anti-development. Certainly, I'm not. But I am anti destruction of the soil, the water and human health through the use of dangerous chemicals. In that sense, I suppose, the whole medical profession in Canada is anti-development. (and I note that neither writer mentions the unanimity of medical opinion. Cute dodge, that.)

As to the pipeline, virtually the whole scientific world has warned us in the strongest possible terms of what will happen - and happen soon - if we continue to rely on fossil fuels for energy. So what will we do? Well, we'll show them. We'll encourage this country and others to burn even more of the stuff. Hell, we ain't scared.

Then the writer turns to the question of the provincial budget, again showing a very clever use of words to make a simple-minded analysis. If we don't accept shale gas and the pipeline, why, we'll have to cut off all social programmes, schools, everything.

Actually, the budgeting process is somewhat more complex than that. You see, part of the reason that our budget is so out of kilter is that we tax the wealthy and corporations so very little. Another reason is that we give lavish gifts of forgivable loans, sweetheart contracts, and tracts of land to those same people who pay so little in taxes.

The solution is to "grow the economy"? You must tell that to the people in Guatemala. Their economy has been growing like crazy thanks to mining companies which pay almost no taxes, and which have poisoned fresh water and land to a degree we can scarcely imagine. But Guatemalans remain among the most poverty-stricken people in the world, and the worst served for education and social programmes.

Congo, again largely with mining, has been growing like crazy for almost a century and a half. Billions have been made by the developers. But the people of Congo remain in poverty, fear and hunger - not to mention slaughter in the tens (at least) of millions. It's still going on today.

No country on earth has been so development happy as the US. And after several centuries of development, poverty is at the worst level it has ever been. Social services are among the worst in the developed world. The budget debt is is a world record. Wealth is so badly distributed that a handful of people at the top have hogged more money than the hundreds of millions below them.

Developers don't come to deliver money. Mr. Irving is not a fairy godmother. Developers come to take money. And they don't give a damn what kind of a mess they leave behind.

Sorry. I can't help it. When I see a letter so well written with loaded words, but also so simple-minded and ignorant of how economies work, well, I just get suspicious. I wonder if SWN and friends intend to treat us to a whole series of these.

The other letter "Pipeline will be a game-changer" is not as skillfully written. So it could be an honest one.  It also shows a considerable ignorance of events.

Detroit, for example, and despite what the writer says, is not dying because of a brain drain. It's dying because the "capitalistic individuals" who controlled the industry moved its work out to cheap labour countries. "Capitalistic individuals" do not get rich by making your rich. They get rich by exploiting the vulnerability of the poor and the weak. That's why jobs have disappeared all over the US and, to a degree, in Canada.

And please don't call them "capitalistic individuals". Either they are capitalist or they aren't. "Capitalistic" implies they look capitalist but really aren't.

Well, okay, we could call them capitalistic. The small players are genuinely capitalist entrepreneurs. They survive by competing; and they survive on their own merits.  The big boys don't. The big boys, like SWN, Irving, etc. survive on special deals with government, on laws tailored for them - like the change that allowed MMandA Rwy. to operate a large, tanker train with only one engineer. The big boys survive on tax gifts, special breaks and favours. They survive on our taxes and, often, our lives that we lay out to kill people for the good capitalistic types like oil companies and mining companies.  That is why a million and a half people were murdered in Iraq, a quarter million in Guatemala. That's why we sent "peacekeepers" to Haiti. They were really there to help US "capitalistic" types to get back control of the government that had been elected. That's why drones are killing "suspects" in Yemen.

The goal, contrary to what the writer says should not simply be growth. Some of the world's most rapidly growing economies are among the world's poorest. The goal is to serve the best interests of the people of New Brunswick.  Poisoning the province and its people is not the best way to do that.  We have very clear warning on that point from the medical profession. And neither writer addresses that.

Of course,  people who think like these two would, if one had a heart attack and the other appendicitis, would promptly go to a "capitalistic individual' for treatment.

I think we're in for a long and sophisticated bout of propaganda.
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The sermonette on the faith page, as usually, avoids anything that has to do with real life. What's our problem? Do we join in on the world-wide killing to benefit private business? Is there anything wrong about poisoning the land and, possibly, its people? Is there anything wrong with a very few people stuffing themselves with huge sums of money while others have to work harder for minimum wage at Walmart? Is there anything wrong with drones sent to kill "suspects"?

Hey! Don't worry about it. Just accept Jesus into your heart. Problem solved - and nobody who is anybody is offended. And if that is your path to spiritual peace - avoiding reality and responsibility - then you'll probably just love the Irving Chapel.