April 8: You can just picture the scene....

.....a young man goes to journalism school to fulfil his childhood dream of becoming a reporter, digging for stories, getting at the truth. As well as journalism, he studies political science, history, the basics of science, everything he needs to see significance where others see  - nothing in particular. He gets a job. The editor calls him in.

"We need you to write up a big story. This is for page one. So write a story about potholes."

And there it is on page one. "Pothole season in full swing."

Lower on the page, Brent Mazerolle has a zinger that must have people all over town talking and thinking...."Moncton council hears objections to billboard."

This sort of first page doesn't happen by accident. This is the front page of a newspaper designed to hide any real news, to discourage any thought, to herd people as people herd sheep.

So let's start today's blog by not talking about the Irving press. Let's talk about a real journalist named Seymour Hersh who is intelligent, who digs, who tackles serious subjects. and who isn't afraid of any newspaper editor, publisher or owner.

I got this story from yesterday's Information Clearing House. This has stories the news media deliberately miss. You have to use judgement in accepting its opinions because it can be highly biased. But this isn't their opinion. This is an opinion from Seymour Hersh who is. arguably, the outstanding investigative journalist of our time.

Last summer, there were reports of the Syrian government using Sarin gas in its civil war. Obama seized on that as an excuse to go to war on Syria in support of the "rebels". Assistant Secretary of state Kerry joined him in the demand, both of them saying Syria  had crossed a "red line". The war was planned to begin on August 29.

Then, Hersh released his story that the Syrian government had not used gas of any sort. The "rebels' had.  And it came from our ally, Turkey.

The major US news media ignored his story. But the military leadership didn't. They told the president that such a war was folly,  that it could embroil the region in unwinnable war, and tie up the whole US military for no good reason. Congress got the message, too, and refused to support Obama.

That's when Kerry suddenly changed his position, dropped the talk of war, and demanded Syria drop the production of a gas it wasn't producing in the first place. I guess it seemed the graceful way out. And so Kerry became the great peacemaker.

Meanwhile, the mainstream news media still speak of Syria as the one that used gas.

In reality, Obama had to back off what would have been a foolish war, and perhaps a disastrous one.

Now we need a Seymour Hersh to give us the result of all this. Has Obama effectively lost his power? Is  he no longer in control of foreign policy? Is this why he has been lying so very low recently?

And if he has effectively lost his power, who has he lost it to? There are some very, very dangerous people running loose in the US government.

A strong Obama was dangerous because he was an eager a warrior as Bush. But a weak Obama could be even more dangerous.
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There is some big news in section A. On p. 4, even bigger than the pothole story, is a hot flash about the opening of a new boutique. Notice the headline, in particular.  "Entrepreneur opens...." I don't believe I  have even seen the word   'entrepreneur' used in a headline in such a way - so self-concious....

I mean, who would you expect to open a new boutique? A retired coal-miner? A mass murderer? Why use the work entrepreneur at all? It's a terribly pompous way of saying businessperson. It's a word deliberately being boosted for its exotic sound, and for the unconcious images it creates. Entrepreneurs are good because they are private business, and private business is good, so much smarter than civil servants and all the rest of us and Mr. Irving is an entrepreneur and therefore Mr. Irving is so much smarter than....etc.

This isn't a new story. This is propaganda chosen by the feeble minded to make readers think just like them.

Page A 6 has the other big news of entrepreneurship in Moncton. A Mexican restaurant is opening. Mind you, that's good. A wide range of cuisines is a sign of a real city - and Moncton has advanced remarkably in this respect over the last few years.

Gee. If the New York Times had a neat first section like the TandT, I bet it would sell a lot more papers. (though New Yorkers might laugh at the word 'entrepreneur'.)
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NewsToday, like yesterday's version, is pretty slim pickings. The biggest coverage goes to the Liberal victory in Quebec. However, though it's nice to see Pauline Marois go, I have never seen anything impressive about the Liberal party of Quebec.

The bigger story, I think, is "Tensions still on the rise in Ukraine". I'm afraid we could be back in the soup on this one.

Whoever inspired the coup in Ukraine - and I'm quite sure it was the US - has created an unstable situation that nobody has any control over. The mixture of populations and ideologies has always made the Ukraine open to instability. So now we have violence in another part of Ukraine, and another demand for separation of a part of that country.

And that is giving us armed and violent mobs. Troops won't help. Nor will some big show of establishing democracy - because not much of this is about democracy.

What we have is a turmoil of ideologies from the furthest left to the furthest right,  complicated by language origins - and about to be made into pure hell by the poverty the International Monetary Fund and certain banks have begun to impose on Ukraine.

The temptation for both Obama and Putin to intervene will be strong, especially if Ukraine degenerates into the chaos that is very possible. This has a dreadful feeling of 1914.
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The editorial is the usual, self-righteous one that we have to get tough with these university profs who live in a different world.
I lived for many years as a university prof. And, so far as I know, I lived in the real world. I had toproduce on my job. I had to pay bills and taxes and all that stuff. I had a family to feed, and we lived in a house. If that wasn't the real world, it was a pretty, damned good  imitation of one.

Certainly, I didn't live as an editor who is well paid for writing shallow and obvious propaganda for an owner who lives off the work of others. I didn't live as an editor too lazy or too submissive to turn out a paper which has real news instead of propaganda and trivia.

Hey - Mr. editor - think you could dash off an editorial like today's the next time Mr. Irving wants to destroy a chunk of our forest or interfere in our schools or announce he, unelected, is a member of the government? Do you have it in you to tell Mr. Irving to live in the real world?

Or you could tell all the local barons who, in these difficult times, want us to build an events centre for them, tell them to live in the real world.

This editorial  is shallow crap in which the editor demonstrates he hasn't the faintest idea what university education is about. The closest he gets to practical advice is "University staff need to keep pace with the times." But I have no idea what that means. And neither does the editor.

Norbert has an interesting piece about how to encourage organ donation to hospitals. He suggests a method that is simplicity itself - and sounds as if it would work.

I had a hard job following Alec Bruce's column. For a start, I wish he would stop using the words conservative and liberal in the sloppy way he (and most of us) uses them. Liberal does not mean leftish or scatterbrained. Conservative does not mean old-fashioned.

The theme of his column is that we overprotect children because parents now are over-protective baby-boomers. (Actually, baby-boomers are now  grandparents). His evidence is that he sees articles calling for less protection - attributing these to leftish writers and editors.
1. The proportion of writers and editors ( esp. of  'leftish" ones) is very small in this world. I can't see how citing them proves anything about anything.
2. Then he says that looking out his window, he sees lots of children out playing without any protection at all. So he concludes with the opposite of what he started with.
I don't understand this logic.
On the other hand, Alec Bruce is a very funny guy - but I often need a picture drawn before I catch a joke.

Alan Cochrane writes a column about saving more of our old buildings, some for historical value, some for more modern uses. No-one can quarrel with that - though I draw the line at describing the ghastly Castle Manor as a place of character and historical significance.

There are, however, large numbers of homes as well as the more obvious buildings  that should have attention and meaning drawn to them. One way to do that would be to establish walking tours of the city, designed around buildings of interest.

Each such building on the tour would have a discreet sign on it, describing why it is significant and interesting. I would start with an area which has a concentration of such buildings.

There are many old buildings in Moncton that are of historical and architectural interest. In case of a Moncton High, it might be obvious. Other buildings need a little help. Usually, a building is not interesting until we are told what is interesting about it.

Incidentally, there is a railway steam engine repair shop which is central to understanding any history of Moncton. But it seems to be used for storage, and there are no signs. Now - if we only had a steam engine in there.......
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"A matter of rights rather than choice" is a letter to the editor defending to right of women to have abortions. People who think otherwise, and who think they are saving lives, should look at the history of abortion.

There have always been abortions. The difference between back then and now is that back then a great many women as well as their babies died during the abortion. Today, it is possible to carry out an abortion while saving the life of the mother.

Check any newspaper of about a century ago or more. You will commonly find ads for medicines "for
female constipation." Now, think hard. What's the difference between female and male constipation? Answer - none. So why did women buy this stuff?

Becase the word "constipation" was a code that was generally understood to mean that the medicine caused abortions.

There were lots of other systems, most of them crude and painful and commonly fatal for the woman. Forbidding professional, medical abortions will actually kill more, not less.

Oh, I know The Bible says "Thou shall not kill". But I note that those who oppose killing by abortion usually cheer for killing by war, killing by the millions, and killing babies as much as anyone else. To this day, many, many babies in Vietnam are dying from the tons of agent orange that the US dropped on that country, and as a side effect, produce babies with horrible mutilations    which soon kill them. They still die, routinely, of depleted uranium the US used on a grand scale in Iraq.

Babies in Africa die every day because the drug companies who supply agencies with medical drugs use their influence in government to get full, retail price for them. The result is a shortage of drugs that many babies need to live.

Tell you what. Let's stop killing millions of babies by war. Then we'll take a look to see if there's a better way to deal with abortion.

Right now, we don't have a better way. Medical abortion at least saves the lives of mothers. The other ways don't.

April 7: Of Malaysian flights.....

NewsToday has yet another nothing story on the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner. That's a major story  for the day in national and international affairs. Among the others - a teenage boy fell off a horse and was killed in rodeo training, the Quebec election is today, somebody won the East Cost Music Awards. amd fifteen reasons to visit Grande-Digue. And that was all that happened in the world over the weekend.

Okay, if they're going to keep hammering us with the airliner story, let's do some thinking about what they're not telling us.    (which is most of the story.)

I don't mean we should engage in wild speculation. I mean there are obvious questions we should be asking ourselves. There are obvious questions the press should be pointing out. That won't tell us who did this. But they might give us some reminders of how this world works.

For example, nobody has taken "credit" for this act. Isn't that strange? When one thinks of such events, one thinks of terrorists. But terrorists want us to know what they've done. They don't want it kept a secret. Such an act is a battle won for terrorists; and they want the world to know it.

But nobody has claimed this act. That's almost unheard of. And it suggests this is not a terrorist act.

Then there's the pilot and co-pilot. There is nothing to suggest they had anything to do with this. There is nothing to suggest anyone took over the plane. And, if anyone did, there is no sense whatever to taking the plane so far  off course before crashing it - unless the purpose was to forever hide it. But why do that?

There is a great deal of confusion in the reports from senior officials of the nations involved in the search. It could be real. Or it could be there are important people who want there to be lots of confusion.

Then there's the story that the relatives of Chinese passengers are furious at the lack of information.

Why?

I've often heard of families being sorrowful on such an occasion. But angry? That's less common, and usually limited to a few.

The indications are that this was not done by some rebel or terrorist group, but by an agency of some nation. And it was aimed, perhaps as a warning, to the government of China or of Malaysia.

How was it done? I read one account suggesting that experts can use computers to take control of an airplane (or even a car). That may explain why the pilot and co-pilot didn't contact home base when the plane turned off course.

And the official discounting of discoveries? The frequent dispersion of search forces to various regions? That could well be part of an effort to make sure the airliner is never found.

This is not like previous attacks on airliners. The great mystery here may be not be where the airliner is, but why the characteristics of this attack are so different from earlier ones.

That's all that's worth discussing in a world news section that is often trivial, and has only one, world news story.
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For humour, check out Your Investments page for "Canada's big firms pay big taxes". And, gee whiz, we know that's true because it comes from the Canadian Council of Chief  Executives. I mean, it says they pay over 33% on their profits.

Gosh, that's even more than the official rate of 25%. We are stealing from those helpless corporations. So that means there really is no wage gap, the rich are not making their biggest profits in history - and we need to tax the unemployed more.

I'll bet those CEOs must have really, really long noses.
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Section A is the usual trivia - except for two stories.

Page 3 features pictures of the Daffodill Ball, an evening of supper, dancing, music etc. that raised $100,000 to fight cancer. I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing, feelings that go back to my radio days in Montreal.

We often had interviews with the wife of a former prime minister. She just loved shopping for new dresses at the most expensive places; and she loved showing off her good taste in clothes - and her jewelry -and she moved in a circle of people just like her.

And, oh, she was always having exquisitely expensive dinners to help the poor. Yes, a real saint she is, and she just loved being a saint in expensive dresses and jewelry.

Look. A daffodil ball with a very expensive meals and wine, and women showing off their latest clothes and jewelry and husbands is surely one hell of an expensive way to raise money to fight cancer.

If they were taxed properly, it would be a far, far cheaper way to fund cancer research. And if they liked, they could wear fancy dresses and jewelry and smile for the cameras on tax collection day.

And I find it distasteful that in a modern society we leave this important funding to be done by social butterflies.

I've always wanted to say that. They wouldn't let me on radio. But now I've said it.
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Page A7 has a good story about the takeover of universities by big business. But a university is not a business, and it's purpose is not to make a profit. As well, it is not simply a training ground for future corporate hacks, or a service centre to do only the sort of research that will make money for somebody already rich.

But that's what it has become. And university presidents have simply become tools for big business.

Mind you, there are serious problems with the way universities have failed to keep up to date  (or even up to the 12th century) in developing education methods. But big business is scarcely a good place to look for an answer to that.

The revolt against big business control of our universities has been slow in coming. But it's nice to see it starting.
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The editorial is the usual,  heavily-biased stuff about shale gas. As usual, it's self-righteous. Enjoy.


Norbert Cunningham has a column about foreign affairs. I can readily agree with his general feelings- but he doesn't seen to know how foreign affairs work and so he draws simplistic conclusions about them.

Despite what Norbert seems to think, there are reasons for wars. There was, for example, a reason for Iraq - to steal Iraq's oil.

Not understanding that sort of thing, Norbert comes to simplistic conclusions. Of Israel and Palestine he says, "a pox on both their houses." Come now, Norbert, Israel and Palestine are not simply squabbling over nothing. For a start, Israel has been stealing Palestinian land for years, controls everything going in and out of Palestine, refuses to allow Palestine to be a nation, and has wrecked every negotiation ever attempted.

In general, Norbert is right. War is a crime. But there are people who want wars, who make money out of them, and to ignore them is to miss the whole issue.

Craig Babstock looks at court and Oct. 17 of the shale gas protest. Protesters bad, says Craig Babstock. They were protesting near where millions of dollars of shale gas equipment was stored. Oh, that was bad. He concludes that all must keep level heads. (He assumes that sending in armed police was a level-headed thing to do. He assumes that drilling for shale gas is a level-headed thing to do. He assumes that Oct. 17 had only one significance. And he's wrong on all points.)

The protest was not simply caused by protesters looking for some place to create a riot.

It was caused by years of lying, withholding of information, and propaganda by the newspaper chain Babcock works for. It was caused by Babcock.

It was caused by a lying government which ignored the advice of its chief public health officer, and which hired a phoney professor to cover it.

It was caused by a shale gas industry that ignores all public wishes - and that buys politicians.

The great difference between the two sides is that one had the power to call in police. They other didn't.

More than that, Oct. 17 was shaped by a conquest, by hundreds of years of abuse of native peoples, by ignoring their right to the land we assigned to them. A conquest, especially when affected by enormous differences in social structures, religion, economies is a devastating experience that we never have learned to deal with - and haven't tried.

To boil Oct. 17 down to one day in which big business, accompanied by government it controlled and owned called in the force only it had the money to muster is ---well---the word that occurs to me is simple-minded.

Oct. 17 was caused by the Irving press, bought government. by the greed of corporations and the willingness to risk lives, and by the centuries of abuse we have inflicted on a people.

State your case if you like, Craig, but I could live without the self-righteous and juvenile preaching.



















































































































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April 5: General Indifference

There's a category for news stories that are not news at all. For some reason, they are called "general interest stories" - which, confusingly, means they are of no interest whatever. Most newspapers will have a story or two of this this nature. The TandT is the only paper I know that devotes almost all of its A section to "general interest stories". "Wild winter tough on seasonal business". "Moncton snow dumps just keep on growing" "NB Power line crews feel 'relief' after tackling outages". "Moncton eateries join forces to launch beer."

That's why it's rare to find something to talk about in Section A. It's just the "who cares" section.
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NewsToday covers a broader field. At least one would expect it to. And what is one of the top stories in this section of news of import from all over a world suffering poverty, war that is really mass executions, collapsing empire. collapsing democracy?  it's on page D1.

"Leaders' presents gathering dust?"

It seem that world leaders often give each other gifts in happy days. But Harper, for example, now finds it awkward to have these as we face the Ukraine crisis.  And I suppose Putin has the same problem with his 342 framed photos of Harper.

Oh dear, what a strain and fuss that must be, having a necktie from Putin hanging in your closet. What to do? What to do? This is  the sort of journalism that gives triviality a whole, new depth of meaning.

The big flash on D3 is "N.B. unemployment rate dips." And that, says Labour Minister Jody Carr is a sign New Brunswick is moving in the right direction. And Mr. Carr is full of it.

The dip is one tenth of one percent. And that's only the beginning of the story. Unemployment figures from government never reflect reality. The reality is always much worse. That's because, to give just one example,  people who have been unemployed for too long become listed as unemployable - so they don't count as unemployed any more.

A dip of one-tenth of one percent indicates nothing - especially when it's due largely to part-time jobs, as this one is.  It means nothing whatever - and Mr. Carr knows it.

Energy Minister Craig Leonard really, truly, cross his heart believes that SWN will go ahead on shale gas development. Has anybody heard SWN say it won't? Why is this news?

In yet another important story, it seems former president George Bush paints. I always suspected he did; but I thought he used crayons.

Then there'a a big story on a new bill to promote organ donations, and yet another that the lost Malaysian airliner hasn't been found.

The only real story is we are going to lose 18 million a year that we get in health funding from Ottawa. But this is treated as a matter of local politics. It's much more than that.

There is a powerful move all over the world, spearheaded by the rich, to cut social spending of all sorts. As a result, there is profound suffering in countries like Ireland, Greece and Spain. Cutting social spending is a big piece of what the Ukrainian coup was about. We've seen it in the US, too, as social spending is cut while big business pays no taxes at all. And we're seeing it in Canada.

This is the final, big grab of the very rich- to make the poor and the middle class pay while letting the rich off the hook. It's part of increasing the income gap in favour of the rich. Only the rich deserve to have health and education, etc. The very rich are our new aristocracy, and we have to become poorer so that they can get even richer.  Harper is a big fan of that kind of thinking. That's why another term for him would be the end of Canada.

But none of this is in the story. It's as if this were just another, minor political squabble. And that's the way the politicians are treating it, too.

Incidentally, there's another link between this and the Ukraine crisis.

There are over a million Canadians of Ukrainian descent. Those who arrived from 1945 on were profoundly anti-communist - so much so that they had moved to the very extreme right, including kind thoughts of fascism.

That's why Harper was the first western leader to visit the post-coup Ukraine. That's partly why he took such a strong position in favour of the Ukraine. His trip to Israel was designed to win Jewish votes in Canada. His trip to Ukraine was designed to win Ukrainian votes. And no journalist noticed that, at the same time, Harper was courting both Jewish-Canadians and Ukraine which has one of the world's most brutal records of anti-semitism.

There are a lot of votes, well-organized votes in those two communities. They could make the difference in our next election.
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Bill Belliveau's column is worth a read. We should all be concerned a lot more than we are about the future of rail traffic in this region. We should be encouraging it. Obviously, Harper wants to destroy it.

(Incidentally, I have a fondness for the name "Belliveau". At Maurice Richard's funeral, I had a long talk with Le gros Jean of the Canadiens. He's a delightful person. - just had to mention that.)

Norbert writes a column on the subject of federal cuts to health care payments. It's a subject he knows something about. Unfortunately, what he knows has been out of date for a century. And when Liberals complain about the federal cuts, he responds by sticking out his tongue, and saying, federal Liberals used to make cuts, too. So there.

What the hell is that supposed to prove?

After a careful reading of Brent Mazerolle's column, I have no idea what it's about. It does have a big mistake in it, though. At the top of the final column, he says Bill Clinton admitted he stereotyped Canadians. But if you read the previous paragraph, it's evident Clinton was not speaking of himself.

The Ukrainian crisis,  in my view, was created by the US in cooperation with major banks. I think Putin was right to react as he did. However, Gwynne Dyer moves the video on a frame or two to suggest that Putin may now be creating a dangerous situation by overplaying his hand.  And Dyer makes a strong case.
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Except for Dyer and Belliveau, there really is nothing here worth reading. That includes, of course, the sermonette on the Faith Page. As usual, it's so abstract as to be meaningless. As usual, it never deals with real people or real life. But we live with real people in real life. This is where we have to apply Christian principles.

Look, kids, try a sermonette applying Christianity to real life. Do you consider the economic and political leadership of this province to operate on Christian principles? Tell us, with examples, what you think.

Or just go back to mumbling to yourselves.

April 4: I tried, I really did....

....to find something worth commenting on in Section A. At last, on page 8, I found something. It's the best I can do. "Senior dog left abandoned....."

It wasn't the story itself that got me. (I can think of no other daily that would have run a story of an abandoned dog as being a big, news story.) What got me was the "Senior dog" part. I have never seen that term used before - old dog,yes; but not senior dog.

Usually "senior" is a polite way of referring to old people, not dogs or white mice or blue jays. I think this is a pioneer step in our treatment of animals. But we should do it gradually, because that's the way we did it with people. We could start them as "older-", then as special, then "uniquely-experienced". Then perhaps as seniors. I'm not ready yet to share my only courtesy title with old mutts.
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In Section C "Tories work on dividing shale gas royalties." I had visions of a different reality, of shale gas companies working on dividing the royalties for each of them. But, but our trustworthy energy minister, Craig Leonard, means something different.

Landowners would get .5% (that's one-half of one percent) of the two percent that the government gets. Let's see, now. A half of one percent of two percent....add something, carry the logarithm. multiply by the dividend, get the senior dog to check it...Wow! That's a whole cent for every dollar the government gets, which will be - who knows?

I mean, there are sure to be clauses in there protecting the companies from paying royalties and taxes on everything they don't want to pay royalties and taxes on.

Then, of course, that cent has to be shared among who knows how many landowners - so don't make a down  payment on a yacht yet.

Still, the minister is right. If the government lets landowners negotiate, they'll take advantage of those nice, gas companies. So it's better to trust Mr. Leonard handle this as he has handled so many other deals.
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Every day since the Malaysian jet disappeared, we have had a story on it - the same story. They can't find it. They'll keep trying.

Hint to the news editor. Wait until you have something to say before running this again.
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Harper continues to chase the idiot vote with his victim's rights bill. For Harper, the purpose of law is not to protect against crime. It's to get him votes. So instead of spending money to ensure that offenders don't become offenders again, we'll spend it (much less) on measures for crime victims. And that combination is what has given the US the biggest and least effective prison system in the world.

This is similar to the old game of catering to our revenge instincts by whipping prisoners or putting them in solitary, etc. In the end, it actually raises the crime rate, and does nobody any good.

But Harper couldn't care less. his 'get tough on crime' drive has nothing to do with cutting down crime. Instead, it has to do with the biggest crime of all, re-electing Harper.
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Energy Minister's empty face appears on C3, a wonderful opportunity for collectors of photos of Craig Leonard- or at least as a sanitary convenience for senior dogs.

To say, as he does, that the government has already implemented all of Dr. Cleary's advice on shale gas is---and it's an easy word that goes with that blank face - lying.

And to attribute their public differences to a "breakdown in communications" is vague, unsupported, and meaningless. The two of you live in the same, small province, Mr. Minister. You can probably call each other toll-free.

This "breakdown in communications" has been going on for some two years. I know you're a busy man practising your blank look. But in that time you could surely have discussed such an important matter.

Mr. Leonard, it is not possible to believe you.
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The story most worth reading in the whole paper is on C 12. "Ex-auditor (Sheila Fraser) slams election bill." She joins a long list of credible and distinguished people who say that Harper is destroying democracy with this election bill.

So he is.

He has largely destroyed it by his abusive treatment of parliament, his obvious contempt for it, his ignoring of rules, his use of omnibus bills that cram hundreds of new laws into a package that must be voted on in one piece - and he makes sure there is no time for  parliament to discuss them properly. One of his new laws gives the rich the right to give as much as they like to parties, guaranteeing us a    government like he US in which almost all legislators are in the pay of big business. It is stunningly corrupt - and it destroys the chance of any fair system being restored.

Harper is the most dangerous, unprincipled and irresponsible man who has ever been prime minister.
If he wins another term, Canada will not survive. Indeed, I am not at all sure it can survive now.
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There is virtually no news from the rest of the world. So I guess there is no Afghan heroin and opium coming to our shores, no more crisis in Ukraine (how come nobody had the wit to find a story on the brutality of the new, Ukrainian budget?) There must be no more American-sponsored war in Syria, no more western colonial troops conquering their old colonies in Africa, no more American-sponsored rebellion in Venezuela, no more drones killing civilians. no more assassination squads from the US busy in various countries. Oh, and Putin has not launched his war that NATO has kept squawking about.

That's nice.
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The editorial is a spirited defence of admitting lawyers to practice in NB, even if they come from faith-based schools. (Practising lawyers in the province have opposed it.)

The editor says that no lawyer or judge would allow faith to affect a legal decision. He also says we have adequate laws for protections of our rights. He  also says any university that is faith based to such a degree that it discriminates does not receive public funding.

Wrong on all counts, baby.

In the US, where faith-based judges and lawyers are more common, their faith rules can and have affected legal decisions.

Our laws protect our rights? Hey. I'm from Quebec. Tell me about it.  Tell the hundreds of thousands who left Quebec that they really had nothing to worry about.

As to public funding, it can come in many ways. One is to have charity status so that donations are tax-deductible. Guess who has to pay that deductible part.
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Again, columns by Alec Bruce and Norbert Cunningham that are well worth a read. Bruce takes an informed and balanced approach to the idea of full day kindergarten. (I've always admired kindergarten teachers. As teachers, they are the class act from K to PhD.)

Norbert offers what he did well yesterday, an urging for us to stop arguing about climate, and to think through conditions that are likely to occur, and to plan for how we ( through local and regional governments can take measures now or can, at least, structure some planning.)

The City Manager has a column calling for a public debate on how many seats the events centre should have.

Now, there's a silly idea.

How many people in this city or any other have the faintest idea of how to plan something like seat size for a building?

The whole idea of an events centre and the benefits it will bring is expensive nonsense

Okay. 50 million seats - just in case we get taken over by China.




                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

April 3: ...sigh........

...we have a provincial election coming up. What are the crucial problems we face?
1.A wild and destructive economic system that each year makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. It's going to destroy itself and us.

2. A very few people have all the power in NB. The very few are rich, not very bright, and interested only in themselves. In this situation, our elected government is a farce, and Alward no more than a dancing monkey.

The rich are now preparing to take over your schools   (and ruin them), take over health care (so you won't be able to afford it), and generally rub your faces in the dirt.

3. We lack the fundamental requirement of a democracy, an honest and free press.

4. We waste money, giving it away to the rich while starving fundamental needs of the people of New Brunswick.

5. We are plunging, like Canada, into a reckless development of resources which will give us very little in return, and will probably cause irreparable damage.

On the good side perhaps the greatest achievement New Brunswick has made is in its handling of accommodating  people of two languages.

People's Alliance leader Kris Austin announced his party's response to these challenges.

He would do a feasibility study of the idea of a second refinery - in the northern part of the province. He would have free votes in the legislature; and lower taxes for small businessmen (wrong word Kris, it's entrepreneurs).

Oh, yes, language. He would away with duality in health care.

Here is a platform that nicely balances the irrelevant with the destructive. And nowhere in it is there any statement of the principles the party believes in, the values it holds. Well, how could there be?


And the leader actually says - get this - he says the  government has too much power. What cave does this man live in? The government has NO power. Almost all the power is in the hands of a few of the wealthy.

And what would be wrong if the government did have power? Government has too much power - that's a Norbertism. We elected the government. It is the only hope we have of exercising any power at all. The whole idea of democracy rests on the principle of a government having power. If it has no power, we have no power. (which is where we are now.)

Advice to the membership People's Alliance.
1. Don't make statements that are meaningless.
2. Think through what statements really mean before you adopt them.
3.Give some serious thought to precisely what it is you believe in. What are your values? What is a government for? What do you think people have a right to?
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Today's propaganda is on p. B1. A report says public servants are overpaid. And who are the experts who decided this? They're the members of yet another right wing think-tank (propaganda house for big business). This time it's the C.D.Howe Institute.

Funny thing, there are a few honest and capable think tanks. One doesn't always agree with them, but at least we know they are honest and intelligent. And you know what? I have never seen an honest and intelligent think-tank referred to in a North American newspaper. They always go for the far right hacks like AIMS and the C.D.Howe.


But it surely takes one hell of a nerve for even a hack working for billionaires to say that public servants are overpaid.

Public servants do much the same sort of work as is done by corporation executives. But the corporation execs get millions and even billions for it.  I've never even heard of a civil servant who makes comparable money.

The researcher admits that private sector pay is "somewhat" higher. However, he says that public sector pensions make up for that.

Like hell they do.

In fact, the private sector often offers gifts for life - but just doesn't call them pensions.

Trust Irving press to publish this biased and misleading information without ever mentioning that the source of the story is a propaganda front for the rich, and one with a long record of lying.
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I'm afraid the Ukraine insanity is a long way from over. On B5, a US general says Russian troops are on the Ukrainian border are poised for an attack.

In reality, Nato has moved its border up to the Russian border. In doing so, it allowed the likes of Harper, assorted generals, politicians to say that Russia is concentrating its forces on the border.

Of course, it has. The Russians now have the most aggressive and ruthless armies of the last 50 years, the NATO forces, with a clear run to its border. What the hell do those generals and Harper expect the Russians to do with their troops. Send them to Disneyland?

The dangerous part is the way so many speak of NATO. They give it powers it doesn't have. NATO has no right under any law to declare war on anybody. It's not a country. UN rules gives right to countries, yes, but not to alliances. That's why it's called United Nations and not United Alliances.

Yet Harper is swaggering about, talking tough. It's quite possible he will take us into a position in which we will lose a basic right - the right to decide, through parliament, when to go to war. Americans lost that right fifty years ago. That's one reason the US is not a democracy any more.

The story ends with the repetition of an old myth - that Hitler was able to begin his conquests because British Prime Minister Chamberlain did not honour his commitment to defend Czechoslovakia against Germany. And we are told that the gutsy Churchill would have stopped it all right there.

That's bunk.

The British could not support the Czechs because they had no army or air force anywhere close to being able to do the job. Chamberlain had no choice. If Churchill have been in power and done the same thing, he would have lost most of his army - as he nearly did in the disaster of Dunkirk a year later.

The German forces were far bigger and better equipped and had better planning than the British did in 1938 and 1939,

As it was, Churchill was wrong even in 1939. In just over a  year, he had lost World War 2. He knew it.  And he admitted it. He even spoke of getting out  of it by handing over part of the British Empire to Hitler. What saved him was Hitler's invasion of Russia, and then the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour.

I hope it's not true. But it is possible that the US is thinking of an attack on Russia. And it is possible that Harper will be a big enough fool to commit us to it.

Most worrisome is the continuing silence and absence of Obama. It suggests that he is not really in charge. And, yes, that is thinkable.
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An important story didn't make it at all. Palestine has applied for membership in the UN. Israel has said that if it does, then Israel will annex even more Palestinian land. The US says it will support Israel in what would be an illegal act. But what the hell, Israel has done it before, many times.

And it seems possible that Israel has something else that the US will support it on. It wants to bomb Iran on the pretence Iran is developing nuclear weapons - despite the fact the UN inspectors say it isn't. Such a bombing would be illegal, of course. But the US will veto any UN criticism of Israel.

Leading American politicians have already been bought by the Israeli lobby in the US.

This is a major story because of its implications. For example, Americans who feel the US has gone way too far in supporting Israel (and that includes many American Jews) are a growing number. Israel's aggressive and brutal behaviour is making it enemies. One also wonders about the consequences of a bombing of Iran. There is no telling how far out of control an action might go. This is dangerous.

But there's a serious weakness. There seems to be nobody at the Irving press who knows enough about the news to be able to tell what's important. The result is page after page of irrelevant stories, and important ones ignored. It's as though the news editor picks up his stack of stories from the press services each morning, and says, "Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe".
__________________________________________________________________________
Very solid columns by Alec Bruce and Norbert Cunningham climate change. Cunningham starts with an idea that is by no means a solution - but it's a good illustration of starting to think - and the sort of thing we should be seeing in government at all levels.

Rod Allen's column has a good title. He should have stopped there.

Jody Dallaire's column strikes a sympathetic chord because it shows some good ideas about strengthening democracy. But I misses the big problem. We and our governments are own and used for their own purposes by the wealthy. There is not a word on that.

But that is the key issue for New Brunswickers. Unless it is dealt with, nothing else matters.
________________________________________________________________________
News they missed:

The most  (the only) success of the US in AFghanistan has been to increase the world supply of opium and heroin. 80% of the the world supply now comes from Afghanistan - and it kills an estimated million people a year all over the world.

The International Monetary Fund, with the help of the new and unelected president of Ukraine has imposed its austerity budget on Ukraine. The purpose is to drain as much as possible out of the country so that bankers get paid off. And that was what the coup against the government and all this fuss was really about from the start.

The suffering is going to be enormous because the whole load is being put on the poor and the middle class. The rich, just like here, will be getting a free ride.

Ain't democracy wonderful?

Sorry to be so late. I had an exercise class this morning so I can be beautiful again. Then a medical to tell me it isn't going to work. The rest of the time I've been chaufering my children.

April 2: Watch your schools...

....the Irving press is on the warpath - and that means the Irvings have something in mind.
but first.....
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Page A1 has another winner of the Who Would Have Guessed? trophy.  "Plow operators keep busy in storms"

Now, these headlines are written by page editors; and they're supposed to give the reader an idea of what the story is about. This is a quite decent report by reporter Cole Hobson. But the editor does him no favour with that headline - because it's not about plow operators keeping busy. No. It's an intelligent story about rising costs for snowplow operators. But what we get is lazy and sloppy editorial work that makes this look like a story that isn't worth reading.

Page 6 is entirely pictures of snow, and one of Premier Alward talking to somebody who hadn't had power since early Monday morning. Boy, I'll bet that talk with Alward really helped.

And that's it for section A.
______________________________________________________________________________
NewsToday has two,  hysteria articles.

NATO is considering options to scare Russia. Baird is in favour of cutting all our ties with Russia. Brilliant. Yep. If you want to preserve peace and avoid nuclear war, then punish people, threaten them, and isolate them.

Idiots.

And, on B4, just in case you aren't hysterical enough yet, there's a story about how NATO is beefing up its defences against you-know-who.  Never mind that Russia has carefully avoided making any threats against anybody, and has made no move to suggest it is thinking of attacking anybody.

The story has a photo of "self-defence" activists in Ukraine. "Self-defence". It describes this group rather as our press describes "rebels" in Syria who are really hired, foreign mercenaries. For these "self-defence activitists", they are really extreme right wing groups (something like the Harper Conservatives) whose self defence activism consists of rioting and shooting people at random in the streets. Way to tell it like it is, baby.

__________________________________________________________________________

Then there is the ugly part of the paper, the editorial. It's really Norbert's column of yesterday on getting rid of teachers. It's source of information is two, far-right wing propaganda "think-tanks" sponsored by big business - AIMS and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

It's argument is that dropping student enrolment should mean we need fewer teachers. Get this...
1. The enrolment figures come from 1999-2000. Now, is that dishonesty or stupidity? It's hard to know with these think tanks and this editor.
2. It ignores  (and is probably ignorant of) another factor. Schools across Canada have historically, suffered from too few teachers. Even with that 14 years ago drop in enrolment, they still had too few, so of course they kept hiring.

Can you the drooling twit who wrote that editorial understand that? No. Probably not.

Then he raises the old, production issues. If we have more teachers, we should be getting better results in such things as literacy - and here he shows himself as ignorant about education as Norbert is.

The statisticians who measure to decide if literacy is improving can do so only with criteria they establish. Sound simple? It isn't.

They decide, for example, that literacy is demonstrated when a student can identify the theme of a book. They, of course, decide what that theme is. Then they have to ask that in a standardized way in an exam.
So the question might be "In Romeo and Juliet, is the theme a)don't go out with Italian girls or b) don't go out with Italian boys.  Put an X beside a) or b)"  And this is what they call an objective test. 5 points if you get the right answer. 0 for the wrong one.

And there are two, terrible faults with that approach.

One is that, quite  often, there is no clearly identified theme to a book. Some people will see one theme - and they are right. Some will see another theme - and they are right.

That is a problem with all these objective, fill in the missing blanks or choose a), b), or c). That's why I never used them, and thought history teachers who did use them were being lazy as well as inaccurate in their grading.

They work fine in some fields, like math. They don't work at all in others.  Think tanks love to use them because they give seemingly scientific results that appeal to the simple minds of editorial writers - and because the think tanks, themselves, are clueless about education.

The other problem is that when you teach some courses, especially English, and use such tests, the teacher has to teach ----for the test. And that's not the same as teaching literature.

As a child, I read heavily from the age of six. I did it because I loved reading. Reading is an intellectually free thing to do. You can think what you like of what it is you're reading.

But now you can't. Now, you have to think what some obscure authority thinks. And  you have to memorize it for an exam.

So what you get is an exam system that really measures nothing useful for a course that is made boring because the teacher has to teach that that damned exam in mind.

I suppose it can be a useful system in business where creativity is not common. But it destroys literature.

As well, of course, reading is affected by living in a province that does not encourage reading or free-thinking. This is a remarkably passive society. And it's very, very hard to teach anything to people who live in passivity and fear and obedience.

So what's this coincidence of today's editorial being yesterday's Norbert column? These things happen for a reason. I have a strong feeling that they got a note from the boss - probably with hints of the points to make from a company spin doctor.

What we are left with is two, ignorant columns by two people ignorant of the topic. Our schools and our children will suffer. But some greedy person will do well out of it.
________________________________________________________________________
Page D 6 has a column on forestry by Greg Adams who works for J.D.Irving. 'Nuff said.

Eric  Lewis contributes a 'goody-goody' column about a trivial exercise in giving somebody a Community Spirit award. Lord, this province just loves giving awards. When one of the Irvings got an award by being entered into some Philanthropist's Hall of Fame, I thought it just reflected bad taste on both sides. But it's a real passion here.

Brian Cormier has a column on old underwear. No wonder New Brunswickers don't like learning to read.
____________________________________________________________________
Obvious stories the Irving press has not covered - after all, it has lots of reporters in all its papers for resources.
1, Why did Alward choose this time to make the forestry deal that will hurt him in the election?
Has Irving decided Alward and his party are expendable? After all, he has another toady ready to go.

2. In light of UN reports that climate change is here, and growing quickly, has city council given any thought of how it will react? I mean, we know Harper and most provincial premiers will do nothing because nothing is what the oil industry wants done. Let's not kid ourselves about that. We are not going to prevent climate change. Are there things it will do to us, at least, that a city council can prepare for? What preparations do we have for food shortages, for example?

3. Why did Harper take such an aggressive and threatening stand on the Russians taking Crimea? We have no direct stake in that. We have no significant military force to contribute. We have no capacity to defend ourselves in a nuclear war. So why was he the raging bull?

4. Why did Obama keep such a low profile through the Crimean crisis?   He handed over public leadership to people like Kerry and Harper. Is it possible that Obama has very little power in Washington? So who does have the power?























the 

April 1: Yesterday, we had freezing rain...

...if you missed it the TandT has lots of pictures of what rain looks like when it freezes. We also had a massive power outage in the evening. Alas, there are no photos of the dark. Couldn't they have used flash bulbs?

And the saga of Salisbury recreation goes on, making that a possibility of becoming the story of the year.

The only story worth reading in Section A is "End of Health Accord protested". Ottawa is cutting its contributions to provincial health care budgets. Protesters say this could even mean an eventual end to medicare and a return to private medicine. The protesters are wimpy.

This DEFINITELY means a planned end to medicare and a return to private medicine. Harper is an ideologue who hates medicare. He wants to destroy it. And if we stand around with our faces hanging out, that's exactly what he will do.

All over the western world that farce we call capitalism (sorry. entrepreneurship) has put increasing amounts of money into the pockets of the rich, leaving no money for services. Western capitalism is also deep in the rot of corruption and illegal activity. And across the western world, we have to pay in order to protect the high salaries and bonuses of the rich, and to spare them taxes. That's why countries like Greece, Spain, Ireland, Ukraine and the United States are suffering levels of poverty we haven't seen in a century.

But don't worry. The rich haven't missed a beat. In fact, they're getting substantially richer.

This isn't just a matter of getting some thing free. It's a matter of getting something at all, something that you need to stay alive. Check US life expectancy compared to other industrialized countries. (Check them against Cuba).  Check infant mortality rates.

Private medicine means death. Of course, I don't want to suggest that Harper and his wealthy friends are killers. Certainly not. How could they be? The concept of morality does not exist among them.

No, the they aren't killers, not deliberate ones. They're just greedy and stupid.
_______________________________________________________________________

There is a curious story on p. B1, "Canada is not immune to Global Warming".

Actually, that's not what the story is about. It's about global warming in general, that we are running out of time to prevent it, that we may already have run out of time, and we desperately need to work out how we are going to deal with the consequences.

The report is from the Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change. Ever hear of it? Neither have I. But I've heard of the United Nations - and that's where the report comes from. So why give it the name nobody ever heard of?

In fact, this report came out two days ago; and I was wondering why yesterday's paper didn't have the story. Everybody else did.

And what will the oil industry do? Nothing whatever except to step up its propaganda that there is no global warming, mankind is not threatened, oil is good for you. Harper will continue to cut research budgets on the subject.

Let's face reality. No government of any importance is  making any serious efforts to find a fuel for safe energy. The very wealthy who own the oil companies have no interest in that. Again, it's not that they're killers. They're just greedy and stupid, that combination that makes this a psychiatric problem.

What we have to figure out very, very soon is not how to prevent global warming, but how to survive it. City council might consider that before it spends all its money on an events centre.

Cheer up, though, the last paragraphs of the story say that the rich have a much better chance of surviving than the poor.
__________________________________________________________________________

Norbert is foaming all over the teachers again. It looks very much as though the boss has told him, once again, to step up his attacks on the education system.

As usual, he rants without having a clue what he's talking about. For example - he talks of how statistics show spending is going up but results are not showing improvement.
1. The statistics on spending and results come from different sources. The spending statistics are reliable. The results statistics are not. These come from bozo statistical reports produced by AIMS and similar groups, people who work as propagandists for the Irvings of this world, and who understand very little about the measure of results in education.
2. Education results are also profoundly affected by family circumstances. The poor, for many reasons, none of them their fault, do not usually do as well as others in school.
3. There are also statistics on the rise in the proportion of students staying until the higher grades in high school. Almost all of those come from the families of the poor.
4. The number of teachers increased by 1.5% though enrolment dropped, we are told. Norbert, Canada has historically had classes that were much too big. When I first began teaching grade seven, the board sent us all a note that the classes were big, but that it was working to bring them down to a more suitable number of 18 per class. (My grade seven class was 32). An increase of 1.5% teachers does not strike me as being unreasonable. But what do I know. I'm not a retired editor of a tenth rate newspaper.
5. Then Norbert says that we don't need all those teachers because small classes are no better than big ones. Norbert, I have taught classes of 10, 18, 80 and several hundred. I think it makes a hell of a difference. How many classes of any size have you taught?
6. School results are greatly affected by the atmosphere of the community. And the New Brunswick community is not one that sets minds afire.
Intellectual life in this province exists only in the form of church pancake breakfasts. The people tolerate newspapers designed to keep them uninformed, trivial, and worse. It maintains the weakest library system in Canada. It supports politicians who are openly puppets of billionaires. It allows private interest groups just to walk into its schools and to put on compulsory propaganda as a required course.

The closest word it has to morality is entrepreneurship. It is obsessed with money, and cares little about people.

And you want people to speak and think logically? Norbert, this is a province where people are afraid to speak publicly at all. I have never seen such a timid and fearful population. And the only time I have heard it raise interest in an "educatonal" issue was in deciding whether students should be required to listen to O Canada every day.

6. Norbert feels that children need to learn basic fundamental skills. Norbert, one of the first basic fundamentals is to learn that basic and fundamental mean the same thing.

This is a hopelessly ignorant column. And it is, I think, a servile one. I think there are plans for a big time move of big business into control of our schools. Big business ( sorry, entrepreneurs) will then use them for propaganda - and we will have schools that are the educational equivalents of the Irving press. We're seeing it in Alberta and BC, and even here in one school board so far.

New Brunswickers, some day, you're going to have to learn to speak for yourselves and speak publicly. Otherwise, there is no limit to the abuses the greedy and stupid will heap on you.

Norbert says our biggest budget expenses are health and education. I doubt it. I think our biggest budget item by far is tax cuts and other gifts (including forests) to our billionaires.

Norbert, retire. Turn yourself in at the SPCA.

Alan Cochrane's op ed is the usual staff column of triviality. Don't any of those people employed at the Irving press know anything about anything?

Gaetan Thomas, CEO of NB Power, has a column about good stuff like renewable energy. Alas, it is so vague and so poorly structured that few, including this reader, will have the faintest idea what it's about._
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Oh - an advance notice -

On April 24, at New Brunswick Community College, I shall be teaching a course (every Thursday for 6 weeks at 1-3) on the myths of history. Registration is at People's Park Tower on St. George St.

But it's not really a course about history - rather more about thinking about what our images of history are, and how they affect our thinking about ourselves and the rest of the world.
That means we won't all agree on the meaning of any one incident. And that's fine. This is about thinking; there are no compulsory things we have to believe.

For example, Winston Churchill is praised for his steadfastness in World War Two. And so he should be.

When the war ended, he was voted out. And so he should have been.

Racism runs deep in the western world. It has for at least a thousand years. And Canada is no exception. Contrary to myth, many Canadians supported Hitler's hatred of Jews. Racism today in Canada still profoundly affects how we see the world. Governments know that. And they use it.





























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