It was 10 a.m. The voting was steady, mostly of the elderly. I wonder how much the voters knew about the issues and the candidates..... I confess I had no idea what most of the candidates stood for. I voted for people I knew, people I felt who had values I could trust. I knew only one person like that on the hospital list.
Democracy means nothing without information - information about the major issues, about the powers of the various boards, about the core values of most of the candidates. The Moncton Times and Tribune had almost nothing of that. Essentially, it has commented largely on two issues - and done so not to report but to propgandize us. And even two issues are contradictory.
It wants council to borrow a hundred million, maybe twice that, to build an events centre. It wants to hold the line on city taxes. Bottow heavily. Keep taxes down. Duh. Whatever you say, Mr. Irving.
The only issue that seems to have caught on with the public is the moving of Moncton High School. But the TandT doesn't want to talk about that.
Over half oftoday's section A is about the election with stunning headlines like "Province set to vote today" amd "Lebalanc seeks to keep Moncton Post". It's just one stunning insight after another.
Nor, I suppose, would it help if the paper were to pay more attention. It didn't seem to have anybody at the level of either reporters or editors who have the capacity even to know what questions to ask about the various candidates and functions.
No matter how many vote, it's not a democracy if we don't have access to enough information. The only semblance of an exercise in democracy that I saw was a story about a youth conference on bullying. It's a exchange of ideas, a discusion of values - and that's what democracy is about. It begins with information and values.
NewsToday is, once again, no help to anybody who wants to know what's going on in the world. There's the usual explanation from MacKay about how his latest goofball mistake wasn't his fault. Amazing how a man who has never distinguished himself in anything, who has no visible values or ethics, and who seems to have brains to match can make a very good living indeed as a politician.
Reurters, as usual, reports on Syria - getting its information from a propaganda website for the rebels.
The editorial, in a relief from its usual rant, says nothing at all.
I breathlessly turned to Norbert Cunningham who, you might remember, said he had wonderful news for the world which he would tell us on Monday.So I read it eagerly. What a bummer!
This was pure, juvenile gush. Without a shred of evidence or any attempt at reasoning, Norbert babbles about how all the world's problems will be solved. How? Technology. What technology? We don't know. Isn't it technology that has caused most of our problems? Norbert doesn't mention that. So what's the proof?
It seems Norbert read it in a book by the founder of seveal technology companies and by a jouranlist who once won an award.
Telll you what, Norbie, I won jouranlism awards, too. So I must be an authority on just about everythng. And this is the most juvenile drivel I have ever read in a newspaper. It you were working for a good newspsper, no editor would have accepted that. Luckily, that's not a problem for you at The Moncton Times and Transcript.
Incidentally, when you write of democracies replacing cynical dictators who starve and brtialize their people, haven't you ever noticed that most of those dicators (in Saudi Arabia, the Shah in Iran, the historic and present day dictators of Central America, Saddamn in Iraq, Ghaddafi in Libya were put in power and encouraged in their ways by the western democracies?)
Norbert is going to tell us more tomorrow. The mind boggles.
Craig Babstock proves once again that he can write a thousand words without saying anything.
Allan Abel does better than usual.
The only item in that whole paper worth reading is Alec Bruce's column.
What a tragic waste of our forests!
Monday, May 14, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
May 13: Acadienouvelle
About a week ago, a reader asked me to comment on the quality of Acadienouvelle. So, on a Sunday morning, here's a general impression.
The standard of journalism is clearly higher than that of The Moncton Times and Transcript. There is no obvious bias in the reporting or commentary. Opinions are, as always, open to disagreement - but they are intelligent opinions, and there is no rant.
Only one column caused me unease. It was presented as a news column, written by Martin Roy. But it was very much an opinion column. The column was good one. But it should have been clearly labelled.
I was surprised to see two news items that did NOT appear in the TandT. One was that the NFB was making a film about Ron Turcotte, the New Brunswicker who enjoyed a brilliant career in horse racing. Even today, his may be the New Brunswick name most widely recognized across North America. So why on earth was this story not picked up by the Times and Transcript - and as a general news story rather than just a sports one?
The other item was a major one about unilingual anglophones running for francophone health boards. It's not illegal. But it's hard to see how they could be of any possible use on boards that, reasonably enough, work in French.
I did not notice either of these stories in the TandT. And that may say something about the failure of the Times and Transcript to bring both communities together.
Chantal Hébert contributes an insightful column on the Quebec student strike. I could wish it went just a little deeper; his opinions seem intelligent, well-expressed, and without bias.
I was suprised to see an editorial review of the municipal election which did not include Moncton. The divide in this province must be very sharp and deep, indeed.
And the paper does have problems.
1. It has to serve a widely spread readership in a great many communities. That costs money. And a glance at the advertising suggests Acadienouvelle doesn't have a whole lot of money. This seems to be a paper that has good journalists - but doesn't have enough of them.
2. Perhaps related to 1, if the TandT shows too little interest in francophone New Brunswick, Acadienouvelle shows too little in anglophone New Brunswick. Both papers seem to operate as if the other group does not exist - except when some dispute arises. That can only deepen the divide.
3. International news is so brief and scattered as to be useless. There is no point in carrying it. Readers can get that sort of news far more quickly and fully from television or from CBC radio. (No. Not from private radio.)
A columnist on international affairs, someone to give them meaning, might be nice - but perhaps too expensive.
4. I was struck by how inward-looking Acadienouvelle is, how absorbed in narrowly 'cultural' matters without much attention to issues like environment, shale gas drilling, social questons.......
In general, it seems a paper with a quite respectable level of honesty and journalistic professionalism. It may need to refine its mission and, to some greater degree, help Acadians to see their lives in the context of their broader setting.
It also, I suspect, needs money.
The standard of journalism is clearly higher than that of The Moncton Times and Transcript. There is no obvious bias in the reporting or commentary. Opinions are, as always, open to disagreement - but they are intelligent opinions, and there is no rant.
Only one column caused me unease. It was presented as a news column, written by Martin Roy. But it was very much an opinion column. The column was good one. But it should have been clearly labelled.
I was surprised to see two news items that did NOT appear in the TandT. One was that the NFB was making a film about Ron Turcotte, the New Brunswicker who enjoyed a brilliant career in horse racing. Even today, his may be the New Brunswick name most widely recognized across North America. So why on earth was this story not picked up by the Times and Transcript - and as a general news story rather than just a sports one?
The other item was a major one about unilingual anglophones running for francophone health boards. It's not illegal. But it's hard to see how they could be of any possible use on boards that, reasonably enough, work in French.
I did not notice either of these stories in the TandT. And that may say something about the failure of the Times and Transcript to bring both communities together.
Chantal Hébert contributes an insightful column on the Quebec student strike. I could wish it went just a little deeper; his opinions seem intelligent, well-expressed, and without bias.
I was suprised to see an editorial review of the municipal election which did not include Moncton. The divide in this province must be very sharp and deep, indeed.
And the paper does have problems.
1. It has to serve a widely spread readership in a great many communities. That costs money. And a glance at the advertising suggests Acadienouvelle doesn't have a whole lot of money. This seems to be a paper that has good journalists - but doesn't have enough of them.
2. Perhaps related to 1, if the TandT shows too little interest in francophone New Brunswick, Acadienouvelle shows too little in anglophone New Brunswick. Both papers seem to operate as if the other group does not exist - except when some dispute arises. That can only deepen the divide.
3. International news is so brief and scattered as to be useless. There is no point in carrying it. Readers can get that sort of news far more quickly and fully from television or from CBC radio. (No. Not from private radio.)
A columnist on international affairs, someone to give them meaning, might be nice - but perhaps too expensive.
4. I was struck by how inward-looking Acadienouvelle is, how absorbed in narrowly 'cultural' matters without much attention to issues like environment, shale gas drilling, social questons.......
In general, it seems a paper with a quite respectable level of honesty and journalistic professionalism. It may need to refine its mission and, to some greater degree, help Acadians to see their lives in the context of their broader setting.
It also, I suspect, needs money.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
May 12:We'll start with a student column because...
....it's almost the only thing worth reading in today's Moncton Times and Transcript.
Jana Giles, a grade 8 student at Lewisville Middle School, writes on p. F7 that iti would be desirable for teachers to be assigned to teach the same subjects for years, rather than, as sometimes happens, to assign them frequent changes.
Yes, indeed. I remembered the time I was completing an MA in history (at Acadia), and I was offered a job by a high school principal. "Of course", he said, you wouldn't teach history. You've had enough of that. Perhaps math or geography."
I gently suggested that I knew nothing whatever about either subject. He assured me it would be fine. He believed - now, this really happened - he really believed that teacher should teach a subject he didn't know anything about. "Then", he said, "after a few years you'll get to know, so we'll switch you to something else you don't know - say, physics or chemistry."
I decided to stay a few more years in university. Then I went to UPEI to teach what I thought I knew - Canadian history. I soon realized from listening to myself teaching, there was a lot I didn't really understand at all. (Ever have those moments? When you're talking and you suddenly realize how dumb it sounds?) I spent forty years daily listening to my own dumbness - but every time it happened I learned and understood more about my subject.
In the same way, I learned how to teach. Oh, I had studied teaching ( which was and is rare for a university teacher). That teacher training was important to get me started. But my real learning came from ever day I taught. I still have a long way to go. I've come to realize the university history we're taught is close to useless - and I'd love to study ways to change it. (Alas! Univesities aren't much interested in teaching.)
So, you're right Jana. Teachers should be encouraged to specialize, especially from high school on. Then comes the tough part, getting the noses of outfits like Atlantic Institute of Market Studies out of the details of what they teach, and how they teach.
Ah! I loved teaching. Miss it terribly.
There's really not much else in the paper. Prince Charles and Camilla will get a walking tour of St. John. That should be well worth the million dollars it's costing us. Maybe they can even take a healthy, deep-breathing jog through the refinery district.
There's little else worth reading in the paper. Bill Belliveau has an interesting column on MHS and Highfield Square, the most original column I've seen on the subject. Norbert Cunningham promises an interesting, good news column for Monday. I look forward to it.
The editorial is both unintelligent and profoundly disturbing. It's on the Transpo dispute, and it looks on the bus drivers as a commodity - just like carrots or I pods or chewing gum. As people, they have no worth at all. There only worth is what they can get in the market. Some people have the leverage to get a lot. Some don't. Tough.
I would like to know how much Al Hogan gets - because I suspect there are lots of people more qualified than he is who would do it for less. I would also like to see an editorial on whether corporation executives and directors are worth the phenomenal raises they have received over the past 30 years.
Frankly, this habit of putting price tags on people, of making humans as disposable as plastic wrappers is beneath any system of ethics, morals and religion I know of. And this happens in a city so religious it supports a publicly funded, religious university that fines students for not attending chapel. What a pack of hypocrites!
And, sadly, I have to disagree with Gwynn Dyer when he says, terrorism is when somebody uses violence to achieve political ends and IS NOT OPERATING UNDER THE PROTECTION OF A SOVEREIGN STATE.
That is nonsense. Terrorism is the use of violence to achieve polical ends by spreading terror. No sovereign state has the right to authorize anybody to practice terror. Wearing a uniform and acting under the orders of a president while deliberately bombing civilians is terrorism.
We hanged Naziis for doing that. We signed agreements (yes, the US, too), that such behaviour would be illegal. But we still do it on a msassive scale - and only the losing side gets hanged.
(George Bush and some of his staff were recently found guiltyof war crimes by a court in Malaysia. It was a perfectly legal and even eminent court. Of course, they're guilty of war crimes. All of them, including Bush, have cancelled trips to, among other countries, Spain because they were warned of the dangers of arrest under international law. Bush might have been arrested in Canada - but the Harper government intervened to protect him. And Bush killed one hell of a lot more people than Omar Khadr did. (Maybe if we tortured him the way Khadr was tortured, we could also get Bush to confess.)
Finally, a side benefit to reading the foreign press. India has a severe literacy problem. (As does New Brunswick.) So -they produce very short videos of people singing - with subtitles in the same language so people hear and see words at the same time.
Result? In just 30 minutes of viewing per week, the rate of literacy is more than doubled to 56%. It's cheap. It's easily transportable. It requires minimal facilities - a great advantage in rural areas. Tell you what, Mr. Alward, why don't you check out what's happening in the foreign press?
Relying on The Moncton Times and Transcript can stunt your growth.
Jana Giles, a grade 8 student at Lewisville Middle School, writes on p. F7 that iti would be desirable for teachers to be assigned to teach the same subjects for years, rather than, as sometimes happens, to assign them frequent changes.
Yes, indeed. I remembered the time I was completing an MA in history (at Acadia), and I was offered a job by a high school principal. "Of course", he said, you wouldn't teach history. You've had enough of that. Perhaps math or geography."
I gently suggested that I knew nothing whatever about either subject. He assured me it would be fine. He believed - now, this really happened - he really believed that teacher should teach a subject he didn't know anything about. "Then", he said, "after a few years you'll get to know, so we'll switch you to something else you don't know - say, physics or chemistry."
I decided to stay a few more years in university. Then I went to UPEI to teach what I thought I knew - Canadian history. I soon realized from listening to myself teaching, there was a lot I didn't really understand at all. (Ever have those moments? When you're talking and you suddenly realize how dumb it sounds?) I spent forty years daily listening to my own dumbness - but every time it happened I learned and understood more about my subject.
In the same way, I learned how to teach. Oh, I had studied teaching ( which was and is rare for a university teacher). That teacher training was important to get me started. But my real learning came from ever day I taught. I still have a long way to go. I've come to realize the university history we're taught is close to useless - and I'd love to study ways to change it. (Alas! Univesities aren't much interested in teaching.)
So, you're right Jana. Teachers should be encouraged to specialize, especially from high school on. Then comes the tough part, getting the noses of outfits like Atlantic Institute of Market Studies out of the details of what they teach, and how they teach.
Ah! I loved teaching. Miss it terribly.
There's really not much else in the paper. Prince Charles and Camilla will get a walking tour of St. John. That should be well worth the million dollars it's costing us. Maybe they can even take a healthy, deep-breathing jog through the refinery district.
There's little else worth reading in the paper. Bill Belliveau has an interesting column on MHS and Highfield Square, the most original column I've seen on the subject. Norbert Cunningham promises an interesting, good news column for Monday. I look forward to it.
The editorial is both unintelligent and profoundly disturbing. It's on the Transpo dispute, and it looks on the bus drivers as a commodity - just like carrots or I pods or chewing gum. As people, they have no worth at all. There only worth is what they can get in the market. Some people have the leverage to get a lot. Some don't. Tough.
I would like to know how much Al Hogan gets - because I suspect there are lots of people more qualified than he is who would do it for less. I would also like to see an editorial on whether corporation executives and directors are worth the phenomenal raises they have received over the past 30 years.
Frankly, this habit of putting price tags on people, of making humans as disposable as plastic wrappers is beneath any system of ethics, morals and religion I know of. And this happens in a city so religious it supports a publicly funded, religious university that fines students for not attending chapel. What a pack of hypocrites!
And, sadly, I have to disagree with Gwynn Dyer when he says, terrorism is when somebody uses violence to achieve political ends and IS NOT OPERATING UNDER THE PROTECTION OF A SOVEREIGN STATE.
That is nonsense. Terrorism is the use of violence to achieve polical ends by spreading terror. No sovereign state has the right to authorize anybody to practice terror. Wearing a uniform and acting under the orders of a president while deliberately bombing civilians is terrorism.
We hanged Naziis for doing that. We signed agreements (yes, the US, too), that such behaviour would be illegal. But we still do it on a msassive scale - and only the losing side gets hanged.
(George Bush and some of his staff were recently found guiltyof war crimes by a court in Malaysia. It was a perfectly legal and even eminent court. Of course, they're guilty of war crimes. All of them, including Bush, have cancelled trips to, among other countries, Spain because they were warned of the dangers of arrest under international law. Bush might have been arrested in Canada - but the Harper government intervened to protect him. And Bush killed one hell of a lot more people than Omar Khadr did. (Maybe if we tortured him the way Khadr was tortured, we could also get Bush to confess.)
Finally, a side benefit to reading the foreign press. India has a severe literacy problem. (As does New Brunswick.) So -they produce very short videos of people singing - with subtitles in the same language so people hear and see words at the same time.
Result? In just 30 minutes of viewing per week, the rate of literacy is more than doubled to 56%. It's cheap. It's easily transportable. It requires minimal facilities - a great advantage in rural areas. Tell you what, Mr. Alward, why don't you check out what's happening in the foreign press?
Relying on The Moncton Times and Transcript can stunt your growth.
Friday, May 11, 2012
May 11:Clinic gives cosmetic surgery a facelift....
Wow! That's the headline for a SPECIAL REPORT on the f ront page of The Moncton Times and Transcript. Need your eyelid lifted, nose shortened, male breast reduction, tummy tuck? Get any one of the above at a new clinic in Moncton for only some $5000 each.
That's a front page special report.
It's really, of course, a free ad. But it's even worse than that.
The Irving papers seem to be designed to keep New Brunswickers in the dark, and to keep them interested only in trivial things. I think that's quite deliberate. It ensures that corporate bosses and their hack politicians can run the province without any nit-picking democracy in the way. The, land, the resources, the water, the people of New Brunswick can be used, stolen, polluted, bled dry all for the profit of a few - and then thrown away.
Meanwhile, keep 'em amused with rock concerts, hockey, 'events' centres.... Rub in the trivial with op ed commentaries by staff writers who keep us up on the latest developments on who is the world's greatest rock star, what fun it is to ride a motorcycle, or details of a recent family picnic. Just make sure that readers don't ever, not ever think.
We're passing through local elections with no serious examination of the main issues. Instead, we get editorials babbling about the need to keep taxes down, and make sure city councillors don't get the best seats at hockey games,
Keep 'em ignorant. Keep 'em trivial. It works at the provincial level, too. Don't discuss shale gas or mining. Don't ask about the obvious conflict of interest in a council of businessmen given official status by government to advise on taxes, Not economists. Not union leaders. Not professionals. And, God forbid, not anybody who's poor.
Page C3 has a typical TandT story about groups that would like to end the federal grants that help out provinces like New Brunswick to maintain services. The groups are are referred to as think-tanks and not-for-profit organizations. (That's a code for propaganda groups bankrolled by big business).
And who does the Tand T go to for a reaction to these proposals? As always, they go to Professor Don Savoie of Universite de Moncton who, to nobody's surprise, surely, has a history of agreeing with advice coming from think-tanks that are propaganda fronts for big business.
Oh - a reason given for cutting down on transfer payments is that it encourages the provinces receiving the payments to keep taxes 'artificially' high. Damn right. It's a sin the way this province overtaxes corporations and the wealthy.
There's little reason to buy this paper even for local news, For that, you can do better with La Presse Libre de Moncton Free Press. It's on the web. (and, yes, I write for it.)
For foreign news - lots of good sources available free on the web. You can also get them for e-reader, usually at a price close to that for the TandT.
The New York Times and The Toronto Globe and Mail? No. Both have some excellent people. The New York times also has an astonishing range and depth of features like a book review section, commentaries. But both also show an uncomfortable number of blind spots and, in the case of the Globe, biases. The National Post has recently been improving somewhat. But it's still heavily biased and unreliable.
Probably the best English language source in the world for foreign news is The Guardian, from Britain. If you want a little more edge, try another British paper, The Independent.
Al Jazeera, despite its critics, has always been one of the better news sources in the world. Lately, it's not been quite as good because its ownership has been blanding it so it can make some money in the American market. (You cannot telll the truth and make money in the US news market).
Haaretz (Israel) is, with Al Jazeera, the best news source on the Middle East.
In French, the best are Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Liberation. There is some variation in them, from left to right, but all three all well done, professonal papers.
Then there's a curious web page that's made up of samples of commentary and news from sources around the world. It's called International Clearing House. It's very edgy, indeed, very critical of American foreign policy, often quite strident - even to an annoying degree.
But I have never found it to lie, misrepresent, or trivialize like the ....well..... you know.....
That's a front page special report.
It's really, of course, a free ad. But it's even worse than that.
The Irving papers seem to be designed to keep New Brunswickers in the dark, and to keep them interested only in trivial things. I think that's quite deliberate. It ensures that corporate bosses and their hack politicians can run the province without any nit-picking democracy in the way. The, land, the resources, the water, the people of New Brunswick can be used, stolen, polluted, bled dry all for the profit of a few - and then thrown away.
Meanwhile, keep 'em amused with rock concerts, hockey, 'events' centres.... Rub in the trivial with op ed commentaries by staff writers who keep us up on the latest developments on who is the world's greatest rock star, what fun it is to ride a motorcycle, or details of a recent family picnic. Just make sure that readers don't ever, not ever think.
We're passing through local elections with no serious examination of the main issues. Instead, we get editorials babbling about the need to keep taxes down, and make sure city councillors don't get the best seats at hockey games,
Keep 'em ignorant. Keep 'em trivial. It works at the provincial level, too. Don't discuss shale gas or mining. Don't ask about the obvious conflict of interest in a council of businessmen given official status by government to advise on taxes, Not economists. Not union leaders. Not professionals. And, God forbid, not anybody who's poor.
Page C3 has a typical TandT story about groups that would like to end the federal grants that help out provinces like New Brunswick to maintain services. The groups are are referred to as think-tanks and not-for-profit organizations. (That's a code for propaganda groups bankrolled by big business).
And who does the Tand T go to for a reaction to these proposals? As always, they go to Professor Don Savoie of Universite de Moncton who, to nobody's surprise, surely, has a history of agreeing with advice coming from think-tanks that are propaganda fronts for big business.
Oh - a reason given for cutting down on transfer payments is that it encourages the provinces receiving the payments to keep taxes 'artificially' high. Damn right. It's a sin the way this province overtaxes corporations and the wealthy.
There's little reason to buy this paper even for local news, For that, you can do better with La Presse Libre de Moncton Free Press. It's on the web. (and, yes, I write for it.)
For foreign news - lots of good sources available free on the web. You can also get them for e-reader, usually at a price close to that for the TandT.
The New York Times and The Toronto Globe and Mail? No. Both have some excellent people. The New York times also has an astonishing range and depth of features like a book review section, commentaries. But both also show an uncomfortable number of blind spots and, in the case of the Globe, biases. The National Post has recently been improving somewhat. But it's still heavily biased and unreliable.
Probably the best English language source in the world for foreign news is The Guardian, from Britain. If you want a little more edge, try another British paper, The Independent.
Al Jazeera, despite its critics, has always been one of the better news sources in the world. Lately, it's not been quite as good because its ownership has been blanding it so it can make some money in the American market. (You cannot telll the truth and make money in the US news market).
Haaretz (Israel) is, with Al Jazeera, the best news source on the Middle East.
In French, the best are Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Liberation. There is some variation in them, from left to right, but all three all well done, professonal papers.
Then there's a curious web page that's made up of samples of commentary and news from sources around the world. It's called International Clearing House. It's very edgy, indeed, very critical of American foreign policy, often quite strident - even to an annoying degree.
But I have never found it to lie, misrepresent, or trivialize like the ....well..... you know.....
Thursday, May 10, 2012
May 10: Sackville hopefuls seek a better community
I"m so glad to hear that news about the Sackville candidates. I had been worried they would say they were all trying to make Sackville a worse community.
That's the general level of coverage for the municipal elections - saying lots of nothing. What gets coverage is taxes, bicycle lanes, garbage removal,... The only other issue we get coverage of is the importance of spending money to attract concert goers and to spend a hundred million on an arena.
(By the way, anyone who has not thought about the risks of spending huge sums of public money on commercial/sports/tourism projects should google The Guardian, Athens Olympics, May 10. It's a story about how Athens punched above its weight to squander billions on Olympic facilities less than a decade ago - and how facilities are now filthy, dilapidated, collapsing, unusable ...with Greece not able to afford even sweeping the floors..These products of crooked contracting involving private business and friends in government, these expensive piles of garbage have not - and will not ever - pay for thsemselves. On the contraary, today's Greeks and the next generation, too, will be paying for them the rest of their lives. Or you can stay closer to home and look up the record of Monctreal's Olympic stadium.)
In its elections coverage, the Moncton Times and Trnascript has ignored all the major issues that we should be discussing.
For example, the pattern for Moncton housing was developed over a century ago - and it was a pattern well suited to a small town with all parts easily reached on foot. The housing was largely the rural housing of the period - that is, separate family homes. It was a pattern that took up a lot of land space per family.
Larger cities went through another stage. Distance became a far more important issue, so houses were built in solid blocks - no space on each side, no backyards, no front yards. Even with that space saving, Main St. was much too far for a walk The tramway, first horse-drawn, but then electric, helped. But it was too expensive for regular use by most people.
What developed, then, were commercial areas in each district, always at major intersections served by the tranway.There one would would find grocerty stores, movie theatres, restaurants, shops...
That changed in the boom after World War Two; and what changed it was the huge growth of car ownership. But the car really didn't fit in those crowded districts. Thus the spread of shopping malls, the deaths of main streets and of neighbourhood shopping- and the tremendous increase of suburbs and urban sprawl with the suburbs designed as echoes of the small town of the 1880s in their low density housing with lots of green space.
But that depended on cheap gas - and on a lack of undestanding of what the gasoline engine was doing to our environment. Like it or not, the postwar world of the private car, of urban sprawl, of huge areas of detached homes is just about over. So what's the new plan? What will people live in? How will they move around? The newspaper and most of the candidates seem to have given this no thought at all.
Hint - building a hockey arena will not solve the problem.
Good columns, as always, by Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire.
Editorials? The first one is just childish. The second one is a shallow look at the Quebec student strike. It's major point is that Quebec students should not be asked for lower fees when they are already the lowest in Canada.
Then, one presumes, the editorialist pointed a finger at de Adder and said, "heel." And de Adder did with his not-very-imaginative cartoon..
I wonder - When executives, already getting the highest salaries in Canada, demand more, plus lavish bonuses even after a bad year, does the TandT print eidtorials saying they already have too much compared to the rest of us? Do you think it ever would say such a thing?
The student strike raises serious issues about education and the role of universities in todauy's world. The Time and Transcript doesn't mention them. In fact, I would be willing to bet that nobody at the paper has the faintest idea what those issues are. (Nor, incidentally, do the politicians - or most of the administrators who run the universities.)
I had meant to add some suggestions on where to look on the web for free amd informative newspapers on foreign affairs. Google offers a list of the top 100 news sources in the world. But it's not a list I would take seriously. There are, however, a half dozen or so, in either French or English, that are worth taking seriously, and that are freely available on the web (and also at cheap subscription rates for e readers.) I may cover this topic tomorrow.
That's the general level of coverage for the municipal elections - saying lots of nothing. What gets coverage is taxes, bicycle lanes, garbage removal,... The only other issue we get coverage of is the importance of spending money to attract concert goers and to spend a hundred million on an arena.
(By the way, anyone who has not thought about the risks of spending huge sums of public money on commercial/sports/tourism projects should google The Guardian, Athens Olympics, May 10. It's a story about how Athens punched above its weight to squander billions on Olympic facilities less than a decade ago - and how facilities are now filthy, dilapidated, collapsing, unusable ...with Greece not able to afford even sweeping the floors..These products of crooked contracting involving private business and friends in government, these expensive piles of garbage have not - and will not ever - pay for thsemselves. On the contraary, today's Greeks and the next generation, too, will be paying for them the rest of their lives. Or you can stay closer to home and look up the record of Monctreal's Olympic stadium.)
In its elections coverage, the Moncton Times and Trnascript has ignored all the major issues that we should be discussing.
For example, the pattern for Moncton housing was developed over a century ago - and it was a pattern well suited to a small town with all parts easily reached on foot. The housing was largely the rural housing of the period - that is, separate family homes. It was a pattern that took up a lot of land space per family.
Larger cities went through another stage. Distance became a far more important issue, so houses were built in solid blocks - no space on each side, no backyards, no front yards. Even with that space saving, Main St. was much too far for a walk The tramway, first horse-drawn, but then electric, helped. But it was too expensive for regular use by most people.
What developed, then, were commercial areas in each district, always at major intersections served by the tranway.There one would would find grocerty stores, movie theatres, restaurants, shops...
That changed in the boom after World War Two; and what changed it was the huge growth of car ownership. But the car really didn't fit in those crowded districts. Thus the spread of shopping malls, the deaths of main streets and of neighbourhood shopping- and the tremendous increase of suburbs and urban sprawl with the suburbs designed as echoes of the small town of the 1880s in their low density housing with lots of green space.
But that depended on cheap gas - and on a lack of undestanding of what the gasoline engine was doing to our environment. Like it or not, the postwar world of the private car, of urban sprawl, of huge areas of detached homes is just about over. So what's the new plan? What will people live in? How will they move around? The newspaper and most of the candidates seem to have given this no thought at all.
Hint - building a hockey arena will not solve the problem.
Good columns, as always, by Alec Bruce and Jody Dallaire.
Editorials? The first one is just childish. The second one is a shallow look at the Quebec student strike. It's major point is that Quebec students should not be asked for lower fees when they are already the lowest in Canada.
Then, one presumes, the editorialist pointed a finger at de Adder and said, "heel." And de Adder did with his not-very-imaginative cartoon..
I wonder - When executives, already getting the highest salaries in Canada, demand more, plus lavish bonuses even after a bad year, does the TandT print eidtorials saying they already have too much compared to the rest of us? Do you think it ever would say such a thing?
The student strike raises serious issues about education and the role of universities in todauy's world. The Time and Transcript doesn't mention them. In fact, I would be willing to bet that nobody at the paper has the faintest idea what those issues are. (Nor, incidentally, do the politicians - or most of the administrators who run the universities.)
I had meant to add some suggestions on where to look on the web for free amd informative newspapers on foreign affairs. Google offers a list of the top 100 news sources in the world. But it's not a list I would take seriously. There are, however, a half dozen or so, in either French or English, that are worth taking seriously, and that are freely available on the web (and also at cheap subscription rates for e readers.) I may cover this topic tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
May 9:The wisdom of the Times and Transcript
Today, there was a major, New Burnswick story that the Moncton Times and Transcript did not report on. I'm glad. It was embarassiing to be a resident of a province with a politician that could make such bizarre statements.....
This was the official government defence of its choice of Rotyal Oaks for a new high school.
1. It was a nice piece of flat land, suitable for building a school. Wow! Imagine that. A piece of flat land in Moncton. That's so much better than all those other schools in Moncton that are clinging to cliffs so sheer than children have to climb ropes to get to class.
2. It was a suitable place for buses to drive up and to embark or disembark students. There's something else you don't see every day in Moncton. Ii don't know how many times I've seen the anxious faces at the windows of city buses, desperately searching for a place the bus can stop to let them out.
3. The Royal Oaks district provides a natural environment. Well, yeah, I'll bet there's lots of books on education that can't stress enough the importance of a school being in a natural environment. It gives students something to look out the window at. I've always regerted my days of going to a school in a downtown area all cluttered with art galleries,museums, people....
4. Royal Oaks is an area of potential growth. Oh......... that IS news. I thought the big area of potential growth was Main Street which will soon be vibrant and exciting, drawing both residential and commerical construction. Royal Oaks may become many things - but vibrant, bustling and exciting will not be three of them. Nor will its 1950s concept do much to encourage density of population.
What an insultingly absurd set of statements! I'm grateful to The Times and Transcript for helping to keep this simple-minded statement a secret.
Yes, I know Moncton High has a widespread area to cover. Has it occured to the government that the days of school bussing may soon be over? That it will become ruinously expensive? And I don't mean in twenty years. Has the minister of education given that little problem any thought? (yes, yes, I know. science will find a solution before that happens. Of course. But what it science doesn't find it in time?)
In his editorial cartoon, de Adder proves once more his ability to produce work that is (to put it kindly) inapproriate, divisive, and so untrue and irrelevant that one has to wonder whether he is really as insulting as he appears to be - or just someone in need of growinig up.
(The cartoon hints that establishing a cancer clinic at the Dumont Hospital will mean that only French-speaking people will be allowed to get treatment. This is not only untrue, but a grautitous insult to French-speaking medical people. It puts this blogger in a difficult position. If I say he did this knowing what he was doing, then he is a bigot. If he didn't know, then he is stunningly ignorant. I leave that decision to the reader.)
This is not only a distasteful cartoon, but a dangerous one. An editor is supposed to have enough brains to realize that, and to cancel it.
I lived through the years of intense and often violent language bigotry in Quebec, and lived too close to the centre of it for comfort. As one of the leaders of the English rights group, I remember meetings that had to be held in secret for fear of violence from mobs - and of warnings from the police to move because violence was on the way. I remember a strutting murderer being invited to French schools to be applauded for his role in the death of un cochon anglais. I remember the English communities I knew - communities of families, of institutions, of traditions. I remember their deliberate destruction by language bigots.
Now, I live in a New Brunswick where, I had thought, there was no such feeling. But there is. This time, though, most (not all, but most) of the bigotry is on the English side. And the bigotry is encouraged by the English press in New Brunswick, just as it was encouraged by the French press in Quebec. And there's another point at which Quebec and New Brunswick have something in common. The people in both provinces have a history of being bullied.
In Quebec, the Catholic church dominated the lives of French Quebeckers to a degree almost unbelievable today. The church was rich, intrusive, abusive, frightening, bullying. No bills passed the legislature without the approval of the church. It also had absolute control over education, a power it used to give educational privileges to the rich while crippling the poor for the rest of their lives. This hopelessly inferior schooling abused orphans with residential schools that left scars for life (and, no, I do not mean just sexual abuse). It abused the mentally ill. It is no accident that the rise of Quebec nationalism occured at the same time as the collapse of the church.
New Brunswickers have been equally bullied by the economic leaders of this province. They controlled governments in New Brunswick even more than the Catholic church did in Quebec - and that control has been as old as the province, itself. They have also controlled access to jobs, to information, to political power. They have done so with no regard for the needs of the people or their futures - and no interest in anything except in making themselves rich.
Historically, New Brunswickers and Quebeckers are the products of bullying - and of fear.
Many people who live that exprerience become bullies themselves. Too frightened to take on the big bullies, they look for somebody smaller to bully. Many readers, I'm sure, have gone through this experience. (I'll start by admitting that I have.) Within a society, the smaller person to bully, to take out your anger and frustration on, is the member of a minority group.
Bullying becomes a way of escapting the shame we feel for allowing the bigger kids, a church, a corprorate boss to bully us. Our bullying gives us a chance to look brave and tough, to escape the humiliation of being what we really are.
The fear of speaking out in New Brunswick is so thick you can feel it. And that fear is what, in some people, produces the bullying we see in de Adder and in the Times and Transcript in general. That's why we get the bigotry in an editorial cartoon,, we get the ridicule of those in poverty in another cartoon, the rants against schools and teachers. And the kissing up to the big bullies.
There are some very big bullies out there. Shale gas drillers are here to suck the last bits of blood out of this province. As fuel stocks dwindle, the investors have switched to methods that are increasingly dangerous and destructive - as in deep sea drilling, shale gas.... Thery're going to take it - and they don't give a damn what it's going to do to you.
Reaction -fight the arrogant bastards? Goodness, no. let's get tougher on welfare. Let's cut school budgets. Bus drivers are on strike for more pay? Give 'em hell. They aren't worth it. Save that money wo we can give another tax cut to a billionaire. Let's fight an arrogance (that doesn't exist) in a French hospital.
Hiding behind every bigot face is a coward and a second-hand bully. (and yes, there are some on the French side, too). How do we get rid of the damage they do?
Well, a good start might be for most of the news media in this province to get some balls. (and brains.)
This was the official government defence of its choice of Rotyal Oaks for a new high school.
1. It was a nice piece of flat land, suitable for building a school. Wow! Imagine that. A piece of flat land in Moncton. That's so much better than all those other schools in Moncton that are clinging to cliffs so sheer than children have to climb ropes to get to class.
2. It was a suitable place for buses to drive up and to embark or disembark students. There's something else you don't see every day in Moncton. Ii don't know how many times I've seen the anxious faces at the windows of city buses, desperately searching for a place the bus can stop to let them out.
3. The Royal Oaks district provides a natural environment. Well, yeah, I'll bet there's lots of books on education that can't stress enough the importance of a school being in a natural environment. It gives students something to look out the window at. I've always regerted my days of going to a school in a downtown area all cluttered with art galleries,museums, people....
4. Royal Oaks is an area of potential growth. Oh......... that IS news. I thought the big area of potential growth was Main Street which will soon be vibrant and exciting, drawing both residential and commerical construction. Royal Oaks may become many things - but vibrant, bustling and exciting will not be three of them. Nor will its 1950s concept do much to encourage density of population.
What an insultingly absurd set of statements! I'm grateful to The Times and Transcript for helping to keep this simple-minded statement a secret.
Yes, I know Moncton High has a widespread area to cover. Has it occured to the government that the days of school bussing may soon be over? That it will become ruinously expensive? And I don't mean in twenty years. Has the minister of education given that little problem any thought? (yes, yes, I know. science will find a solution before that happens. Of course. But what it science doesn't find it in time?)
In his editorial cartoon, de Adder proves once more his ability to produce work that is (to put it kindly) inapproriate, divisive, and so untrue and irrelevant that one has to wonder whether he is really as insulting as he appears to be - or just someone in need of growinig up.
(The cartoon hints that establishing a cancer clinic at the Dumont Hospital will mean that only French-speaking people will be allowed to get treatment. This is not only untrue, but a grautitous insult to French-speaking medical people. It puts this blogger in a difficult position. If I say he did this knowing what he was doing, then he is a bigot. If he didn't know, then he is stunningly ignorant. I leave that decision to the reader.)
This is not only a distasteful cartoon, but a dangerous one. An editor is supposed to have enough brains to realize that, and to cancel it.
I lived through the years of intense and often violent language bigotry in Quebec, and lived too close to the centre of it for comfort. As one of the leaders of the English rights group, I remember meetings that had to be held in secret for fear of violence from mobs - and of warnings from the police to move because violence was on the way. I remember a strutting murderer being invited to French schools to be applauded for his role in the death of un cochon anglais. I remember the English communities I knew - communities of families, of institutions, of traditions. I remember their deliberate destruction by language bigots.
Now, I live in a New Brunswick where, I had thought, there was no such feeling. But there is. This time, though, most (not all, but most) of the bigotry is on the English side. And the bigotry is encouraged by the English press in New Brunswick, just as it was encouraged by the French press in Quebec. And there's another point at which Quebec and New Brunswick have something in common. The people in both provinces have a history of being bullied.
In Quebec, the Catholic church dominated the lives of French Quebeckers to a degree almost unbelievable today. The church was rich, intrusive, abusive, frightening, bullying. No bills passed the legislature without the approval of the church. It also had absolute control over education, a power it used to give educational privileges to the rich while crippling the poor for the rest of their lives. This hopelessly inferior schooling abused orphans with residential schools that left scars for life (and, no, I do not mean just sexual abuse). It abused the mentally ill. It is no accident that the rise of Quebec nationalism occured at the same time as the collapse of the church.
New Brunswickers have been equally bullied by the economic leaders of this province. They controlled governments in New Brunswick even more than the Catholic church did in Quebec - and that control has been as old as the province, itself. They have also controlled access to jobs, to information, to political power. They have done so with no regard for the needs of the people or their futures - and no interest in anything except in making themselves rich.
Historically, New Brunswickers and Quebeckers are the products of bullying - and of fear.
Many people who live that exprerience become bullies themselves. Too frightened to take on the big bullies, they look for somebody smaller to bully. Many readers, I'm sure, have gone through this experience. (I'll start by admitting that I have.) Within a society, the smaller person to bully, to take out your anger and frustration on, is the member of a minority group.
Bullying becomes a way of escapting the shame we feel for allowing the bigger kids, a church, a corprorate boss to bully us. Our bullying gives us a chance to look brave and tough, to escape the humiliation of being what we really are.
The fear of speaking out in New Brunswick is so thick you can feel it. And that fear is what, in some people, produces the bullying we see in de Adder and in the Times and Transcript in general. That's why we get the bigotry in an editorial cartoon,, we get the ridicule of those in poverty in another cartoon, the rants against schools and teachers. And the kissing up to the big bullies.
There are some very big bullies out there. Shale gas drillers are here to suck the last bits of blood out of this province. As fuel stocks dwindle, the investors have switched to methods that are increasingly dangerous and destructive - as in deep sea drilling, shale gas.... Thery're going to take it - and they don't give a damn what it's going to do to you.
Reaction -fight the arrogant bastards? Goodness, no. let's get tougher on welfare. Let's cut school budgets. Bus drivers are on strike for more pay? Give 'em hell. They aren't worth it. Save that money wo we can give another tax cut to a billionaire. Let's fight an arrogance (that doesn't exist) in a French hospital.
Hiding behind every bigot face is a coward and a second-hand bully. (and yes, there are some on the French side, too). How do we get rid of the damage they do?
Well, a good start might be for most of the news media in this province to get some balls. (and brains.)
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
May6: Civic elections? what civic elections?
In fairness, the Moncton Times and Transcript has three stories on city politics. One is on the last meeting before the election for the Moncton council. One is about the last meeting before the election for the Deippe Council. One is about a defamatory flyer sent to Dieppe voters by mail - a flier that everybody denies sending.
There is nothing about issues in these elections. Not a word. Earlier, there were brief statements from most of the candidates - but few of them had much to say. How can voters possibly make intelligent decisions when most of them have no idea what the issues are or what the arguments for and against are?
A newspaper is supposed to supply us with that information so we can make informed decisions. But all this newspaper has done is to try to pump up excitement for a so-called events centre. And, even of that, it has not reported a word of argument against it. That's not journalism. That's propaganda.
As well, the whole first section is organized (by the editor) as a confusing shambles. For example, beclow the story on the last meeting of Riverview counil (which tells us nothing because there was nothing to tell in the first place) is a story in which we suddenly find ourselves in Vienna with the European Union discussing Syria.
In a way, these are stories that go together since neither tells us anything. But when a newspaper groups its stories, it really should put together two stories that say nothing - about the same subject. In fairness, they did carry a story about Moncton council that said nothing, and it's just above the one about Riverview council that said nothing. So that's at least a step in the right direction.
Page 8 has the only other big story in section A. It features a picture of Premier Alward with Crandall University officials. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award. You can guess what Alward is saying because everybody is smiling, and the university president looks as though he's about to clap hands. That tells us that what Alward is saying is that he'll be happy to sign a document assuring Crandall he is not gay. (If you check his body language, though, especially his hands, it raises doubts about that.)
Two stories in NewsToday deserve a close read.
1. Appeals board fails veterans.
Canadian and American governments have been slow to meet the needs of veterans. (After all, we don't them any more. So let's move on so we can cut taxes.) The dead are easily enough disposed of with a coffin, a flag, and an annual Nov. 11 speech in which politicians say how grateful they are.
But the lasting wounds, both physical and mental, cost money. And that's money we can better spend by cuttinig taxes for the rich, and giving out overpriced contracts for jet fighters.
2. N.B profs want say in spending.
This is bigger than it looks. Universities are coming to be dominated by the businessmen who sit on their boards. It is bad enough that they are reorganizing universites to be service centres to add to corporate profits. But they are also spreading corporation methods to university administrators.
About ten years ago, I was asked to accept a nomination to be president of a university. (The request came from businessmen on the board, but it was delivered through one of their teams of lawyers.) When I expressed doubts, they laid out the terms. I was astonished.
Not only was the pay very high, but it would continue for the rest of my career, and would greatly ncrease my pension. My mortgage would become interest-free. If I did a really bad job, and they had to fire me, I would not only keep my huge salary but would also get a magnificent bonus. And there was more.
I turned it down. (Damn fool!)
This sort of thing has businessified university administrations, creating a whole new class of professional administrators who generally know nothing about education, but who enjoy the company and benefits of their new social circle, the corporation presidents.
Now to the editorial and oped pages.
The editorial, to be fair, does discuss what it sees as a mnicipal election issue - tax relief. It would be more convincing if this were not the same editorial columnist who wants us to borrow a hundred million to buy a hockey rink for a rich man.
Skip Norbert's column. It's on universities; and he knows nothing whatever about them. Even his citation in 'The Last Word' shows an ignorance that surprises me coming as it does from G.K.Chesterton.
Norbert constantly talks about education being in the nineteenth century (which is certainly true of the universities.) The trouble is that his own ideas belong to the eighteenth century.
Alan Cochrane (staff writer) writes a hard-nosed, well-researched, investigative story on a crucial issue of our time - playing paintball.
Louise Gilbert writes a more useful one in her 'seniority rules' column.
Generally, though, this issue is a prime example of The Moncton Times and Tribune doing what it is designed to do - keep people in the dark.
There is nothing about issues in these elections. Not a word. Earlier, there were brief statements from most of the candidates - but few of them had much to say. How can voters possibly make intelligent decisions when most of them have no idea what the issues are or what the arguments for and against are?
A newspaper is supposed to supply us with that information so we can make informed decisions. But all this newspaper has done is to try to pump up excitement for a so-called events centre. And, even of that, it has not reported a word of argument against it. That's not journalism. That's propaganda.
As well, the whole first section is organized (by the editor) as a confusing shambles. For example, beclow the story on the last meeting of Riverview counil (which tells us nothing because there was nothing to tell in the first place) is a story in which we suddenly find ourselves in Vienna with the European Union discussing Syria.
In a way, these are stories that go together since neither tells us anything. But when a newspaper groups its stories, it really should put together two stories that say nothing - about the same subject. In fairness, they did carry a story about Moncton council that said nothing, and it's just above the one about Riverview council that said nothing. So that's at least a step in the right direction.
Page 8 has the only other big story in section A. It features a picture of Premier Alward with Crandall University officials. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award. You can guess what Alward is saying because everybody is smiling, and the university president looks as though he's about to clap hands. That tells us that what Alward is saying is that he'll be happy to sign a document assuring Crandall he is not gay. (If you check his body language, though, especially his hands, it raises doubts about that.)
Two stories in NewsToday deserve a close read.
1. Appeals board fails veterans.
Canadian and American governments have been slow to meet the needs of veterans. (After all, we don't them any more. So let's move on so we can cut taxes.) The dead are easily enough disposed of with a coffin, a flag, and an annual Nov. 11 speech in which politicians say how grateful they are.
But the lasting wounds, both physical and mental, cost money. And that's money we can better spend by cuttinig taxes for the rich, and giving out overpriced contracts for jet fighters.
2. N.B profs want say in spending.
This is bigger than it looks. Universities are coming to be dominated by the businessmen who sit on their boards. It is bad enough that they are reorganizing universites to be service centres to add to corporate profits. But they are also spreading corporation methods to university administrators.
About ten years ago, I was asked to accept a nomination to be president of a university. (The request came from businessmen on the board, but it was delivered through one of their teams of lawyers.) When I expressed doubts, they laid out the terms. I was astonished.
Not only was the pay very high, but it would continue for the rest of my career, and would greatly ncrease my pension. My mortgage would become interest-free. If I did a really bad job, and they had to fire me, I would not only keep my huge salary but would also get a magnificent bonus. And there was more.
I turned it down. (Damn fool!)
This sort of thing has businessified university administrations, creating a whole new class of professional administrators who generally know nothing about education, but who enjoy the company and benefits of their new social circle, the corporation presidents.
Now to the editorial and oped pages.
The editorial, to be fair, does discuss what it sees as a mnicipal election issue - tax relief. It would be more convincing if this were not the same editorial columnist who wants us to borrow a hundred million to buy a hockey rink for a rich man.
Skip Norbert's column. It's on universities; and he knows nothing whatever about them. Even his citation in 'The Last Word' shows an ignorance that surprises me coming as it does from G.K.Chesterton.
Norbert constantly talks about education being in the nineteenth century (which is certainly true of the universities.) The trouble is that his own ideas belong to the eighteenth century.
Alan Cochrane (staff writer) writes a hard-nosed, well-researched, investigative story on a crucial issue of our time - playing paintball.
Louise Gilbert writes a more useful one in her 'seniority rules' column.
Generally, though, this issue is a prime example of The Moncton Times and Tribune doing what it is designed to do - keep people in the dark.
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