Jan. 19: volunteerism

A striking thing about New Brunswick is the frequency of photos in the press of smiling people (volunteers) holding cheques, sometimes giant ones, to hand to smiling recipients. These photos aren't only frequent; they're often a full page or more in just one edition of an Irving paper.

I  haven't seen that anywhere else in the world except in university alumni magazines and self-promoting company publications. There might be occasional such photos in other papers, but with nothing like the frequency of the Irving press.

Then there's the occasional story about some billionaire playing good king Wenceslas to make a donation to some worthy cause.. That will have every brown-noser at Irving press learning how to spell philanthropist, and naming him to fictitious halls of fame.

What the hell, it's good publicity; and it's cheaper than paying taxes or decent salaries.

Now, I have nothing against volunteerism. I grew up with it. My father was scoutmaster and Sunday School superintendent at out our little, neighbourhood church. Years later, I would meet men a dozen or so years older than me who would tell me how he changed their lives for the better.

In my own time, I volunteered for  youth groups, convicts. (We got along well,though I knew so little about that field, I can't imagine I was any help to them.) For at least twenty years, at the height of the Quebec separatist movement, I was on the provincial executive of the English rights group, ending with two years as its chairman. It was enormously difficult, time-consuming and, sometimes, dangerous. I knew from the start it was a losing cause. But the try had to be made.

I have lots of respect for volunteers who collect turkeys and used toys for Christmas, money for schools. What bothers me is the intense celebration of so much volunteerism as if it were a sign of a healthy and caring community.

It's no such thing. If this were a healthy and caring community, there would be no need for so much volunteerism. Giving a turkey and some toys to a needy family is all very well -even if only for one day - but why do we have so many families that need that help?

You're collecting money for supplies for a public school? Good for you. But why doesn't a healthy and caring community supply its schools properly in the first place?

Does the volunteerism do good? It does some good. It also does some bad.

One of my strongest memories of childhood was rotting teeth, and excruciating toothaches as I tried to sleep at night. That was common in my district where few could afford a dentist. The school nurse gave me a note for my parents. A group had created a dental fund for kids like me. I could see a dentist - and it would pay. I never showed that note to my parents. I never saw that dentist. This was charity.

I knew that my parents would be humiliated at the suggestion I had been singled out for charity.

Volunteerism is good and it's admirable. But it is not necessarily a sign of a caring society. It may equally be a sign of a society that doesn't give a damn, that allows its poor to be abused and exploited.

There are those  (many of them in the profession of journalism) who will say that the poor should not feel entitled, that their poverty is their own fault and their own laziness. Right.

The US is well into a period of mass poverty. Is that because they all suddenly got lazy? Was it the poor who destroyed the banking system? Was it the poor who cut taxes of the very rich to zero. In Canada, was it the poor who created the scandalous income gap we have with the very rich taking home millions while other people, working almost as hard as billionaires, try to live on minimum wage?

Are the people of Haiti lazy? Or does earning only two dollars a day have something to do with their poverty?

The problem is that so much of the wealth produced by our labour and our resources is going into the pockets of a very few. Now, that's what I call being entitled.

Reliance on volunteers does not indicate a caring society. Quite the opposite. So why does the Irving press make such a big deal out of it?

This is just a guess. But let's try it.

Those pictures of smiling faces and cheques reinforce the idea that this is a healthy, caring society. It takes attention away from the extent and causes of poverty to concentrate on the things that really aren't doing much to alleviate it. It reinforces the idea that poverty is the fault of the poor; and it adds to the burden of humiliation.

Those pages of photos are propaganda, brain-washing. If this were the healthy and caring society they portray, we wouldn't have nearly so many voluntary causes.

Jan. 18: Sit back, Cole Hobson.....

...and see how a real spin doctor does it.

Today, Brent Mazerolle takes over on the  Moncton "economic summit"   (my, what a grand term), and shows what a real master of spin and propaganda can do. The "news" story begins on page one, and fills a full page of journalism so dishonest and manipulative that it would make a real journalist feel ill.

We begin with the term "economic summit", rather a grand one for a self-selected group of people who have no right to decide our economy in the first place.

"Actually", says Mazerolle, " it is personal, and it isn't just business."

"It's how we feed and shelter our families....how we give our children the hope and promise of a future."

Barf !

Yessirree, that's  why the better sort of people, the socially prominent, are going to decide how we should live. I mean, us common slobs are too stupid to know what we need and what's good for our children.

I mean - there's delegates there who run business, one who owns a hockey team, some who collect old clothes for the poor - who would know better than us what we need and how to get it. We peasants wait, humbly, but secure in the arms of our social betters.

There's also another "news story" by Mazerolle, this one about a similar "summit" organized 25 years ago by the blessed Frank McKenna. Mazerolle credits that one with the supercharged word "miracle". It certainly was a miracle for Frank Mckenna, making him a multi-milionaire and a buddy of a great social leader concerned only with the welfare of  his people - George Bush Jr.

This is truly disgusting - not just Mazerolle's slobbering propaganda disguised as news, but the contempt this shows for democracy.

In a democracy, decisions like this are not made by the social and financial elite. (an elite which has no capacity to make such decisions, anyway.) In a democracy, we are governed only by people  whom we elect. And they answer to us for what they do.

Of course, a democracy also has an honest press so we have some idea of realities.

By the way, what qualifies Robert Irving to sit on such a committee, and to chair it? And does he still have those qualifications even when he isn't wearing his pockets?

I wasn't able to find out what journalism school Mazerolle attended. Maybe the school pays to keep it a secret.
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NewsToday has the story that the pope has defrocked 400 priests for sexual abuse. He has also taken clear and strong positions on the behaviour of world leaders - on all sides.  On the TandT Faith Page, First North River church is having a pancake and beans dinner. The sermonette on that page is about aging.

Somehow, it seems to me that if Jesus were to visit, he'd skip the pancake and beans dinner, and have a long talk with the Pope. He might, for example, want to talk about a society in which business leaders believe (and I am not making this up) that greed and covetousness are good. (You don't think so? Read Ayn Rand, the gospeller of big business.) Or He might want to talk about a country that thinks it has the right to invade anybody and to kill whenever it feels like it, a country that now has killer squads operating in some 143 countries. Or He might want to talk about drug companies that demand full retail price when governments order essential medicines for suffering countries.
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Two days ago, real reporters (not the ones from Irving press) were complaining that they could not see or get information about the cleanup at Plaster Rock. Today, NewsToday reports (p. C3) that environment minister Danny Soucy toured the site and was given a report that all is well.

Isn't that nice?

Well, the journalists were not allowed to tour with the minister. And he did not answer many of their question because, he said, somebody else was supposed to do that. But he assured the reporters any questions he asked were answered.

That's nice. And I bet he asked some toughies.

Read the story carefully, It says virtually nothing.
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The strikes of university professors are, I think, more than they appear to be. I taught university for some forty years, and rarely heard even a whisper of a strike. Now faculty strikes are popping up like social leaders at an economic summit.

I think this is caused by a much deeper problem that almost nobody in the universities or government has recognized. And its a problem than can only be dealt with by government because the universities, at all levels, professors and administrators are smothered in delusions of intellectual grandeur and prestige. They also refuse to give serious attention to teaching.

It's always been that way, and is now made worse by those half-wit university evaluations published by Maclean's Magazine.

And if that weren't bad enough, the  universities are under intensive attack by big business that wants them to produce research just for it, to produce professors who will lie to help big business, and even some who will propagandize their students.

The universities desperately need changes. But there is not a hope in hell they will recognize that. Nor will government. Big business is quite happy with its relatively cheap takeover of universities -and have you ever heard of New Bunswick government that challenged big business?
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As usual,  there are lots of good columns by students in Whatever. This week, I was particular struck by Mike Elliot writing on how children have lost the sense of imagination. I think he's right. I think this is not just a "kids today are losers, now, when I was a kid..."

Imagination is not just cute. It's an essential basis of thinking, of reasoning, judging....

This is a perceptive column. It's also an important one.
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The editorial is, predictably, about the "economic summit". It is led, we are told, by "great business leaders" like its chairman, Robert Irving.

Yeah. Let's think about that. What makes Robert Irving a great business leader? Is it an oustandingly bright mind? Is it an excellent education with high distinction because of his great mind? Was it long hours of work in humble and difficult conditions as he won his way, step by step, up the ladder?

Or was it daddy?

There are op-ed columns by Brent Mazerolle and Gwynne Dyer on closely related subjects. Read both.
Which is the one that seems to know something, and says something?
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There's an interesting letter to the editor "Some fashion tips for UNB strikers" It makes fun of a teacher at UNB who was photographed  at a demonstration demanding a pay raise from Alward. The writer points out that someone looking for a raise should not be wearing $250 mittens and a $750 parka. So true.

However, it would be perfectly all right for a multi-billionaire looking for a $400 million dollar forgiveable loan and several thousands of acres from that same Mr. Alward to wear $2000 mittens and a ten thousand dollar coat.

Jan. 17: Harper, and the biggest blunder.....

...since native peoples asked Jacques Cartier to stay for supper.

(I'm starting this one on the evening of Jan. 16 because there's something I skipped yesterday to fit in the bit about that Business magazine in the TandT.)

The purpose of Harper's grand and well-publicized tour of Israel is simply to help him nail down the Canadian Jewish vote in the next federal election. That's how he sees it. Now let's see it as Americans will see it.

The US, which has given Israel virtually its whole defence budget for decades, is now in crucial negotiations to avoid a war with Iran that is unnecessary and, in fact, wrong-headed. These are the negotiations with Iran which are really a product of American paranoia because a)there is no evidence Iran is working on a nuclear weapons programme. Even US intelligence tells us it does not have any such evidence.

Obama knows that a war with Iran would not only be bloody but would destabilize most of the world for years, and might very well touch off nuclear wars involving the US, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Israel - all of whom have a stake in this.

Israel, the country that lives on US aid, is openly doing its best to wreck the negotiations and set off a war. Saudi Arabia is on the Israeli side for this one.

So far,  Obama has had a hard time from Israel - though Israel is the nation that has lived off the US for decades. Israel openly is trying to wreck the negotiations. For Harper to go on a grand tour, pledging his eternal love for Israel and unwavering support for Israel at a time like this, is a public slap in the face of Obama.

If I were Obama, I'd take the US back to where it left off in the War of 1812.

At best, Obama faces a situation in which he might be able to avoid an Iran war by giving Israel its wish to destroy and occupy Palestine. But I'm quite sure that even that will not satisfy the Israeli government. It wants absolute dominance in the region - and that means the destruction of Iran. It's possible, even likely, that Israel will launch the war itself, using the nuclear weapons it doesn't admit it  has. (They would need the nuclear weapons because Israel cannot beat Iran with conventional weapons - and it knows Iran has no nuclear weapons to shoot back with.)

Harper has interfered in a situation that, at best, could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths. At worst? Well, think of all those nuclear bombs in the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, India - and Israel.

And why is Harper taking this desperate risk?

Because the most important thing in the world for him is to get himself re-elected.  What a pack of brainless scum we have for a federal government!
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Well, the big pitch is on, and quite obviously with the approval of the Irving leadership. It held its first meeting yesterday - and today it was front page, written up by, I'm sorry to say, by Cole Hobson who could have been a good journalist but seems to have decided he'd rather be Brent Mazerolle.

Moncton's 2014 economic summit is on, with a gala dinner and speeches by prominent businessmen, the ones who are going to decide on our "One Region - One Vision" (the vision approved by our social betters.) This is really contemptible in a democracy, a repeat of Irving's conference so he and his buddies (and toadies) could plan the future of New Brunswick.

There were lots of speeches, all of them saying exciting and insightful things like "we must move forward".

There was a pretence this all  had something to do with community and with people but, in fact, the words that appeared again and again were "business leaders", "most prominent leaders". "Community leaders" were mentioned but, obviously, by people who have no idea what the word community means.

None of us unprominent people was there, just our lords who will decide our futures.

Look. Business leaders want Moncton to make money in the same way the owners of Walmart want Walmart to make money - for themselves. Yes, in good times they will hire - but they will hire as few as possible and as cheaply as possible.

But I did not read of anyone there who spoke about working conditions, social environment, income levels, security, of social services. Where are the spokesmen for income levels? Usually, you find these among union leaders. I saw no mention of union leaders at that conference. No. Any income levels will be decided by the "socially prominent".

The seem to have no qualifications whatever to do the planning they claim. They don't even seem to understand the meanings of many of the terms they use.

This is precisely the kind of planning by the kind of people we have seen in control - most notably for the last twenty years.  The result in much of the world has been the corruption of the money institutions causing terrible hardships for millions while the corruptors get their taxes cut and ours raised. And in many countries, we lower classes got hit with the tab for paying off the corruption of the rich.

It has meant the cut of social services just when they are so badly needed, but millions in bonuses for people who make more in a day than most of us do in a year. It has meant that because of the greed of the upper levels of big business, millions of Americans are suffering terribly in a suffering whose effects will be felt for generations. And that suffering will come to us in even greater measure than it has so far. The dominance of big business making decisions where it should not be making then has us, quite seriously, on the edge of economic collapse.

Yes, our futures will be decided (one vision allowed) by 300 strutting poseurs with little if any qualifications.

And our mayor took part. Not surprisingly, he seems to be unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "democracy".

Mr.Mayor, a society is made of a wide range of people who have very different social situations and very different views of what they need. There is no such thing as one vision for any region. Mr. Irving's vision of this region appears to be one in which he is very rich and so has a special right to influence people, and a right to interfere in politics.

It's been done before. It doesn't work. And because of that sort of arrogance, we have people who go hungry, people do not have the opportunities of others. That way lies disaster.

That's why we have democracy - to involve everybody, not just the social elite, not just the self-defined leaders of society.

Then, Cole Hobson did a kiss-kiss. Having written the story, he then wrote an op-ed column on it which repeats the tone of the story.

Too bad. When I first read Cole Hobson's work, I thought he could become a real journalist.

Oh, when you read his column, notice how often he refers to business. Not community. Not people. Just business. That's typical of the Irving press. Government is entirely about business. Life is entirely about business.

In fact, government is about people. And far from leading us and planning our lives, the proper role of business is to serve us and our needs.
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The first half of Alec Bruce's column enraged me. He agreed with a report of The Fraser Insitute. That alone had me yearning for a musket over the fireplace. The report was against minimum wages because it says they discourage employment. For a start, that sounds extremely simplistic.

There are a great many countries in this world that have no minimum wage - Haiti, Guatemala, Congo... I can't think of one of them that is noted for high employment.

Then Bruce's tone changed. He talked about the realities of the employment problem, and did a very good job of it. Then he went to propose a more intelligent solution though - as he says - it is not likely to be achieved in our political climate.

And I'm afraid I very much agree with him on that.
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The editorial speaks strongly against municipalities borrowing money unless, of course, they have some exceptional project like, say, an events centre. Then you can borrow like crazy, even with the world in danger of financial meltdown.

Luckily, we also have columns by Suzuki and Gwynne Dyer.
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The banner news for NewsToday is that Prince Charles and Lady Camilla will visit the Maritimes in May. Isn't that wonderful?

Well, it wet my pants.

Jan. 16: The idiot story of the week...

In NewsToday, "Prime minister (Harper) to visit Israel."

He's going to tell Israelis how much he loves them and is on there side for ever and ever. That's the sort of letter I regularly get from my four-year old granddaughter.

He's not actually going to do anything for Israel. He never has. But he's on Israel's side. (clap, clap).
Then he indulges in a touch of racism. He says that Israel is a light of democracy and freedom
 in a region of darkness.

Oh, really?  Israel operates prisons of torture. Those  Palestinians who are also citizens of Israel are not permitted to walk on certain streets or to live in certain districts. They can be kicked out of their homes at any time, and their neighbourhoods demolished. And it happens. Often.

Indeed, Palestinians who live in Palestine are kicked out of their homes and off their land routinely so the land can be (illegally) given to Israeli "settlers". The Israeli government is doing that right now as part of its attempt to wreck the Israel/Palestine peace talks. I think it will succeed. More than that,  I expect Israel will soon take over all of Palestine, sending off all its people as refugees.

Sharon, the former president who just died was found guilty by the UN of the deliberate murder of Palestinians, men, women, and children who were his prisoners. It was about that time he said he wanted to kill every Palestinian baby he saw.

Israel defied world opinion to get a nuclear bomb over fifty years ago. It also - illegally - tested that bomb off the coast of South Africa. In fact, It offered to sell nuclear weapons to a South African government which, at the time, was a White supremacist government.

And the arab world is a "region of darkness? Well, Saudi Arabia certainly fits that description. But it is an ally of both Israel and us. Ditto for the emirates. Ditto for Jordan.

You don't like Iran? Well, Iran used to be a quite acceptable democracy. But Iranian democracy was destroyed by Britain, France and the US. It was the West that made Iran, for years, a brutal and thieving dictatorship. And it was the West that forced Iranians into the arms of the ayatollahs.

Oh, incidentally, Jews live in Iran. And they don't get kicked off their land or discriminated against. I taught several Iranian Jews who didn't see Israel as a democracy or a place to admire in any way.

Incidentally, if Harper would (or could) read a little  history, he would find out that Jews were terribly prosecuted for over a thousand years - IN EUROPE - ALL OVER EUROPE. NOT JUST GERMANY.

AND NO WESTERN COUNTRY WOULD GIVE THEM HELP, NOT IN EUROPE, AND NOT IN THE AMERICAS. THEY WERE GENERALLY NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER CANADA FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 1930S UNTIL SEVERAL YEARS AFTER THE WAR.

We and the others supported the creation of Israel, but not in support of the Jews. We and the US and the Europeans did it so the Jews wouldn't come here. They wanted to get rid of the Jews. Historically, the people who persecuted the Jews were us and our ancestors.

The people who did NOT persecute the Jews through all those years were the arabs. So now, ignorant and/or self-righteous frauds like Harper are punishing arabs for things that they never did - but that we did.

And, while we're speaking of Harper as an ignorant and self-righteous fraud, there are Europeans, the Romas, who have also been persecuted across Europe and the West for centuries. Romas, too, were Hitler's targets in the death camps. Romas, too, were gassed and incinerated. They suffered a holocaust. They still are persecuted across Europe.

And now, almost eighty years later, Harper still refuses to let Romas into Canada. What a great guy!

A professor at UPEI says Harper's visit will make the world sit up an take notice.

No, it won't because the whole world will know what the Canadian press hasn't figured out.

This visit is the opening move in our next federal election. Harper needs the money and the support of Jewish voters. Many Jews do NOT support Israel. They are offended by its abuse of other peoples, it's brutality, its lack of democacy. But Jews in Canada have pretty well been rounded up and branded by the pro-Israel movement. For those of us who grew up in Jewish circles, it's saddening to see the principles of Judaism being destroyed in this process.

When I first encountered Jews, I was drawn to them because their Judaism was more Christian than any Christianity I had known (or have come to know). Now, the Jews I admired are cut off in their own communities.

Oh, and Harper will be taking 200 people along with him. As well as the usual aides and reporters, there will be a large contingent of "prominent Jewish leaders in Canada". So that's jet seats (of the better sort) and accommodation and meals for 200 people for 2 weeks. Your tax dollars are work. Several millions of them.

Just to make sure Harper gets the Jewish vote in the next election.

Where is Mike Duffy when we need him?

Oh - for those who say I'm anti-semitic, read some  history. Most Jews are not semites. The Palestinians, however, are semites. Then such people might well google Jews for Peace in the Middle East, and get a little more of the truth.
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TandT editors should listen to CBC news more. Yesterday, it had a story the Irving press still doesn't have.  Nobody is permitted to visit the land that is being cleaned up after the train wreck at Plaster Rock. (Crews are testing for contamination, and have already removed some soil for disposal).                                                                                                        .

Okay, okay. Work is going on. Can't have people there. Okay.

So can we get a report on what it is they're finding? Sorry. Government ministers and civil servants have no time to talk ot anybody because they are terribly, terribly busy watering the ducks.

In short, us peasants aren't allowed to know what contaminants there are, how much there is, how dangerous it might be.

Couldn't they at least get professor Lapierre to look at it?
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Nothing on the editorial page. Alec Bruce, sadly, buys the idea that in a democracy a self-selected group, largely of business people, has the right to plan our civic future for us.

The op ed, luckily, has Beth Lyons. Rod Allen seemingly cannot resist being cutesie. But this time it isn't bad.
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Picking through the garbage, I came across Atlantic Business, a magazine that regularly comes with the Irving paper. It  is, according to its cover, smart, sophisticated, provocative, powerful. That alone, I guess, should be a warning.

The cover story is about the Richard Oland murder mystery. And I wondered. What the hell does this have to do with business news?

Then there's an interview "The World According to John" an extraordinarily arrogant exchange in which "a billionaire seafood baron" says that business, not government, must lead Atlantic Canada to prosperity.

Way to speak up for democracy, John. But, say, haven't billionaires controlled Atlantic governments for generations? So how come we're not prosperous now?

The editor writes a column about her boss, as though she were twelve, and  he was Justin Bieber.

There's an almost incoherent article on Obamacare and health care. I think it's about how we should allow private business a bigger piece of the health care market. Gee! If that is the point, then it's kind of dumb to start off with the failings of Obamacare. Most of its problems and inefficiencies are precisely because of private business involvement.

Most of the articles are either trivial or ignorant so that as I read it, I thought "Irving press" because it's the same style as the TandT.

Like the TandT, this is essentially a propaganda sheet. My guess is that it's aimed at small businessmen; and the point of it is to kid them that they have the same interests as big business. It's a magazine that tells people what they want to believe no matter how silly it is.
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You know. Like Don Cherry

Jan. 15: Well, we don't have to think about it anymore.....

.....because the Harper government isn't going to do anything about oil tankers on our railways. We're not going to hear any more about the police raid on Irving offices. The Transport Safety Board has no intention of doing anything serious. That was  all clear in yesterday's reports. And there's no follow-up today, no questions, no explanation, no opinion.

Eric Lewis, on he opinion page and Brian Cormier had nothing to say about it. Lewis had a more important issue to deal with, a crisis in how many time pop groups are allowed to play at an East Coast Music Association Week.

Brian Cormier had a "stop the press" item about what it's like to have a cold.

The bottom line? Harper is so eager for Europeans and others to start ripping off our resources, he doesn't care what investors do to this country. Effectively, there are not going to be any environmental rules to get in the way, and no investigation of any accidents, no matter how many people get killed.

Harper's thinking is typical  of that of the big business he serves. There is no future. There is only now.

He is not only the worst prime minister Canada has ever had. He is also the most dangerous. If he gets another term, the damage would almost certainly be permanent.

It may be permanent now.
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The lead story on p. 1 is about the "Summit", the New Brunswick version of citizen involvement. It's a meeting of "300  leaders from different sectors . This meeting is called "One Region - One vision".

Who decided that these people are leaders? Well, they did. The core of this leadership is largely self-appointed and represents business. There are some other groups there, though even they seem focussed on the business element of their work.

Not that it matters what they think. All of them, after all, were chosen by that leadership core of business - and it shows throughout the story. There will be a few people from "culture" and "arts"; but it's a safe bet they'll be there as potted plants.

The whole tone of their statement is about the business future. And it's arrogant. And it's juvenile.

Where is the evidence that these people have any competence to plan the development of a city? Where is there any sight they have the support of the citizens of this democracy? Aren't we all supposed to  have an equal voice in the future of this city?

There are serious issues to deal with in the condition of housing now and in the future, the influence of big business in city affairs, issues of the homeless, the hungry, of mass transportation, of facilities for chidren..... This list could go on and one; and running a pizza parlour or a hockey team or even a big business.

"These people talk to others, so we selected those because they are leaders." Huh?

I talk to others. Does that make me a leader? And shouldn't we decided who our leaders are? After all, it is our city.

But, no, what we are getting here is a gathering of medieval barons who see only the economic side - and even for that side see only their own interests. Like Mr. Irving's famous conference to plan New Brunswick's future,  this is anti-democratic, largely ignorant, heavily biased, arrogant, and just plain silly.

The most arrogant part is the conference title "One region - One vision." Yep. They'll  develop the vision. And that'll be it. One Region - One Vision. Their vision.

Heil.


This isn't a news story. It's simply a press handout from the organizers. I saw no evidence the reporter asked a single question of them or anybody else.
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In NewsToday, environmental experts are readying to test the water, soil, etc. at Plaster Rock for contamination. I don't see why.Within hours of the train accident, before anybody could get to the site, Mr. Alward said it was fine.

There's also a big, big story about how Justin Bieber threw eggs at a neighbour's house. So there wasn't room for the story that Israel may be close to launching a war on Iran, a war that could draw in nuclear powers, a war that Canada has pledged to support on the side of Israel no matter who starts the war or why.

Why should Canada join in such a war? Because that promise means that Harper gets the organized Zionist vote in Canada.

You want time to discuss that? Sorry. The promise has already been made. Remember that next Nov. 11 when you are told how our soldiers died in two world wars to protect our right to have parliament decide
 for or against war.
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The editorial is the one you might expect on the university strikes. The profs are, they say, "Out of Touch" and "Universities must cut costs, emulate business world."
1. A university is not a business.
2. There is no evidence that cutting costs helps in a recession. In fact, the opposite is true.
3. To equate cutting costs with cutting other people's salaries is just a teeny bit simple-minded.
Business has cut its costs by lowering pay and laying people off. However, it has maintained even bigger costs by maintaining its record profit margins, and its obscenely high salaries to executives.
In short, business has not really cut costs at all - and seems to only if, like the editor, you play with words or don't know what they mean.

There is, indeed, "...a disconnection with reality here."  But it's the editor who needs to be plugged back in.

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The shocker is Alec Bruce's column.

This is pure, gutter journalism. It tries to dispute Neil Young's criticism of Alberta's oil sands by a series of irrelevant and personal attack on him. I am not a lover of rock music or of stars of any sort. (I leave that sort of thing to the editors of the TandT who devote at least a page of the paper each day to that form of worship.)

But simply ridiculing Young personally is really Norbert's style rather than Bruce's.

Bruce even quotes the Harper government on this one. Imagine that, quoting the government which has shown nothing but absolute contempt for the environment, and has demolished most of our environmental protection to make a buck for billionaires.

And to suggest we cannot live in a world without oil is absurd - as absurd as the notion that we can abuse our atmosphere, our oceans and our soil forever without causing any harm.

Eventually, we will run out of stuff. I look forward to Bruce's column on that when he rants at the gods for not planting enough oil  Or maybe he'll just get mad at the oil for not being there.

Actually, the problem will come before that. World supplies are running low. Yes, there are other supplies, perhaps in the Arctic. But they're more expensive to get out. And they will soon be getting much, much more expensive, so expensive that heating a house or driving a car will be a ruinous cost.

The reason there are so many wars in Africa and so much danger of more of them in tast is precisely because supplies are running down just as more industrial countries, like China, are emerging.

We can't live in a world without oil? Tough. We're going to have to. That should be a lesson from every childhood. There are some things we cannot have.

Jan. 14: a flurry of snow.....

NewsToday has two, big stories on oil train derailments - and put together, they add up to zero.

In the case of Plaster Rock, the Federal Transportation Safety Board says it will focus on the broken wheel.  Right. Fires are caused by broken wheels. Yeah. Everybody knows that.

Look, guys, if you want to see how important  (or unimportant) broken wheels are in this, there are lots of crashes in Canada and the US similar to the Plaster Rock one. So why not just get somebody to look at the records of those crashes to see how many involved broken wheels?

A spokesman for CNRail is quoted as saying about the DOT 111 tankers cars themselves, "Our CEO has called for a phase-out of these (cars), but it's an industry-wide issue, not just a CN issue."

Oh, well then, we won't waste any time worrying about that.

Another story says there's no quick-fix for the safety problems of DOT 111 cars - and the problem goes back for  decades.

Gee. Then if our safety board and rail companies and oil companies (and federal government had started working on the problem decades ago, we wouldn't have a problem now - and 47 people in Lac Megantic would still be alive. Obviously, they have  not lifted a finger to deal with it - or even to notice it - and they still don't intend to do any heavy lifting.

Where are all these super-smart executives that I read so much about, the ones so skilled they are worth millions of dollars a year? (The reality is they get that money because they are working for the oil and rail companies. They aren't working for us. And that includes the government agencies.)

A government spokesman says the government will soon introduce "new and tougher" standards. In fact, as the article says, those standards are not from the government. They were adopted two  years ago, voluntarily, by the rail industry. All that's going to happen now is that Mr. Harper is going to make a speech saying the rules are now official - which changes nothing whatever.

And, in any case, those news rules do not seem to  have prevented any accidents in the two years they have been in effect.

In other words, these two stories, together, say our government (yawn) intends to do nothing except in many years from now. Maybe. -except to announce its tough, new standards that aren't really new, and we'll get fliers in the mail about it with Robert Goguen's familiar smirk on the cover.

Meanwhile, the oil industry will be running its death trains across the country.
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Generally, there's little news in any section of the paper. There is a lot of trivia, instead. That's because the whole purpose of the Irving press is to keep people in ignorance. The only important news in Section A is about the faculty strike at UNB, and the one looming at Mount Allison.

I supposed the Irving press will soon openly come down against the strikers. I mean, paying millions of dollars to execs and billionaires   (which is also our money) makes sense because - well - it makes sense.

But the problem is really worse than that - and some of it is the fault of the universities. They are absurdly expensive for students in a democratic society. They place far too great an emphasis on research to the neglect of teaching - and that's expensive as well as being a waste of time in a great many courses. And they are rapidly falling under the control of big money, thereby serving big money - and not us or their students.
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I have no idea what Norbert's column is about. I think it's a rant about how he hates environmentalists. But it somehow becomes a "when I was kid". "Often," he says, "we used stairs because there wasn't an elevator or escalator in every building."

Wow, Norbert. You had stairs?

Everyone should read the op ed piece, "Health care can be fixed with new ideas, not new money." Essentially, it's an attack on those (like insurance companies) who want to "improve" care by privatizing it, bit by bit.

Expect to see more pressure to privatize. Corporations will not be happy until they get all our money. The is no limit to their greed, no matter what it does to the rest of us. The opinion column points out that there is no need for privatization - and huge improvements can be made simply with better organization.

Good column.
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Seems I have a bit more space here - and there's something I've been meaning to talk about. Harper spent 30 million on his "War of 1812" year. (just like he also spent some 2 million advertising a government programme that actually doesn't exist. But don't worry. He made up for it, saving hundreds of thousands  by scrapping years of environmental research. Our Stephen doesn't waste money.)

At the end of the 1812 do, he cited how Canada and the US fought their war - but have been friends ever since.

Drivel.

From 1815 to 1903, almost all US presidents at least threatened Canada. After the American civil war, Irish veterans of the war acquired weapons and set up training camps near the Canadian border in a public preparation to invade Canada. They were thoughfully protected and supplied by the American government.

They then launched a series of attacks (passing American customs with no questions asked) on Canada called The Fenian Raids.

When the Canadian government spoke of sending troops to the new Canadian West, it was warned by the US government that it would be offended by such a move. The US had thousands of troops in the American west. But it would be offended if Canada did the same.

That's why when Canada sent an army. It wasn't called an army. It was called the Northwest Mounted Police. Mustn't offend our "friends".

President Theodore Roosvelt threatened to use US troops to settle the question of the border between Canada and Alaska. It worked. the British government, which had been negotiating on the issue, gave way to the US claim.

God bless the king, our British friend.

Presidents since then haven't spoken of invasion, but they have spoken of union of Canada and the US. And guess who would be the very junior partner in that.

They also desperately wanted to possess Newfoundland after World War Two. And they almost got it.

The US is and always has been the leader in challenging Canada's right to the Arctic. It routinely sends ships through the region in defiance of Canadian law.

Mr. Harper is full of it. As he well knows, there is NO SUCH THING as friends between nations. Americans and Canadians, as individuals, might be friends. But they don't run the country. That's done by - well, in North America, it's done by big business - and it is neither friendly nor sentimental.

It took the US three years to enter World War One, and almost three to enter World War Two. Why so long? The US, from the start, claimed to favour the British side for its values, and to be all for it. So how come it just watched?

Because it didn't give a damn what happened to Britain.

By 1942, the British had taken a terrible pounding, both military and civilian. The war was lost. Churchill knew it. He wrote it. He wrote that he had even thought of making a deal with Hitler by giving him part of the Empire.

The US didn't lift a finger, apart from selling supplies. In fact, it was not the US that declared war against Germany. It was Germany that declared war on the US, a month AFTER Pearl Harbour.

So why didn't the US do more to help Britain?

Well, for a start, there were important people in the business world (like Henry Ford) who thought Hitler had the right idea. But, more important, US business would have been happy to see Britain lose because then - ah, then the US would be able to scoop up all that empire, and make money out of it as Britain had.

Indeed, much of its time after the war was taken up with trying to get the old, European colonies -like Vietnam. During the war, Roosevelt warned the Free French not to send ships to liberate its colony Vietnam. When France did, its ships were bombed by American aircraft - quite deliberately.

Ever since the war it has been trying to pick up all those pieces of empire that Europe lost after 1945. That's why the US helped destroy democracy in Iran. And that's what the wars in Africa and the Middle East are all about to day.

This is not a criticism of Americans or even of American governments. All countries behave that way. There are no friendships, except of convenience.

Very few people seem to understand that. They fall for the political talk about friends and enemies. It's talk that manoeuvers us into ridiculous situations (like invading Afghanistan).
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Oh, a small item that didn't make the Irving press. Russia has, apparently, pretty solid evidence that the terrorist attacks aimed at upsetting the Olympic Games were organized and financed by Saudi Arabia.
Russia has vowed retaliation.

Now, Saudi Arabia is "friends" with us, Israel, the US...and it's an enemy to Iran. Those countries could almost certainly be drawn into it. At least three of them have nuclear weapons.

And I'm not at all sure that China could afford to sit and watch.

But you can be sure of one thing. Nobody will be making any decision on the basis of friendship for anybody.

Jan. 13:You, me, and all of us....

All us people can be terribly insensitive. This is something I should have mentioned regarding the front page of Leisure and Travel on Saturday.

The story is about a family that visited Haiti as part of an enormous shipload of moneyed holiday-seekers. They saw, according to the writer, the real Haiti. "The real Haiti", it seems, is not poverty-stricken, has little crime, and wasn't touched by the earthquake. No, "The real Haiti" is a beach, a remote part of the island, and a monster pleasure ship that provides accommodation and excellent restaurants.

The local people are permitted on the beach only when invited to entertain the sun-bathers or pour drinks. But you can see them if you go to their "quaint" village. The article doesn't say so, but quaint means the villagers have no medical facilities or school or plumbing. It means they will die much younger than the tourists. It means they earn less in a year than a tourist might spend on the ship for supper and a half-decent wine.

The writer notices that the rest of Haiti has high rates of crime and poverty. But doesn't say why.

The why is that Haiti has been pillaged for two hundred years by  France, Britain and the US. For most of the last hundred years, it has been under the control of brutal dictators appointed by the US government. They have murdered, robbed and raped at will. That's why Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere. That's why big business makes big money out of fruit plantations, and clothing sweatshops where workers are lucky to earn 2 or 3 dollars a day. That's why Haiti has no plumbing or education system or medical system to speak of.

And the earthquake relief? The US has never given the amount it promised. And most of it went to big time promoters who put it in there pockets, charged it to consulting fees, then deposited it in offshore banks.

When Haiti did insist on on election and chose a priest who actually introduced all those things the country wanted and needed, big business got mad, staged a fake invasion, and the US government sent in troops to "protect" Haiti - and whose first act was to deport the elected president, and install an American puppet once again.

They called it "peacekeeping", and Canada, to its eternal shame, took part by sending troops and police.

That's why Haiti is poor and has a high crime rate, little plumbing, and no safe water.

But we don't have to see that. We can go to a lovely beach with an excellent restaurant on board ship, and we can visit the "quaint" village. That's the "real" Haiti.

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The news is so little and so trivial that I at first saw nothing worth mentioning. Then a headline at the bottom of the last page of section A caught my attention. "Train's need stronger wheels: CN Rail".

Yep, I thought. That's the problem. It's all them there steel wheels breaking off and bursting into flames that's the problem. Then I read the story.

It doesn't mention wheels. The story is about how the old, DOT:111 tank cars need to be replaced with tankers built of stronger steel. The world "wheels" does not appear. So how did it get into the headline?

Well, as a rule, a paper's editors write the headlines. So why write one that draws attention to the wheels and not to what the story says?

Well, Lac Megantic was caused by the old, DOT:111 cars. That was an Irving shipment. Plaster Rock was caused by the old DOT:111 cars. That was an Irving shipment, too. A reader wrote in to say I was picking on Irving, and it's the railway that's responsible, not Irving.

On that,  we still don't have a final report for the first accident on whether Irving had mislabelled its shipment. For the second, I'm quite sure that Irving has enough clout with CNRail to demand what sort of tankers are to be used. And with 47 deaths not far behind them, I would wonder about the intelligence and/or humanity of executives who did not do so.
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I don't disagree with Alec Bruce's column on the need to plan for NB's future....well, I sort of do disagree ......

In New Brunswick, all planning seems to begin with economics and to confine itself narrowly to economics. All solutions are confined to jobs. It's a model that has never worked. Almost invariably, what you get are projects great for big business but with little impact on the province.

New Brunswick isn't just grand economic schemes. It's people. The people and what we want to achieve for them is an essential part of the planning process.  All we ever seem to discuss are quick fixes like the events centre, and the prosperity which will, maybe, arise from them. And our track record is bad.

We need to include people in the mix. What do they need (besides jobs)?  How do combine drawing investment with meeting those needs?

Steve Malloy has a thoughtful column that is well worth a read. it's about railway accidents and pipeline projects. He has a nasty mind, does young Steve. But he could be bang on.

Craig Babstock's column proves that Craig Babstock doesn't understand statistics. Not his fault. Journalism schools don't teach nearly as much as they should on this topic.

He quotes a poll showing that three-quarters of New Brunswickers don't approve of protests that break the law. Well....

1. the poll was taken, obviously, in the midst of interest generated by the shale gas protest, largely of native peoples. That will affect the results. Those in favour of shale gas won't approve of protests - because they don't approve of that particular one.
2. Racism is not unknown, not even in New Brunswick. The identification of a group as a protestor will draw general condemnation of protest.

Now, consider this...
1. it is the year 1777. Americans are polled on the issue of whether they support protests that break the law. How do you think that one would come out?
Or a similar one in France after the king was deposed?

2. Polls were taken at the time when the Arab Spring was raising great expectations of change in the arab world. There were protests, many protests against dictators. There was lots of violence on both sides. What poll results  would you have got on that from a North American sample? (We don't have to guess. They supported the protests.)

3. When the US invaded Iraq, it did so illegally under international law. In this, the US government was carrying out out a highly illegal and bloody protest against...something. Do you think a poll of Americans would condemn that? I rather doubt it.

Statistics sound scientific. They aren't. It's a general rule that you can use statistics to prove whatever you want. In fact, you can use  the same set of statistics to prove either side of just about any issue.

In the case of Rexton, it was made worse by bad reporting, and by Alward's hysterical cry when a very, very few guns and knives were found, "It's an armed camp."  Hell, I can show him far bigger "armed camps" in every village of New Brunswick.
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John Stockwell was a very high placed official in the CIA up to the 1970s. In fact, he was often in charge of whole wars, the wars the US never talks about, the ones carried out by "special forces", the usually illegal wars that the news media rarely mention. According to John Stockwell, his thirteen years at the highest levels of this organization saw some 6 million people killed by such "wars". There were probably more people killed in those illegal and secret wars than in all the other wars of the time.

He has testified to this quite openly before Congress. But the news media paid little attention.

In one of his wars, the purpose of the action was to help the  whites of South Africa put down the rebellion against their rule There was very, very little reporting on this one. But the US took a full hand in supplying, leading, and and assisting the white government to kill its black population. Oh, yes, it also hired white mercenaries to help out South Africa's white rulers.

Cuba sent troops to help Mandela's followers (Mandela was in jail). But the press never mentioned that, either.

In 1978, Stockwell released a book, published by W.W.Norton "In Search of Enemies" that talked about the brutalities, the torture, the indiscriminate killing - and the utter uselessness of those wars. (Perhaps you saw the review in the Times and Transcript - or perhaps not). The book became a world best-seller.
The government would have loved to jail him as a traitor a la Snowden. But it's a little tough to put a man of his record of government service on trial.

For a speech by him about his work, I don't have a proper URL, but google informationclearinghouse.info America's Third World War.