Jan. 25: Just the Irving press in this one.

I'm starting this very late on a Monday night. (It's been a tough day.)

The front page headline isn't really a headline. In fact, it's not really a news story at all. “What happened to province's tri-city partnership?” is a question. News stories don't ask questions. They give information. This is really speculation, and it should be on the Comments page.

Another big story is that a new barber shop is opening. Wow! And a woman will cut men's hair. Double Wow!  Oh, death, where is they sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

It gets worse. The editorial is a vague ramble about raising money. It ends with the usual drivel that this province's civil service is too big. This ignorant chatter works on many people. I see it reflected in a letter to the editor today. The truth is that New Brunswick's public service, for the size of the population here, is in step with other provinces across Canada. The truth, unrecognized by the 'experts' at the Irving press is that a government is not a candy store. It is a complex and difficult thing to manage. We need a good civil service.

And we are not overgoverned. Certainly, we are not overgoverned by the party in power, whether Liberal or Conservative. We are overgoverned by the real government, big business.

It also raises the very dumb suggestion that the government should hold big meetings across the province to get ideas for the budget. Now, the purpose of an election is not to elect people who will tour the province asking what it should do. (And it's not to ask the general population which has no training or experience in operating such a budget. That's like seeing a doctor because you're sick, then telling him to consult with the general public on what medication you need. If people don't know what to do they shouldn't be running for office in the first place.)

A government is supposed be made up of people who run for office by telling us what they will do and why. And they have a civil service because that's where they get expert advice and a system of management.

It's bad enough that this editorial is ignorant of the basics of both government and economics. But the last sentence in an obvious kiss on the Irving rear end. It would be nice (but unlikely) to see an editorial that would tell the truth about New Brunswick. It's not the civil service that has too much power and costs too much. It's people like the owner of this shabby rag.

There is an excellent letter to the editor “Low-Wages earners, Stand up for your rights.” And one good letter out of four is superb for this paper.

On the same page is a superb column by Valerie Stearns of New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity. This beats anythng Norbert has ever written.

The commentary page has a more typically Irving press commentary column from that propaganda house called the Fraser Institute.

Alec Bruce begins and (almost) finishes with an interesting column which raises questions about why Potash Corp folded. The questions are good.

But then he hints at a cause in just one sentence, doesn't explain it, then hints, without quite saying so, that if we had permitted fracking, Potashcorp would still be in business here.

Bruce has commonly supported fracking, neatly ignoring the medium and long term dangers of it as a fuel source and the immediate dangers of it as a killer. There are serious problems which this paper has never reported. The usual argument is – duh – it'll create jobs. Well – duh – damn little of that money would ever stay in the province and even less of it would reach the pockets of those who need it. So let me ask a question of Alec Bruce.

You have consistently supported fracking in spite of much evidence against it, and an awful lot of evidence that our climate is changing rapidly. So, my question is -

Is this because you work for a paper owned by Mr. Irving?

(Or, to quote Alec Bruce's hint - “...does the sun rise in the East?”)

But compared to section B, (Canada and World), Section A is world class journalism.

The headline in Section B is “Archbishop tells La Loche, Sask., to forgive.” ( This is in reference to the school shootings in that town.) Of course that's what the archbishop said. What the hell would you expect an archbishop to say? “Follow me to the jail, and we'll hang that bastard from the highest tree”?

That's not news. News is something to help us understand what happened. A real news story would tell us about our neglect and abuse of native peoples that leads to incidents like this. That's what CBC did. It has several reports on these issues.

The archbishop said the community should try to find hope for the youth of Laroche. That's as useless as any sermonette I have seen in the faith page of this paper. The people are isolated. Canada has caused them enormous damage for well over a century. It has abused them. It has neglected them. How is this small and isolated community supposed to build “hope for its youth”?

There is nothing in Canada and World worth reading – and at least one story is almost pure propaganda. It's on the last of the four, miserable pages of Canada and World. The president of Egypt talks about the uprising of 2011 that brought “freedom and democracy” to Egypt.

In fact, the president of Egypt is a dictator set up by the army with American support. It now has one of the worst records in the world for its disregard of human rights. The uprising itself was financed and organized by the U.S. to depose an elected government which American billionaires did not approve of. The news story mentions the latter points – but only briefly, and not until almost the end. (Good newspapers don't do that because they know that most readers don't read that far in an article.)

Most of this issue is, again, an insult to readers. It's trivial. It reflects an editorial ignorance of what the important stories are.

It is not possible to have a democracy in a province whose newspapers are so biased, so ignorant, so careless of sound, journalistic practice, so trivial…..

It's late. I'll send this off as it is. Tomorrow, I'll pay no attention to what's in the Irving press (unless it's something mega dreadful). I'll try to spend most of the time on world news – try to catch up a bit on it.

The big picture

To begin, just a couple of items I found interesting. One is on the conference at Davos, which, I think, was a big step toward corporate fascism.

Then there's a solid piece on CBC about Trump and Palin – who are not the harmless comics that some think they are. And their rise is a sign of the moral and intellectual collapse of the U.S. What makes it worse is that most of their opponents, including Hillary Clinton, are no better. Indeed, Hillary is Obama. And Obama is Bush.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/23/davos-plutocracts-politicians-deserve-contempt

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/neil-macdonald-sarah-palin-1.3416452

When Britain and others took control over China some two centuries ago, they did not just loot and peddle opium, and impoverish and kill. They destroyed the whole social structure of China. They destroyed the system of government. They destroyed religion. They destroyed education. They completely destroyed all those things we call culture. The Chinese became strangers in their own land, strangers even to their neighbours. In addition to that, there was looting, starvation, forced labour, humiliation. A Chinese nation ceased to exist. A Chinese people ceased to exist. They became people simply of fear, hunger, starving animals in a pen.

They lost even reminders of their own history. Britain's much-praised Lord Elgin looted the summer palace of the emperors just as he had looted the marbles from the ancient temple in Athens. To see that and other imperial loot from India, Egypt, Greece, you can visit the British Museum in London. It's so educational.

The destruction of a culture left China in a turmoil and confusion and fear that still is prominent. For over a century, Chinese fought the West and fought each other over the questions – Who are we? What are we? What should we be? How do we get there?

That was what led to the rise of Chiang Kai Sheck, thug, drug dealer, murderer – and the darling of Britain and the U.S. And that is what led to the rise of Mao. And then, of course, came the unspeakable brutality of the Japanese invasion as Japan realized that the path to the future was to imitate Western capitalism in its murder and plundering.

Mao won that round, but not the war. So his successors have imitated the western imitation that Japan had carried out. But China is still a long way from stable. It remains uncertain about the future, and still has national nightmares about the century and more of social destruction and humiliation.

As for building on the past, that's impossible. The religion of the past barely exists. As for their history, the Chinese have to visit the British Museum to see it.

Foreign interference in a nation creates terrible damage to a culture, destroys its evolution and, at best, causes lifetimes of fear and confusion and suffering. We should know that. We did it to our native peoples. We did it centuries ago. But the damage is still there. People still suffer, and suffer profoundly, from it.

Afghanistan is still at a stage in which it is a nation, sort of, but it's more importantly based on tribal,

religious and family relationships. It has, at times, made considerable progress toward becoming a modern state. But Afghanistan's misfortunes happened because it was an important route for trade and, more recently, because it is a desirable site for a major oil pipeline. As a consequence, Afghanistan has been a prime target for a good, two centuries.

First, it was the British who saw it as being strategic to the dominance it was building in India and China. Sometimes it was the Russians.

About the time of World War Two and after, Afghanistan was making serious progress in modernizing its society. Then came the Russian invasion. It was a long and brutal war of an advanced and large war society against a much simpler and smaller society that was ill-equipped for war. But the Afghans won.

Not surprisingly, that war strengthened a return to tribal, family and religious traditions - including forms of Islam. And some of the latter, not surprisingly under these conditions, were extreme. (Though I'm not sure they're so extreme as those of the cardinal who blessed bombs to be dropped on Cuba, or the chaplains who tell our soldiers they're doing God's work. I'll bet there was a prayer when the Enola Gay took off for Hiroshima.)

Then came the American invasion of Afghanistan, supposedly to capture Osama bin Laden, though actually an invasion that was planned years before by people like Jeb Bush.

In 15 years, the mightiest and most expensive military machine in the world has been unable to beat this small nation – even though Afghanistan itself is torn by civil war. And again, the interference has only reinforced religious, tribal and family ties. And it has reinforced the most extreme religious elements in Afghanisan.

Ever wonder what makes extreme Islamic thinking? What makes it is the extreme western thinking that the rich of the western world have a right to own everything, And have a right to kill Muslims who don't agree with them. That is what created the Taliban.

Some day, we should take a look at the Christian extremism that has led to Muslim extremism. Our models of Christian (and Judaic) faith are oil billionaires.

Russia and China, now that they are capitalist, work on the same principles (or lack of them) that we do. And those principles have not worked. Every war in the middle east has been a failure in establishing what it was supposed to do. Iraq, even if it holds off ISIS, is a mess that's never going to get better. Same with Libya. Syria, no matter who wins, has largely ceased to exist. Turkey has become a threat to world peace. Iran has decided it would be much better to be friends with China than with the U.S. Yemen? Nobody knows how many are dead of starvation and disease. It may well be past the point of no return. ISIS is and always has been a front, a proxy for the U.S. and Turkey. If it wins in Syria and Libya and Iraq, Then Turkey and the U.S. will fight it directly ( and seriously this time) – and the result will be that ISIS and similar groups will continue to grow all over the world. ISIS is not a product of Islam. It is a product of the greed of western big business.

And our turn is coming as western big business puts the final touches on its mastery. We'll know this year when and if Trudeau agrees to the Pacific and European trade deals which take power from our elected governments, and hand it over to major capitalists. These are the deals that make it possible for capitalists to sue governments for billions if governments pass laws that protect citizens, but cut into profits (like banning pesticide sprays).

Worse, the cases will not be heard in government courts, but in courts owned by big business. With this, democracy is over. And we can expect our capitalists (who are really not capitalists at all) to treat us with the same brutality they have used in the rest of the world.This would be the final step of fascism – a huge improvement because it makes the wealthy not just sharers of power (as demonstrated at Davos) but the only power.

But if the wealth drive all the rest of us into poverty, won't that be bad for profits? Yes. But the very wealthy have a long history of not thinking much about anybody except themselves. At the height of the British Empire when the wealth of the empire flooded Britain, it stopped in the pockets the rich. Well into the 20^th century, British cities were vile and filthy, pay was terrible, and the risks of death high. Social services barely existed. Children worked from the age of five or six. Orphanages were brutal. This didn't begin to change until the late 1940s and fifties – but Britain has been going backward again ever since.

The same thing happened in the industrial U.S. and Canada. And the U.S. and Canada have been rolling back progress so that the rich can get richer. That's what all the fuss about austerity in New Brunswick is about.

The rich know how to make money. But, so far as I've seen, that's all they know. And it's all they care.

It's hard to judge where Trudeau stands on any of this because so far he hasn't done anything, not even what he promised. But my guess is he'll do what he's told to do.

But the lesson of it all is that throughout society, the wealthy have seen it to be to their advantage to destroy societies, to destroy cultures, to prevent any evolution that could threaten their power and wealth. It happened in Afghanistan, in China, all over the middle east. And it could well happen here. Well, it is happening here.

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Oh, I can hear readers saying, “But we have to fight terrorism.”

I agree. But the way to fight terrorism is to stop doing it. Wars ARE terrorism. They always have been. And no modern power has been more terrorist than the U.S. - though Britain and France and Spain and Portugal were all pretty strong on terrorism in their imperial days.

What we call terrorism today, random attacks on innocent people, often in their own countries, are a modern variant on traditional terrorism by mass murder of civilians – as in Vietnam, Iraq, and Guatemala. (I mean, really, how do you think Iraqis and Syrians feel when they're killed by Canadian bombs? How do you think their families and neighbours feel? I am almost certain they don't all sing, “O Canada” and send us thank you notes.)

The turning point to a new kind of terrorism was, I suppose 9/11. I remember the day well. I was on air with Gord Sinclair (son of the Gord Sinclair of TV fame in 50s and 60s). Gord and I stared blankly at each other as the news came in. We both sensed that this was not an accident, that the world had suddenly changed. We knew it was terrible; and we sensed, without speaking, it was more terrible than we could imagine.

War has always been terror. But this was a new kind of terror in a new kind of war. It is a tactic of the weaker side to overcome the power of the stronger side. It makes use a small number of fighters to kill people, anybody, on the other side and far away from any battlefield.

It wasn't entirely new, really; the U.S. had used it to deliberately kill large numbers of innocent people by bombing in Cambodia. But it wasn't called terror in our news. It was called air power.

Unlike conventional warfare, terror is used to drive a country into hysteria. It doesn't take many people to carry out an attack. And it's done in a place in which people feel safe – like a Paris theatre. The number killed is usually relatively small (though with 9/11 certainly an exception.) So, with only a few fighters and the killing of, perhaps, two to fifty people, a tiny and weak group can drive a large and powerful country of many millions into panic.

It also encourages more of the hatreds that drive many, many others to join the terrorists.

In short, it's an extremely effective way for the weak side to fight the powerful. And its greatest victory could well be a Republican ticket of Trump and Palin for 2016.

Jan. 23: How can a paper print all those pages....

...and still say so little.

On the good side,  and for the second day in a row, the Irving press has a front page headline that is a real story. The RCMP and the Crown are hoping a quiet solution to charges that RCMP leadership was remiss when it sent police armed only with pistols to catch a man armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Three police were killed as a result.

I see no reason to handle this discreetly. The dispatcher knew the man was armed with several combat-style rifles. How could lightly-armed police be sent to get him? How could an RCMP detachment not have access to more powerful weapons? This is something we should know about; and we're not going to know anything from a quiet investigation.

There's a story about Gallant returning from the Davos meeting between political leaders and the very rich. The story tells us nothing. And it leaves a big question (unintentionally). Why are political leaders meeting with big money as if they were all equals?

Page A6 has the big story aobut the Wild Readers of the Week. One boy, it seems, read 50 books last week. And how much to do you think he learned from that? And how does this, in any way, change the abysmal levels of literacy in this province? And how does it change all those children and adults who read nothing this week? What is the point of Wild Readers?

The point has nothing to do with literacy. This ridiculous contest exists for no reason but to give the impression the Irving press cares about literacy, and is playing a role in improving it.

The editorial, as always, deals with one of the great questions of the day – the 'booting' of cars parked illegally. The editorial writer's solution, as always, is SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

Three of the four commentaries are by people with a bias – three by politicians and one by a representative for big business. These aren't commentaries. Commentaries are analyses by informed and objective people.These are just propaganda in the interests of the writers. Can't the editors at Irving press be given a crash course in the basics of journalism?

Jo Anne Moore has a column worth reading on who should investigate the behaviour of police. It's a very fair commentary. The weak point is in the final paragraphs which avoid drawing any conclusion.

Canada and world? Forget it. The only real story is the shooting at a school in Saskatchewan. B3 has a big story about the potash industry. But it's a year late, and of no value today.

World news? By Irving press standards, that is the world news.

The Faith page sermonette deals with sexism in our society. It says you can find it even in church. Even in Church? No. Especially in church. Women are by no means treated as equals in The Bible, not in any part of it. For a start, almost all of it was written by men. All the disciples were men. From the start and for a couple of thousand years virtually all the clergy were men. Women who claimed to hear God were burned at the stake or drowned. Discrimination against women does not simply 'reflect our society'. It is at the very foundation of Christianity and Judaism – just as it is among Muslims. We give it different forms. But it's really all the same. That seems universal. I visited temples in China. All the religious figures there were male. Women went to temples only to give fruit to the Gods or to get their fortunes told (by a male priest.)

Oh, and in reference to Adam and Eve, God did not make Adam and Eve equal. Eve was the one created with the weakness to be tempted by Satan.

Anyway, can't our churches ever deal with the real world? We live in a world in which the rich are getting much richer daily, and doing it by impoverishing everybody else. The U.S. is spending so much money on weapons (to please the rich), that it cannot feed millions of its own poor. Canadian mining companies are forcing poverty on Latin America and Congo, among others, destroying environments, murdering people, forcing children to work in their mines….We have sent Canadians to kill people in Iraq and Syria. Does it not occur to writers for this page to wonder what Jesus might say about all this?

The bottom of the same page has a very short story about Pope Francis. It's a very tiny story. But it says more that all the sermonettes I have ever read on this page.

C11 has a column I had never noticed before. It's called Roots of the Past. This one is grandly titled History of the Boer War. And it's nothing like a history of that war.

For a start, it gives the impression that the war began when greedy immigrants (no nationality mentioned) flooded into South Africa to get its gold and diamonds. And then a war started with Britain.

Oh? Britain went to war to help greedy immigrants? Well, not quite.

The wealthy British sent in troops because they wanted to loot South Africa. They did so, working happily afterward with surviving Boers to keep the African people in ignorance and poverty – and out of power.

Canada sent over 7,000 to fight in the Boer War. Why? The writer seems to think this is an unimportant detail.

They were sent because wealthy Canadians wanted them sent. They wanted it because they depended on British investment and on access to imperial trade. So they had to kiss up to Britain – just as their descendants now kiss up to the U.S. Almost 250 Canadians died to make the wealthy happy. That's the same reason we sent Canadians to Afghanistan. That's why we're now killing people in Iraq and Syria.

Canadians also operated some of the concentration camps which held whole families of Boers and black Africans. That, too, is missing from this page in the Irving press. There are no reliable figures, but the total of prisoners in these camps was something like 107,000 black Africans, and some tens of the thousands of Boers. At least 12% of the Africans died of starvation and disease. 28,000 Boers died. Of those, some 25,000 were children. That meant half the national population of Boer children.

Mind you, child death from starvation , malnutrtion, exposure, disease was almost as high in British industrial cities and in hazardous work like mining. The wealthy have always had a casual outlook on the suffering they cause to others.

Though the article concludes this war was wrong, it says we should remember and honour the Canadians who served. Quite so. And using exactly the same reasoning, we should remember and honour the Germans and Japanese and Italians who died in World War Two. And the Russians. And the Chinese who died to bring Mao to power. And the native peoples who died fighting us.

(None of this is a criticism of the writer. If she had told the whole truth, the Irving press would never have printed it.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War#Public_opinion_and_political_opposition

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The Irving press didn't think it important enough to mention, but the U.S. has sent ground troops to Syria. That's illegal You can't send troops unless a)the official government has invited you or b) it has attacked you. Neither of these has happened. But American Exceptionalism makes it okay for the U.S. to break laws, just like it's okay to kill innocent people with drones.

It says it's sending them to fight ISIS. Like hell it is. The U.S. has largely ignored ISIS and has even helped it (by letting it raise money through selling oil, for example.) ISIS is one of the U.S. proxies fighting against Syria. These new ground troops are being sent to help the “rebels” against Assad.

And the Russians, with a legal right to be there, are there to defend Assad. This is very, very dangerous. It has also sent warships to regional waters. That's a deliberate warning to the U.S.

Then there is this story about Rwanda by an excellent journalist.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44017.htm

I was interested, but not surprised, to read that Australians are even worse than us in their treatment of native peoples and immigrants (unless they are are white and English-speaking.) It's one of the most bigoted countries on earth. Donald Trump would be a big hit in Australia.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44012.htm

Anyone who thinks war is humane should read the item below. It tries to examine the deaths of civilians caused by Russian and American (and a bit of Saudi and Turkish and Israeli and British and French and Canadian bombing.) Our news media never pay much attention to this (unless it's done by the other side.)

The truth is that it's not possible to bomb without killing civilians. That's why both sides, in 1942, decided they might as well make civilians their main target. More than any other country, the U.S. has specialized in massive bombing deliberately aimed at civilians.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Governments-Are-Killing-More-Civilians-Than-They-Care-to-Admit-20160122-0007.html

Here is a reminder of the refugee crisis that the west created. And the west created the crisis largely to please the big money in the oil industry. That's what this is all about. It began a long time ago, but this most recent phase began as a U.S. foreign policy that has been a proven disaster. Some would pick the first gulf war as the starting point for this. I lean to the Iraq invasion. But it has been at least 15 years of utter disaster with a world now far more dangerous and unstable and brutal than it was 15 years ago.

And Canada has allowed itself to get involved in this continuous disaster which is going to get a lot worse. Make up your mind Justin. Who do you represent in Ottawa. Canada? Or a handful of (mostly foreign) multi-billionaires? Is this an independent country? Or are we back in the days of the Boer War? Some day, very soon, Canada will have to decide. Justin, you gave the impression in the election campaign that you had made up your mind. If so, how come it's taking so long to act?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/22/deadliest-january-45-refugees-die-boats-capsize-aegean

And here's a story that I can't believe the Irving press missed. This is big news, important news, Irving press style, right up there with the Oland murder trial.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/22/nanny-jailed-for-20-years-for-murdering-and-chopping-up-employers

British soldiers are facing trial for war crimes committed in Iraq. The British prime minister's position is that this is disgusting, and that soldiers should be allowed to commit war crimes. Gee! So we were wrong to execute all those German leaders after World War Two. Maybe we should make a formal apology to the memory of Hitler.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/23/british-soldiers-should-not-be-above-law

And, speaking of war crimes, heres a story the Irving press would never publish.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/23/drone-strike-victim-barack-obama

The following commentary was sent to me by a reader. It's long. It can sometimes be confusing. It can sometimes be annoying. (sometimes, it annoyed me). But…………………………..on balance, I think it's on to something.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.ca/2016/01/donald-trump-and-politics-of-resentment.html

Now, I must go into training for tomorrow's effort at trying to bring all this stuff together.

Jan.22: The living dead of the Irving press.

Just a quick look at the Irving press.

Page A4 has a big story that Progressive Conservative MLAs are waiting before endorsing a leadership candidate. So bloody what? Let them wait.

On A5, a New Brunswick veteran has a war relic, a fragment of metal, he thinks is worth keeping. I think it is, too. But it's none of my business or of anybody's except the veteran. And now that I have that piece of information, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it. Oh, and a local restaurant should finish its renovations in about two weeks. Be still, my heart.

And that's it for the news.

The editorial has nothing of significance to say about food banks. It's final sentence is a common and useless one in editorial writing. In translation, it says, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

Cole Hobson's commentary is, as usual, not a commentary but just cutesy little story.

Alec Bruce has some sensible ideas for what governments and institutions should be doing in New Brunswick. But it gets vague on how this should be done.

There's an excellent guest column on why the provincial budget must look after the needs of N.B.'s poor. It's one of those rare columns to say that government that it exists to look after the needs of our society, not just to find ways of cutting budgets. It was written by Joanne Petitpas and Pauline Richard represent the New Brunswick Common Front for Social Justice.

A special thank you to Norbert Cunningham for making this intelligent column possible by going on leave.

Then there's Brian Murphy. There is certainly nothing objectionable in his remembrance of a Roman Catholic priest from Moncton. The only part of his work I am familiar with is the creation of St. Patrick's Recreation Centre of which I am an admirer. But…

….the general theme of Mr. Murphy's columns is that he sees only good wherever he looks. I have yet to see anything critical in any of his columns. Mr. Murphy is everybody's friend. In short, these columns appear to be written to benefit Mr. Murphy as Moncton's see not evil, hear no evil, speak no evil sweetheart. A commentary is supposed to stimulate our thinking, not to be self-serving for the writer.

And an “everybody's” friend is nobody's friend but his own.

Canada and World section is really dismal. There is no world. And the stories that are carried are the usual trivial ones. It takes a quarter of a page to inform us that that Peter MacKay says there's plenty of time for a leadership bid. (The world holds its breath.)

There's a half page to say Dennis Oland's appeal is expected to take months. One sentence would have been enough to tell us that. The big question the paper might deal with is – How common is it for a poor or even middle class person to be able to string out a trial for year, and to get relatives willing to put up a million in bail for them?

People are being starved to death and being murdered daily in Yemen. The U.S. and Britain are supplying the bombs, even though both are signatories to an agreement not to sell weapons to states with bad human rights records. And Saudi Arabia is among the worst. ( And, of course, Canada is selling it armoured cars.)

There's serious trouble developing between Pakistan and a faction of the Taliban. Saudi Arabia could be heading to a collapse. In Africa and Latin America, children as young as seven are working in the depths of mines owned by western corporations – in which a Canadian role is prominent. The death rate of those children, especially in Africa, is high. The U.S. carries out illegal drone attacks and special ops assassinations almost every day. But those are rarely mentioned.

The U.S. was carrying out torture in prisons rented all over the world. Is it still doing that? How come we've scarcely heard a word about Bernie Sanders in the Democrat leadership race, even though he's proving to be a real challenge to Hillary Clinton?

The U.S. has taken over an air base in Syria – even though that's illegal under international law. Israel has begun destroying Palestinian homes in a piece of Gaza that it intends to take from Palestine. Also illegal.

Then, on C5, we get U.K. judge: Putin likely approved plan to poison ex-spy. Notice the word 'likely'.

That means there's no proof he did. In fact, there was really no trial, certainly not a legal one in which there were witnesses. Can you imagine a Moncton judge finding a person guilty of crossing on a red light and fining that person despite a lack of witnesses who saw it happen? Can you imagine that judge saying, “We have no proof. But I think it likely you crossed on a red light. Fine $500."

Did Putin approve of the murder of a Russian spy? I have no idea. Of course, it's possible. But the whole idea of Britain holding such a 'trial' is pure propaganda.

It could be a starting point for an interesting series. Does Obama approve all the killings by drones? Of course he does. Did he approve of the murder of Osama Bin Laden? Of course. Does the British government approve of the killings by its 'James Bonds'? Sure. But when a British agent does it, it's because he has a license to kill. Remember? And that not evil. That's romantic. And, when it comes to such assassinations, Britain takes a back seat to no-one – except the U.S.

The U.S. routinely assassinates people in Latin America. Of course, Obama approves it. Under recent American law, the U.S. president has the right to order the killing of people, including U.S. citizens. And I h ave never seen a denial that he does it. Surely, even a sleepy village paper like the Irving press must know that.

Page C4 has a thought-provoking column on our tendency to conform. It's by student columnist Mhairi Agnew. Conformity seems a natural human trait arising from a desire to be accepted. Just today, I watched a bit of a film (a very old – 1940 or so) bad one. I noticed how, in every scene, somebody was smoking a cigarette or lighting one. Everyone was breathing clouds of smoke. And everyone was constantly having a glass of liquor – always good stuff, and always while wearing tux or evening gown. This is a prime example of how the tobacco and liquor industries used conformity to encourage smoking and drinking.

They paid fim-makers to show that smoking and drinking were what sophisticated people did all the time. This conditioned a rising middle class to see drinking and smoking as desirable, encouraging the middle class to see these as desirable conformities for themselves.

But I would caution Miss Agnew not to get her hopes up for university. Academics have their own conformities. After all, they're just human. As a working class boy who never really caught on to academic conformities, I always found this the unpleasant part of universities.

Apart, then, from three commentaries, including the student one, this paper is beneath contempt.

There is nothing on the militia standoff in Oregon. This is about as illegal as it gets. A couple of weeks ago, 150 heavily armed men occupied a government building, and have defied the police and the army. (Their number has since increased.)

Imagine what would happen if you and some friends bought guns, then openly took over say, the courthouse, defying the government to do anything about it. This is more than breaking the law. This is more than death threats. This is armed rebellion.

And nothing has happened. If the government is unwilling to shoot them (after all, they are white and Christian), it would surely be an easy matter to blockade the building, cut off electricity and supplies, and starve them out.

But it hasn't done anything. Why not?

Well, there's the white and Christian aspect. There's also the element that very large numbers of Americans and, more importantly, of big American money in the arms industry, support the concept of such a rebellion. This is a nation in hysteria. A forceful ending this rebellion could cause similar acts all across the U.S., and nobody can guess the consequences of that.

Action can and should be taken. These 'militia' should all be facing long jail sentences. But I don't think long jail sentences are going to happen. They would happen if these were African Americans or Muslim Americans. But they's jes' folks.

I think the damage is done. And this is one more step, probably a big one, in the collapse of American society.

Ralph Nader has an interesting summary of why the U.S. is a failing democracy, and why it probably doesn't matter who wins the election. He mentions the multi-billionaire Koch brothers who stand very tall in the U.S. - and in Canada.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/the-devastating-cost-of-m_b_9044900.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

I fear we may have passed the point in Canada, too, at which peaceful change can be made. The billionaires won't allow it.

Here's an interesting story from Britain. A study shows that 60% of all alcohol sold is sold to problem drinkers. Now, there's a project for the Irving press to look at. I have read a good deal about booze in the Atlantic provinces in history. Back in the 1850s, it was typical for whole families, including babies to be blasted on weekends. 100 proof rum (50% alcohol) from the West Indies was cheap. Stores commonly had an open barrel of the stuff so that clients could enjoy free booze while shopping. And, across Canada, when the minister came to call, it was basic politeness to give him a shot. That must have meant early to bed for clergy worn out by a day of visiting the sick and the frail.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/22/problem-drinkers-alcohol-industry-most-sales-figures-reveal

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And here's a very sensible reaction to the 'judicial' finding that Putin approved the killing of a Russian spy.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/22/litvinenko-sanctions-russia-putin-russian

And here's an opinion on a matter I can't call seeing in the Irving press, the poisoning of the water supply of a whole city in Michigan. ( Is this, perhaps, too delicate a matter to be discussed in New Brunswick?)

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/22/flint-water-crisis-epa-responsibility-justice

The following item is from a socialist news organization. But the information it quotes is not from a socialist source. It is from UN reports. It includes abuses by all sides in the middle east. But the point is it began with the first Gulf war when Bush Sr. was president.

Life in the middle east has become a horror, with just about everybody sharing blame for it. But the disruptive force, the one that started this descent into hell, was the American imperialism begun in the the first Gulf war, then enormously made worse by the American invasion of Iraq.

This topic of social disruption is one I have to remember for my Sunday blog.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44006.htm

And here's another story you won't find in the Irving press. Israel's ruthless expansion onto Palestinian territory has nothing to do with Judaic evil. It is heavily criticized by Jews in Israel and here in North America. But never even mentioned in the Irving news. It has nothing to do with Judaism at all. It has to do with the greed of the wealthy – which is pretty common in all religions.

https://www.rt.com/news/329622-israel-settlements-businesses-hrw/

By the way, you may notice a flicker in the corner of your screen when you connect with the home page for Information Clearing House. The flicker is the disappearance of the daily report of Americans killed by their own police. ICH runs it, but a thoughtful national government hacker intervenes so we don't see anything that might be upsetting.

Al Jazeera is remarkable for its depth and accuracy of news coverage – and for its opinions. Guess where the world's worst income inequality is. It's a region in which big Canadian capitalism is prominent. It's Latin America.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/world-inequality-countdown-160118072153499.html

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Then there's this piece on the opinions of Noam Chomsky, who never makes it into the Irving press because he's only published a hundred books and has world status as an intellectual. Nope. We get Richard Saillant stuffed down our throats.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/01/noam-chomsky-war-isil-160122112145301.html

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I'm having trouble getting Haaretz today, though it seems to have lots of good stuff, as usual. I may have to get a subscription.

Jan. 21: No. The world has not become nicer. But we can.

Richard Saillant, Norbert Cunningham and most of the Irving press staff have consistently warned us that we cannot afford the government spending we are doing. Our public service is way too big. We spend too much on education. Our public debt is on the edge of a cliff, says professor Saillant – and Norbert daily climbs on his desk, screams “over the cliff” and leaps, head-first, to the floor.

A reader sent me a brochure by David Coon, leader of the Parti Vert NB Green Party. Here's what David Coon says.

1. Our public service is the 4^th smallest in Canada. At 85 people per thousand of population, it is at the national average.

2. In education, NB is in the middle of funding per student across Canada.

3.In health service, NB is fifth of 10 provinces in its cost per person.

4. The proportion of out provincial revenue that goes to pay the provincial debt is less than that of six other provinces.

This sort of information is not difficult to find. How come it never occurred to any person on the staff of Irving press to look for it? Professor Saillant must surely have known all this. Mr. Gallant must have known all this.

Did Mr. Coon say this in the legislature? Has he said so in public? If he has, why want's it reported?

And even if the figures above are arguable, shouldn't we have known of their existence?

Do you smell a rat?

This province has been whipped into a frenzy, and private business has been allowed to intrude on health care (for its own profit at our cost.) And this has been done by a newspaper with the journalistic standards of a scandal mag or – more accurately – a propaganda machine that endlessly pumps out what the boss wants people to believe.

The public service is too big, and its salaries too large and overpaid? Well, in a democracy, a public service is what makes it possible for a nation to operate. Any modern country needs a well-educated public service. We pay them too much? Well, it's peanuts to what we pay for senior executives and board members in the private sector. And the salaries, bonuses, and perks for them come from OUR pockets, but like the salaries of public servants.

A newspaper should give us ALL sides of a story. It should give us all the news we need to know, so that we can decide what should be done. That's not what we have. And that means we cannot be a democracy.

The newspapers and the governments of New Brunswick have long been propagandists and liars, the spit-lickers for the wealthy, and indifferent to the needs of the people of New Brunswick.

Today's paper is not different from its usual self.

Gas prices could fall, we learn, but they will later go up. They quote an expert on that. I can't wait for their next 'expert says' story. “Sun will go down today, but will rise tomorrow.”

The real story is WHY it has gone down – WHY it will go up. It's going down because the market has been deliberately flooded with cheap oil This is a war. That's why Saudi is pumping huge surpluses. The king of Saudi Arabia is is not Santa Claus. It is being done to destroy the economies of competitors – like Russia, like Venezuela. For the big oil players in the U.S., this is part of the process of world conquest by the U.S., the one that is outlined in Project for the New American Century (which has never been mentioned in the Irving press), and exemplified by the concept of American exceptionalism (which has never been mentioned in the Irving press.

Once that conquest is achieved, the super-wealthy can get back to shafting all of us.

There's a story on Oland making an appeal and bail request. Of course. The family is behind him. Of course. After all, killing one's father looks so – you know – lower class. So there's lots of money to string this on forever. This has been going on for years. That's because in our system of equality before the law, you have to have a pile of money to be equal.

The editorial says nothing in particular. Norbert has a column on selling alcohol in grocery stores. Reading it, brought me back to the several years I spent researching letters, diaries, etc. about drinking in Canada a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. Norbert's columns remind me of the rants of those – on both sides.

Norbert, the issue here has nothing to do with encouraging or restricting alcohol. This is not a return to prohibition. It's about whether we should get the profits of alcohol sales or whether they should be privatized.

Letters to the editor has a good one on Prime Minister Bennett that beats both the editorialist and Norbert. R.B.Bennett, the very image of the arrogant and self-serving billionaire, was actually a man who learned to care about people. It was quite a remarkable transformation. That's why he introduced the legislation mentioned in this letter. There's also an excellent book called “The Wretched of Canada: Letters to R.B.Bennett – 1930-35” edited by Lynda Grayson and Michael Bliss. He was very much in touch with ordinary Canadians.

The depression years changed Bennett. Whatever else he might have been, he was a man with a soul and compassion. He came to office as a man who loved power. He left it as a man who loved people. Too bad that doesn't seem to be catching among billionaires.

There's a decent column pointing out the nonsense of Frank McKenna's idea of making immigrants promise to stay three years or more in the place they're billeted to.

Justin's Ryan's column is – well, you have to read it. This is one, powerful column. And it raises a subject I think I'll deal with on Sunday.

And Alec Bruce seems to be staying on safe ground.

There's really nothing in Canada and World.

There's a big story, deservedly so, about a Taliban attack on a university in Pakistan. But, like most news stories, there isn't much in this one to explain why it happened or what it means. Nor does it mention a kind of important bit of information. Pakistan has been a major supporter of the Taliban for many years. (Everybody's playing a game.)

There's also a big story that the U.S. and its favourite buddies in NATO have agreed to continue fighting the Islamic state. Was anybody expecting them to do anything else?

The Guardian has excellent opinion column on the corruption and rot of American democracy, and how it has been twisted to suit elite groups ranging from big business to big crime to gather all wealth into their hands, and impoverish everyone else. The U.S. is not the only place it happens. It has, over the years, been true in just about all western countries. And it's very evident in New Brunswick.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/17/oligarchy-broken-our-democracy-must-be-dislodged-election-2016

Also from The Guardian is this story about the world destruction of the fisheries. Another thing I have to think about for Sunday is the idiocy of international political debate (as in the U.S. leadership race) in it's concentration on hatreds, fears all designed to make us want to kill people who are in the way of our billionaires while we ignore far, far greater problems.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/fish-stocks-low-worse-official-figures

And this one just for the sheer truth of it.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/by-every-meaningful-measure-todays-elites-are-gods-this-should-make-us-angry

For some reason, editors at the Irving press didn't mention that Canada's largest newspaper conglomerate is merging operations and firing staff. That's no loss to the world of journalism. It isn't, like the Irving press, the ragged sewer of journalism. It's more a well-dressed sewer.

Newspapers just about everywhere are in trouble – perhaps due to TV and computers because they're easier to use. The trouble with TV is that us humans don't connect all that well with it – we just watch. We're not involved. And the trouble with computers is you get unreliable sources, like me.

Anyway, here is an important Canadian story that a Canadian newspaper missed. But a British one got it. (An editor really should have noticed a story like that.)

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jan/20/canadas-largest-newspaper-publisher-cuts-jobs-and-merges-newsrooms

The following column is long, but worth reading to see the hatred of Muslims from a Muslim point of view. As I read, it occurred to me that if I were a Muslim writing this blog, I would almost certainly be labelled an extremist, be denied airline travel, and be subject to constant surveillance by Canada's gestapo. Odd. I can't remember any attacks on Christianity in World War Two, even though Hitler declared himself a devout Christian (RC).

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/01/western-attempts-moderate-islam-dangerous-160118081456021.html

Then there's this rather complex analysis of Iran and Saudi Arabia in what their strife is all about. Like almost all strife, it's about money and markets. But that's not a socially acceptable reason to kill people. So our news media keep it simple for us by talking about things like democracy, extremists and moderates and other fictions.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44005.htm

Now, I must give some thought to Sunday, when I try to suggest how we should respond to all this.

Jan. 20: the headlines is actually real news....

Unfortunately, it is very bad news. A potash mine in New Brunswick will close with a heavy loss of jobs that will effectively destroy much of the community. It's too early to pronounce on what action should be taken.

There is nothing else in section A that could reasonably be called news.

The editorial is, to put it kindly, confusing. Wild salmon are in danger. New Brunswick, therefore, severely limits the salmon fishery – to a degree that has cut heavily into our tourist trade for sport fishermen.

Meanwhile, other countries continue the fishery for market, driving the salmon toward extinction. Says the editorial, why should New Brunswickers be denied their traditions and jobs while other countries continue their commercial fisheries?

Duh, I dunno. Because it might save the wild salmon?

Then, in a burst of intelligence, the writer says we should ban salmon fishing in New Brunswick and that would convince Europe to stop consuming salmon.

Well, I certainly think we should ban it. But I doubt that would make Europeans feel guilty enough to change their eating habits. However, combined with federal pressures on European governments, it might have some effect.

Norbert has been reading about the Detroit Auto Show and what cars will be like in 50 years or so. This is a good read for anybody who really, really cares what cars will look like in fifty years. Personally, I would think this is not one of the great issues facing New Brunswick in 2016.

There's a big, big column by a former MLA for New Brunswick. It's about the economy, and it has very little to say. Even the very little is old stuff that we've heard many times. But above it, for no clear reason, is a very, very big photo of Mr. Gallant looking as Moses must have when he stood on the mount to see the Israel he could never enter.

Brian Cormier writes a column about keeping your home tidy.

Alec Bruce blows kisses to Frank McKenna for reasons that are not clear to me. The final quarter of it is about a foolish comment McKenna made about refugees being forced to remain in the town they are sent to for at least a year. And then he ends with a pointless sentence.

This isn't a commentary of any sort. It has no opinion. Just kisses. For the first time, this is the worst column on two pages of bad columns.

The five pages of Canada and World rarely get outside Canada – or even New Brunswick.

On B2, Mulcair says the NDP has to articulate is social democratic vision. Wrong.

It has to develop a social democratic vision. It hasn't had a social democratic vision since the world was young and the CCF became the NDP.

On B4, the federal government is still pretending it doesn't matter that it wasn't invited to an anti-ISIS coalition meeting – and it's not a snub. The Conservatives are equally inane. They say it is a snub, and it's happening because Canada has become a small-timer in international affairs.

In fact, Canada has almost always been a small-timer in international affairs. First, it was because we were just a colony. We had a burst of world respect under Lester Pearson when he developed the peace-keeping role. But that withered a long time ago. Since then, we've been a lapdog for the U.S. Everybody knows that. Except us.

The Conservatives say this shows we're not big players. Okay. Take a look at who was invited to the meeting. Netherlands. Italy. Australia. The Netherlands, Italy and Australia are big players? The UK and France ceased to be big players after World War Two. And I haven't seen Germany as a big player on the world map since 1945.

The anti-ISIS coalition is a creation of the American government to serve the interests of American billionaires. And it's largely a fraud because the U.S. and some of its friends have been bankrolling ISIS from the start – as well as causing the destabilization that has made ISIS possible.

That whole pot has become so rotten, we should be able to smell it. And the idea that we should send Canadians to kill and die for the sake of profits for a handful of billionaires (while telling them they are fighting for Queen and country and democracy,etc.) is disgusting.

Just below this is the story that Harper may have made it impossible for Canada to lift sanctions on Iran, even though the US and others have. Just can't kiss up enough, eh, Harper?

The cause of all this was the American decision that Iran was a terrorist state. Imagine. The U.S. had to gall to say that. The U.S. is the country that overthrew the elected government of Iran, and installed a dictator who ruled by terror. The U.S. is the country that has murdered uncounted millions all over the world, mostly civilians. The U.S. is the major country that has created chaos and deliberate starvation in the middle east – as in Yemen. The U.S. is the country that has tortured thousands. The U.S. and its buddies are the ones behind ISIS. And we're expected to wimp up behind the U.S. because it says Iran is a terrorist country.

The story in today's paper also says that Iran is destabilizing the region. Think of the murder and plundering that western countries have inflicted on that region for over a century. And explain to me how it's all the fault of Iran.

B6. “Iraqi Kurdish forces deliberately destroy Arab villages”. Now, tell me how often you've seen headlines that said, “U.S. forces DELIBERATELY destroy Iraq (Yemen, Afghanistan, Guatemalan, Vietnamese, etc.) villages.”

In the same story we are told the Iraqi Kurds are committing a war crime. Now, tell me how often you're read a news report saying that millions murdered by the U.S. have been war crimes, the invasion of Iraq was a war crime, the sale of cluster bombs to be dropped on Yemen have been war crimes, the years of torture of thousands of prisoners have been war crimes.

The use of that word 'deliberately' is a variety of propaganda. So is the use of 'war crimes'. These words, almost invariably, are applied only to the other side.

So it's another copy of the Irving press that tells us almost nothing – and propagandizes even that.

Israel is daily using aircraft to spray pesticides all over Gaza. The dosage is heavy, and it covers everything – fields, houses, schools… The purpose? To make Gaza unlivable. Gee. Are we ever lucky that Mr. Irving would never do that to us! And, even if he tried to, the Irving press would certainly tell him off.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/israel-spraying-toxins-palestinian-crops-gaza-160114063046813.html

To that has been added severe restrictions on the supply for gas for heating in the Gaza strip. Some estimates are that it may be unlivable as soon as 2020.

Some weeks ago, I had a post (see comments) from an angry mining engineer who wrote he had never heard of mines that paid starvation wages or coerced employees or used children. So here's an item that might interest him. It's a story about 16 international mining corporations that use children as young as seven. And that's just for cobalt mining.

The work is very dangerous, often killing dozens in a day. And it pays close to nothing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/apple-samsung-and-sony-failing-to-act-on-child-labour-in-mines-amnesty-claims-a6821126.html

The U.S. prisons hold a staggering 2.2 million prisoners, one-quarter of all prisoners in the world. What's more staggering is that 2 million of them are serving time – without having had a trial. Here's the story by a pretty reputable journalist.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43974.htm

We are very close to what has been called the fourth industrial revolution – the use of robots to replace employees. This should be good news because it should enable all of us to work shorter hours. But it may not work that way under our form of capitalism. Greed and short-sightedness (very prominent among our big money leaders) would mean maintaining the present work week, and simply firing extra people.

Business has no sense of responsibility for people, only for profits. That's why we need government as the agency to look out for people. Unfortunately, big business has been very successful at buying governments (and using news media as propaganda). As a result, the effect of robotization is more likely to be a drop in human employment and, given the surplus of people, a drop in the salaries of those who do get jobs.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/19/fourth-industrial-revolution-set-to-benefit-richest-ubs-report-says.

I have found many sources echoing the cry that mass migration means the end of Europe. I find it hard to take any of them seriously.

In the first place, the whole world is made of up immigrants. (With the possible exception of African countries.) Celts have spread over a wide area – Ireland, Scotland, France, Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand. We are all of us an astonishing mix. That's something you learn when doing a family tree. So there's nothing new about countries accepting immigrants, and still surviving as countries.

But do immigrants change countries? Of course they do. In fact, even without immigrants, countries are in constant change as a result of world trends, economies, climate change, social values, rise or decline of religions…… Canada has changed a great deal since, say, 1800. And I have met few who would prefer to live in 1800 again.

And I would think some change would be very healthy for a Europe that has such a long history of civil war, foreign war, imperial war, religious fanaticism….

In the early 1900s and up almost to 1950, there was considerable agitation from prominent Canadian social, political, religious leaders to keep out Jews. Can anyone cite examples of how Canadian Jews have destroyed Canada? For the same reasons, there were many who wanted to reject immigrants from Ukraine, Italy, China, Japan. Does anyone feel Canada has suffered a great loss by their coming?

Europe is the same. In fact, its societies are getting almost mouldy. I've seen enough of British social class idiocies to convince me of that. Without immigration from the Roman empire, Scandinavia, France (and the addition of Scotland), the English would still be going about naked, and painting themselves blue for battle.

Would religions different from Christianity have any impact on our Christian society? I should certainly hope so. The biggest threat to Christianity is and always has been Christians. And after 2,000 years of Christianity, I see no sign of peculiarly Christian values in our governments (that we elect) or in our economic system – and none whatever on the Saturday Faith page of the Irving press.

And what is Christian in our worship of the very rich? What is Christian in our eagerness to fight wars to make billionaires richer?

Name a statement by Donald Trump that reflects Christian values. (Or Stephen Harper or almost any politician,)

My experience, growing up in a city of immigrants, was that they enormously broaden our thinking and enrich us. So the more different they are, the better.

The people who really suffer from immigration are the ones whose (visiting) immigrants have been western capitalists and their gunslingers. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a prime example.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/01/blood-minerals-profits-conflict-drc-160118124123342.html

I have met many of these gunslingers posted to China, Africa. They were in controlled types of government, in mining, in factory farming….They were American, Canadian, British, French – and they are as unpleasantly arrogant and bullying and uncaring as humans can be.

On news in general.

From what I've seen so far, al Jazeera has the widest range of coverage of the good papers. Haaretz is good, but much smaller, and pretty much restricted to middle east news – and mostly news of Israel. The Guardian comes second in range of coverage – and is maybe a little ahead of al Jazeera in quality – but they're close.

Information Clearing House can be a mixed bag. Its good reporters and commentators are very, very good, indeed. But you have to watch out for those writing from a bias.

The Independent ( UK) can be excellent on foreign news – which seems strange in a paper that is otherwise blah.

The CBC is honest, and is usually good. But it's under tremendous pressure from governments that don't want it to be either honest or good. CBC is also the only radio news service I know of that is a real news service. (BBC's reputation has suffered in recent years.)

Private TV doesn't need pressure. It's just naturally neither honest nor good, with Fox at the bottom of the barrel.

News from private radio is usually a bad joke. Any private radio I have dealt with has no capacity for anything but local news – and not much staff (often none) for that. Nor does it usually have anything that could be called an editor.

I don't know of a good newspaper in North America. In Canada, the Globe and Mail is probably the best of a bad lot. The National Post is a real stinker, and packed with arrogance and bias. In this, it reflects the personality of its founder.