A TIME FOR CELEBRATION--AND SUSPENSE

    
     WHY IS BEGINNING A NEW YEAR such an exciting time, an occasion for celebration? Is it, as many suggest, because we have come to collectively recognize it as a time for summing up, for clearing the decks and starting anew? Or is it just an excuse for yet another party, a modern version of "pagan" winter festivals, before we have to plunge back into the same old rat race?
     I suppose it all depends on how we individually look at it. Perhaps there will seem something of the obvious in my own view on the matter, but, just to be clear about what that view is, I'd say most people are influenced in their outlook by how they made their way through the year just ended.
     If it has been a good year in their personal lives, say with an earnings increase or other happy event, they'll naturally be in an optimistic mood and eager to celebrate.
     Others less fortunate may be more inclined, if they are still able to "accentuate the positive," to welcome the symbolism of a new year as an opportunity for achieving a better life in the year ahead, and thus welcome New Year's partying as a way to express thankful good riddance to a difficult twelve months, and then celebrate with a degree of hope for the future.

     THERE'S A CHRISTIAN BACKGROUND to the celebration of New Year's Day, although, as with Christmas, the seasonal celebration aspect pre-dates Christianity; for example, ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians and Persians began their year at the autumnal equinox, and the Greeks at the winter solstice. And they celebrated.
     The Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia says that in the Middle Ages under the Julian Calendar, "most European countries . . . observed New Year's Day on March 25, called Annunciation Day and celebrated as the occasion on which it was revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the Son of God."
     But with the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1582 (says my Encyclopedia Britannica), Roman Catholic countries began to celebrate New Year's Day on Jan. 1. Scotland followed in 1600, and Germany, Denmark and Sweden about 1700, England in 1752.
     The Jewish New Year, called Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of Trumpets, comes in September, and is prescribed by the Old Testament as a holy Sabbath. The Chinese celebrate New Year's between Jan. 10 and Feb. 19 of the Gregorian Calendar. In India, because of wide cultural and ethnic diversity, New Year's is celebrated, usually as religious festival, on a number of different dates.
     For the world generally, though, we know that it runs mostly on the same Gregorian Calendar in many ways, so Jan. 1, and the night leading up to it, are big events just about everywhere.

     HOW IS IT, YOU WELL MIGHT ASK,  that our present-day New Year's festivities, in North America, other English-speaking nations, in South America, Africa, big chunks of Asia, and much of Europe besides, have lost their "holy" flavor?
     Well, I've searched for some authentic explanation, but have come up empty. I am therefore obliged to fall back on hunch and instinct: I believe that we must put it down to decadence, friends, pure decadence. We might, in fact, go so far as to say, "a backsliding to paganism."
     Those of religious bent, however, should not be too distressed, because they can take consolation from the fact that we have adopted the practice of making New Year's "resolutions," whether we're adherents of a religion or not.
     When we make resolutions to do better in this aspect or that of our personal lives in the coming year, are we not seeking improvement in a somewhat conscience-stricken way? And is not achievement of a clear conscience an everyday pursuit, practice and indeed promotion, of just about every religion? Quite so. And let us hope that the good resolutions are resolutely kept by one and all.

     WHAT DO WE HOPE FOR THE NEW YEAR? Everyone makes his or her own choices in replying to that question, so I can give only my own answers. Each of the answers, I must say, involves some element of suspense, because, well, that's part of the attraction of this time of year: Not knowing  what the future will bring. About all we can be sure of is that there will be surprises.
     Most people will, I expect, initially think about hopes for the New Year from a self-concerned point of view; that is, they consider their own status in life--economic, social, healthwise and otherwise--and how it might be improved. But before long they will also turn to considering the state of their nation and the world, since all are linked. If the nation is doing well, then they're more likely to as well; ditto the world.
     As for myself, I'll keep my personal-life concerns to myself (until such time as I decide otherwise, of course, because almost anything can be a subject for this space), but I will now proceed to briefly share my own personal and sometimes offbeat outlook on the nation and the world.

     ELECTIONS, ANYONE? It is highly unlikely that the people of British Columbia will be able to get through the year 2011 without an election, and might experience two, not counting the municipal kind. The two main B.C. parties are about to be leaderless, and so they, the Liberals and the New Democratic parties, will be staging leadership conventions to select replacements for Premier Gordon Campbell and NDP leader Carole James.
     The scramble to succeed each seems to be pretty lively. But, not having much more than an average citizen's knowledge of such goings-on (my days of covering politics being long gone), I won't try to pontificate about who might win the leadership jobs.
     As far as the Liberals are concerned, it would seem a stretch to think they can come up with anyone who has enough charisma and ability to rescue them from the low-popularity black hole that Campbell dug for his party. But one never knows, given the highly effective status modern political advertising-brainwashing has attained.
     With the NDP, one can only hope that the party's leadership goes to none of the cabal of backstabbers who performed their coup against James. There are more honorable ways of doing things.

     AND WHAT ABOUT THE NATIONAL SCENE? A national election, according to most reports, is being put down under the heading, "Likely, maybe." Today's news (Dec. 30, 2010) included a report that the minority government under Conservative PM Harper is making preparations to get into election mode, starting soon with a Harper cabinet shuffle.
      If a federal election does come in 2011, it will present Canadians with an important choice. They will have to examine very carefully where the Conservatives really stand when it comes to the national health insurance plan, Medicare.
      Voters will need to ask themselves whether they are prepared to risk cutbacks in--or even loss of-- that vital program should the Conservatives win a majority. If they have any smarts, the national Liberals will make Medicare and its future the main issue--and they should, quite justly, make the most of Harper's early-career expressions of firm dislike for such schemes as Medicare. As leader of a minority government, he has seemed relatively benign on the question, but if he should be handed a majority, I say, "Watch out!"

     THE AFGHANISTAN WAR IS THE OTHER major issue of the next federal election campaign.  Yes, the Canadian troop drawdown is in the works, but it seems to me there is a degree of government disingenuousness about precisely how and when and to what degree this will occur. I think this may be as a result of pressures on Ottawa from Washington, which needs all the help it can get.
     There is another military issue to consider: the federal government's deal--around $8 billion--for the purchase of up to 80 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.
     What's going on here? This is, or will be, one of the most efficient killing machines ever invented. Why do we, supposedly sensible Canadians, need these aircraft? So we can take part in a U.S. attack on Iran--or on Venezuela, or on any other country that dares to disagree with the U.S.?
     (Well, probably not Iran. It's too able to defend itself. Besides, to attack and invade Iran the U.S. probably would have to institute the draft, and that would be an insurmountable political problem for Mr. Obama. Maybe Venezuela, though. It has lots of oil, so we can be forgiven for thinking of the American conquest of Iraq and its oil. Except that, right, Venezuela is really friendly with Iran, and, besides, it might not be exactly a pushover militarily . . . . Well, maybe the Americans will pick somebody or something to attack, no doubt some place with oil, and likely ask us to go along for the ride . . . why, yes, with weapons like the F-35.)
     The F-35 deal to my mind is one of the most scandalously wasteful deals in Canada's history. It should not be allowed to proceed, in spite of any cancellation penalties that might be involved.  The Liberals and other Opposition parties have a duty here, and they must use every means at their disposal to stop that deal. If it means an election through a vote in Parliament that defeats the government, then fine--I say that with the voters of Canada,  that deal will not fly.

     FOR TITLE OF "LEADING HUMANITARIAN AND Newsmaker of The Year,"  I nominate Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks mastermind. He has brought to the public information the world has needed for many a year--the exposure of the not very pretty inner workings of the greatest and most powerful empire humanity has ever known, that, of course, of the country known as the U.S.A.
     The world cannot help but benefit in major ways because that empire, and any future pretenders to empire, are going to have take greater pains in informing an increasingly skeptical public about their policies and actions, if they wish to continue in elective, democratic office. They have suffered in the trust department. (Unfortunately, early reactions do not indicate a leaning in the direction of self-correcting reforms in government practices. The opposite--meaning greater pains to cover up with even greater authority--appears to be the more likely outcome.)
     One of the difficulties I see in the whole Assange-WikiLeaks story, however, is a very serious one and could present potential life and death issues. I am speaking of the lives of Mr. Assange and his organization's large crew of workers.
      Assange himself seems to me to be in real peril of never being able to walk a free man again and, in fact, might even find his life in danger, whether walking free or not. We've already heard calls from some in the U.S. proposing his summary execution. If the same attitudes extend toward any who might replace Assange in the event of his long-term incarceration, or of his execution or "disappearance," or extend even to those who work for WikiLeaks, then totalitarianism will have replaced democracy. We can only wish Assange and his helpers well, and hope we are totally wrong in the possibilities we have projected.              

     IN ANY NEW YEAR REVIEW,  ECONOMICS surely must top the list of assessments. The way things are economically today, and have been for the past couple of years, it's probable that a great many people will be happy to have made it through 2010 with little or no economic loss, never mind gain. And, in facing the 12 months ahead, both sets of individuals, the fortunate and unfortunate alike, will be including a note of caution in their expectations.
     It can be taken as a given that we face a rocky path ahead, through and probably beyond 2011, according to quite a few estimates. The U.S. would seem to be a major part of the problem. Of course Canada has by most accounts survived, and even recovered to a point, from the world "failure" economy of the past two years. We thus may adopt a holier-than-thou posture with relation to the rest of the world, and our so-called journals and broadcast outletssof record, and their knowing commentators, see good times returning, sort of.
     Canadians should not be misled. It's true that we are somewhat significant as a "petro-power" and we also have other vast resources. But the fact is that we are still very, very much tied (attached, bound, locked) to the U.S. economy. As the U.S. goes, so goes Canada; that is almost axiomatic.
     The problem is, the U.S. economy has been tanking, and there hasn't been much sign of recovery, although its government has tried heroically to put on a bright face.
     The thing that seems to me to belie the recovery scenario is America's debt picture. I do not think things can go very well for a country when its government  appears to believe (as has been evident in U.S. governments for some years, but seemingly more so now than ever) that the solution for too much debt is . . .  more debt.
      But aside the problems of the U.S., the world at large faces a continuing major--and much ignored--problem in the form of ongoing massive population expansion, as much as 83,000,000 extra mouths to feed per year.
      So far, world food production apparently is able to more or less keep up with the demand, but how long that can last is anybody's guess. At the moment in our part of the world we are experiencing price increases for food, and the ominous indications are that plenty more are in store.  
        
     BUT ENOUGH OF THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS for now. It's easy to say the world is going to hell in a handbasket, because (as has been often noted in the past) the world is always going to hell in a handbasket.
     It is also true that many people, many countries, many governments are doing their best to keep the world from arriving at an actual hellish place--and at this time of the year, while recognizing that they and we are far from perfect, we have to wish them well and hope for the best.
     If we are going to solve problems, of course, we need to define them, and supplying a degree of definition is my purpose in this Blog entry today.
     So I have to emphasize that, whatever may be in store for Canada, the U.S. and of the rest of the world, we cannot abandon hope for improvement, and we ought to individually try to work for it, through our contacts with others, and through our votes.
     In that spirit, and in a truly neighborly way, I also believe that we Canadians can and should say, to each other and to all peoples:
      "A Happy New Year to you and yours!"
          
          
  
  

  


 

STARTING ANOTHER GREAT SOLAR TOUR

     A NATIONAL CELEBRATION--Today, of course, we are celebrating a Great Canadian Event, the national football championship game. As everyone knows, it's in Edmonton, with the Saskatchewan Roughriders taking on the Montreal Alouettes in a contest for the Grey Cup. Millions of us, myself included, with my amazing extended family, will be watching.
     But there is another great event taking place in Canada today as well, and I like to claim, more or less in a jocular way, that it is what's being celebrated in the form of The Big Game and, thus, by all of Canada.
     I can say that with some confidence, too, because the Grey Cup game often falls on the same day as the second event.
     I blush to say what that second event is, but there's no avoiding it, so here goes:
    Today is my birthday! The day I begin yet another orbit of the sun. And, today, instead of mounting my blog's soapbox and declaiming about some failure in fairness and justice and common sense, or poking fun at this or that, I intend to indulge myself and use this space to speak about my birthday, birthdays in general, their meaning (if any), and about the matter of aging.
     Myself, I'm a "Thursday's child," a child the time-honored verse says will go far. (You know, the verse that says Sunday's child is this, Tuesday's child is that, and so on.)
    Well, I've already covered the question of going far with the reference to my new year getting under way by starting another circuit of the sun, which is one hell of a long way. How long? I've heard it said by experts (being the Monty Python comedy group, with its "Galaxy Song") that our globe, which spins at the rate of about 1,000 miles an hour, takes a year, travelling in orbit, to make one circuit of the sun, and it's moving at a rate of 19-or-so miles per second in so doing.

     SO, EVERYBODY ON THIS PLANET is going far (and, you might say, moving fast, flying off in all directions).
     Okay, maybe that's not what the Thursday's child line meant by going far. It no doubt means something like "going far in life." How far I've gone or will yet go in life is for others to say, not me.
     One thing that I can state for certain about my birth is that it came at an historic time--almost exactly one month after the Great Crash of Wall Street that marked the beginning of The Great Depression.
     In fact, another little joke I concocted about my birthday--that I was the first good thing to happen after the Wall Street Crash--came to my mind when I suppose I was around eight or nine years of age and the idea of what an economic depression was had finally hit me. Until then, I suppose I had thought this was the way things always were, since it was all I had known.
     I learned a lot from hearing my father talk at great length about Wall Street, in a very unkindly way--somewhat, you know, the way people talk so angrily and bitterly about Wall Street today. History, it seems, does repeat.
     My own childhood slowness in recognizing economic reality, such as might be expected in a well-fed-and-clothed rich kid with few worries (whom we defined as being a kid whose father had a regular job and whose kitchen had an actual fridge) was not a result of mental laxness. No, I think it was because I was a child, and, although we were economically poor, we (my brother, sister and I and our chums) always were able to find ways in East Vancouver of playing games and making up our own entertainments.
    Depression or no depression, we managed to have fun. (But once we got a radio, probably from some used-furniture shop, that was heavenly, I couldn't get enough of it. Oh, I loved that old Lyric.)

     IN RECOGNITION OF TODAY'S PERSONAL OCCASION, I have searched for information on the celebration of birthdays. One thing that took my eye (looking at Wikipedia) is that early Christians were against birthday celebrations because at that time birthdates were linked to astrology, considered by Christians to involve heathen and pagan beliefs, and therefore the work of the devil.  Today, we look at horoscopes, most of us, just for fun.
     Then I thought, well, perhaps I can find a quotation or two on birthdays from some famous writers. I have quite a number of books of quotations, yet my findings were sparse. But here's one from Alexander Pope (1688-1744), the great English poet:
     "...pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind,
      and count each birthday
      with a grateful mind..."
      That's a nice thought indeed. I lifted it from a book called 40,000 Quotations, published by Halcyon House, New York, 1937.

      THEN I SEARCHED FOR QUOTATIONS on aging,  since I am, with much gratitude to medical science, still enjoying the process of aging.
     Here's a quote from the Bible:
     "Good old age." Genesis XV, 15.
     An English writer named Seymour Hicks wrote this:
     "You will recognize, my boy, the first sign of age. It is when you go out into the streets...and realize for the first time how young the policemen look." Quoted in the Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations.
     Another Englishman, named Ronald Blythe, declared that:
     "With full-span lives having become the norm, people may need to learn how to be aged as they once had to learn how to be adult." From the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Blythe had a point.
     The French essayist La Rochefoucauld, in his Maxim 461, said:
     "Age is a tyrant who forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of life." The International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations,  Copp Clark Co., Toronto, 1908 edition.
     I'll try to remember that viewpoint in celebrating my birthday today.

     "THE TENDENCY OF OLD AGE, say the physiologists, is to form bone. It is as rare as it is pleasant, to meet with an old man whose opinions are not ossified." That's a quote from J.F. Boyse, in 40,000 Quotations. All I can say about it is, "Hear, hear!"
     A writer by the name of Bonstetten has recorded these thoughts on aging: "To resist with success the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart. To keep these in parallel vigor, one must exercise, study, and love."
     Now, there's a man of wisdom for you.
     I have many more quotations at hand on age and aging, but too many of them are looking at the subject in a somewhat gloomy manner, and I do not believe birthdays are the sort of days that need any consideration of such sentiments. So I will end these notes on the passage of time, as represented by birthdays, with the following two gems.
     "There's no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." -- George Santayana, quoted in The Viking Book of Aphorisms, a personal selection by W.H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, 1966.
     "Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative." -- Attributed to Maurice Chevalier, the great French entertainer, quoted in Contemporary Quotations, 1964.  


     THE 1929 GREY CUP--In case I am asked, "Was there a Grey Cup, Granddad (or Great-Granddad) 'way back in 1929?" I will supply the answer now. You bet your life there was, kids. The Hamilton Tigers played the Regina Roughriders in Hamilton. Hamilton won, 14-3.
     They did not hold it on my birthday that year. Probably because they hadn't yet heard of my birth, since the game was held on November 30, 1929, only two days after my birth.
      I did not watch it on TV. Well, I was only two days old. But that's not the only reason I didn't watch it on TV.  Nobody did. You will find this hard to believe, kids, but there was no TV then. And, you know, life still went on....

     MUSN'T FORGET THE POLITICAL SCENE. In the world of politics of that day, the names I'm about to record were relatively famous.
     Those in three of the top jobs, on the day I was born, were the following.
     Premier of B.C.,  Simon Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, in office from 1928-1933.
     Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Liberal, who had several terms: December, 1921 to July, 1926; September, 1926 to August, 1930, and October 1935 to November, 1948.
     In the U.S., Herbert Hoover, Republican, was President.
     Oh, before I head off to my party, here's your truly's horoscope for the day, courtesy The Vancouver Sun:
     "Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)-- The changes going on within your personal circle may be disconcerting but, as long as you know where you belong and how you can make the most of your situation, you have nothing to fear."
     Well, how hard can that be?
     Happy Birthday--whenever yours may come!
    

THE KEY TO EQUALITY FOR WOMEN

     WHAT FOLLOWS IS DEFINITELY A PITCH for the women's vote, and I think that by the time I've outlined it you'll see how sane, sensible and simple it is.
     Before I get into the details, however, I'm obliged to disclose an element of self-interest, which is that I am the father of three daughters and thus personally interested in issues of women's equality (as are they, and as was their much-loved late mother, my wonderful Shirley).
     I also have to declare that in making a pitch for the women's vote I am not running for anything, I am not seeking elected office--but I am making a pitch on behalf of women's voting rights.
     Oh, you might say, women have long had the vote, where have you been? And I say, sure, but has it brought them equality? In other words, there's more to it than just having a vote.
     The pitch I am about to make shows the way to gender equality in electoral politics. Such equality does not now exist, though it is paid lip service. The deck is stacked against women when it comes to electing representatives to local, regional, provincial and national bodies. I also say the answer to the problem is so obvious that it's shocking to realize it has never been adopted.
     I believe there remains truth in the old saying that "it's a man's world," in spite of decades of so-called advances in women's equality. The peculiar thing to me is that we keep hearing and reading about the "glass ceiling" in board rooms and in other areas of private business, finance and industry, as well as in politics, but we don't hear much about the solutions, other than that, well, some advances are being made, male leaders and those in power are showing more awareness, etc. etc. (Really? Sure, women now make up some 22 per cent of Canada's House of Commons, up 1.4 percentage points in a decade. Wow.)
     Clearly, statistics on advances for women change slowly and women, though making up half and even marginally more of the population, remain significantly under-represented.

     A GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHAT MIGHT BE called a more advanced nation in the field of women's rights, Norway, has taken a significant step forward, but even it comes short of "going half-way." The Swiss-based writer and academic Ginka Toegel, points out that in 2008 Norway introduced "the requirement of 40 per cent women on boards." There was an initial outcry of criticism in the media and politicians, she notes, but it was found that there were easily enough qualified women for the jobs, and the results have been excellent.
     The proposal I have to make does not relate to the private sector, and it is not based at all on what Norway may have done or not done. It is based on something I discovered about six years ago as a great idea that would deal with the gender equality issue pretty well at its roots: electoral equality of the sexes.
     The system I endorse would make gender equality on all our publicly elected bodies not a matter of whim or chance, but would make it a sure thing, whatever the body up for election or whenever the vote might be held.

     THE OUTCOME COULDN'T HELP BUT DELIVER equality for women in all segments of society. The system would work like this:
     Electoral laws would be amended to ensure that in each and every riding, provincial or federal, in each and every seat available on any municipal or regional body, there would be a female representative and a male representative.
     Voila! Gender equality in fact, in spirit, in every practical way--with all the consequent improvements to society that could not help but result. Because the woman's viewpoint today is, I believe most women will agree, vastly under-represented in our legislatures and national parliament. The guarantee of gender equality in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not doing the job.
     I don't claim credit for the method of equal representation I am proposing. To the best of my knowledge, it, or some form of it, originated in first nations communities, and was proposed and voted on by referendum in some Arctic communities; unfortunately, it was voted down.
     I could be wrong, but I suspect that dominant male influence--and perhaps larger male voting numbers--were factors preventing implementation of a built-in equal gender representation in the Arctic.
     People with whom I have discussed this idea have questioned how it could be practically done. My answer is that in each provincial and federal riding there would be a ballot with a list of male candidates, and a ballot with a list of female candidates, and the person to top the poll would be an elected member--thus, one woman representative for the riding, and one male.

     BUT WHAT ABOUT THE EXPENSE? All those extra salaries, and related costs?  These are the main questions people ask. My answer is that this could be worked out by perhaps some consolidation of constituency boundaries, so that the increase in number of MLAs and MPs would not be drastic. Or, heck, we could go to an actual doubling of representation. As to the expense, well, I would ask: "What price can you put on democracy?" And when half the population is greatly under-represented, then it's rather difficult to call that real democracy, don't you think?
     I made a proposal to amend electoral law along these lines to the B.C. Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform of 2004, in a written submission. I received thanks for the submission from the assembly's office staff, but in its final report I could find nothing on the subject of electoral equality for women. This, despite the fact that in appointing the members of the commission, the provincial government had taken pains to ensure that half its membership was made up of men and half of women.
     We have yet, by the way, to see any significant reforms arise from the commission's efforts. It devoted most of its attention to a choice between to the majority-plurality system of declaring a winner in any given seat and the proportional representation-single transferrable ballot system, with no inclusion of gender equality in its findings.
     In a 2009 referendum on the choice, the single transferrable ballot system fell far short of the 60 per cent majority that was required for its adoption, so the majority-plurality system remains in effect.
     Ladies, you've got to put the heat on those guys running our politics. Remember, true equality is the objective. And you haven't got it, because it really requires equal representation.
                    
 

CANADIAN RATES U.S. ELECTION A SMASH HIT

     AN ENTERTAINMENT DELIGHT--Put up your hands, all Canadians who experience a guilty pleasure in watching U.S. political mayhem. Right, I knew it: The vast majority of you.
     And I am pretty sure it would be a good bet to wager that the number of Canada's TV sets tuned to U.S. channels for American election results on Nov. 2 equalled, if not exceeded, the usual ratings for Canadian elections.  (I haven't yet seen any of our Canadian TV ratings for the U.S. election night, and I'm not even sure the ratings people make such comparisons, but I'm sticking with my claim, I am, until proven wrong.)
     Of course, the big political show in all the American states has been loads of fun for weeks, if not months, and beyond any doubt will continue to be extra-rich entertainment for Canadian political junkies for a good time to come, especially over the next two years.
     However, before getting into some of the details of that most unpretty post-election political picture in the U.S., I must first give assurance that I am not making total fun of U.S. politics.
     It undoubtedly does have its comic side, when one gazes in fascination at the political fringes and extremes in that country.
     But U.S. politics is also a most serious business, because we are looking at a nation which frequently asserts that it is the most advanced, richest and powerful country in the entire history of the universe. That it can wipe out life on this planet is beyond question, but I'm not so certain, nor are lots of others, of its complete superiority in all other fields.
     Whichever way one looks at it, though, the U.S. political system is fascinating for its drama, for its nonsense, for its characters, for its laugh potential--and that all adds up to major entertainment. (Don't take my word for it. That American humorist of eons ago, Will Rogers [1879-1935], said it best, in protesting that he didn't make up jokes about U.S. politicians--to get laughs he only had to report what they were doing. He said, too, that "all politics is apple sauce.")

     SPEAKING OF DRAMA: Just today (Nov. 4), President Obama held his first post-election cabinet meeting, and emerged offering cooperation and conciliation and compromise on a number of matters to the Republican victors, calling a meeting for later in the month with their leaders.
     What will emerge from that meeting is anybody's guess, but for my two-cents-worth I'd say his offer is an obvious initiative-taking ploy. He can be sure he is going to get little cooperation from Republicans, that conciliation is hardly at the forefront of their minds. He is aware they will press their advantage hard over the next two years with the aim of achieving his political destruction in time for Presidential Election 2012.
     No doubt he is trying to place them in the position of being spoil-sports, making them refuse his cooperation, and tagging them with the blame for achieving nothing but gridlock in dealing with their nation's severe problems (and ours, too, in some important ways). Now, one doesn't know for certain that that's what is in his mind, but it would seem to be the most sensible way for him to go.
     The outcome of all this seems to add up to bitter U.S. political warfare for at least two years. How it will end is the great mystery, the thing that makes for drama and great show biz. If you want an extreme prediction, by the way--well, one of my old newspaper pals, who has been known to make astute observations, actually thinks the situation could deteriorate into a new civil war, partly as a consequence of the impatience of the Republican Party's extreme Tea Party wing with Washington's slow way of moving. My pal adds that such a civil war could even include a military political coup.
     I repeat: Talk about drama! Talk about entertainment!

     BUT THEN THERE'S THIS VIEW--Another good friend of mine, one with a background in finance and economics, sees a couple of possibilities (which do not include, at all, any kind of armed civil war or coup).
     One: That the heavy new Republican power in Congress may press the U.S. into even more corporate-directed breaks for big business, continued huge and even larger defense spending backed by pressures for more aggressive foreign policies, and consequent discarding of the budget slashing so adored by Conservatives. This, he originally felt, would likely create even more U.S. national debt, a worsening of the balance of payments, and dangerous additional inflation.
     Two: On the other hand, he concedes, a cooler look at the possibilities must perceive that Obama still holds considerable power. That's a reference to the fact (which my friend and I discussed) that his Democratic Party has retained its majority in the Senate, enabling it to block the now-Republican House, and he has considerable executive power, including a veto on legislation. Obama therefore can deny the Republicans any near-term realization of their ambitions.
     So it seems clear that he will use these powers to try to show the Republicans to be quite the opposite of a party that works for the average American. To back this position, which he tends to favor most, my friend says: "The checks-and-balances can now work in the opposite direction. The Republicans have plenty of time to hurt themselves."
     I would have to say that, though I might be missing something here, my second friend's thoughts have more likelihood of becoming evident than do the thoughts of my "civil war" friend.
     Myself, I wouldn't discount the violence theory absolutely, because it seems that plenty of armed militia types back the Tea Party, and the possibility of some idiotic outburst in a local way is conceivable, even if remote. These are aggressive people.
     On balance, the U.S. political future depends largely on what Obama does to handle the Conservative wave. He can win reelection if he plays the Republicans with care, while ready to aggressively counter their power plays and right-wing measures. And he will have opportunities to exploit conflicts sure to come between the Tea Party and the Republican Party. That would add in a big way to the entertainment. Imagine--a possible break-away in Congress of the Tea Party from the Republicans.
     But if President Obama gets locked into the compromise position that he now seems to be taking, he probably will have a limited political future.      

     AS FOR THE HISTORIC TUESDAY VOTE, I think we should emphasize that for Americans it was a hard-times election, and voting in hard times almost always goes against the party in power. In the same breath one must note it was also one of those odd American creatures known as mid-term Congressional elections--and historically those tend to go against the party in office.
     Given two factors like that, it's hard to see how the Obama government could have avoided a significant loss.
     I hate to say this, but I have a feeling that Obama's losses might have been the result of a degree of racism too. Some observers have sensed hints of this in parts of the electorate, pointing to upper Southern states where the Democrats did not fare well. In addition, part of the Republican Tea Party wing brandished campaign banners that indicated racist leanings.
     In viewing the Republican victory, I believe the Republicans are not necessarily going to tread an easy path in approaching the 2010 election.
     There will be no shortage of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination--as many as 15, in fact, according to some analysts.
     That might be a healthy thing for any party, to see such a deep interest in its ranks for that big job--but such contests can also be terribly bitter and sometimes leave lasting fractures within a party.

     UNDOUBTEDLY A LEADING CANDIDATE for the Republican nomination will be the Alaska belle, Sarah Palin. I don't see her chances as good, but she certainly is in the running.
     And, in case you haven't noticed, she is something of a take-no-prisoners type of fighter, not shrinking from showering ridicule and contempt on her opponents and critics. These are "qualities" that turn many people off. But I suppose it's rough-hewn Alaska for you. After all, she does describe herself in Alaskan terminology, referring to herself as a "momma grizzly" in politics. Then there's the other term, remember, which she applied to herself as a soccer mom. A soccer mom, said she, was "a pitbull with lipstick." 
     Thus, we might reasonably suggest that if she tries to maul her opponents in the nomination race as a momma grizzly might, politically, and rips at them in the manner of a pitbull, then she will create firm enemies for herself within her party.
     One other factor working against her is that, after the Nov. 2 vote, she got some blame from within her party. Two of her Tea Party senatorial candidates lost seats that were definitely up for grabs by the Republicans. In other words, they should have won them. But the two Tea Party candidates backed by Palin, in Delaware and Nevada, lost those seats ignominiously, thus depriving the Republicans of a majority in the Senate.

     I RATE MS. PALIN AS A LOW-POSSIBILITY presidential nomination candidate for one other reason: She did not run for anything in the Nov. 2 election. She did not, like so many of her Tea Party candidates, put her political future on the electoral line, to actually demonstrate and prove her reputed vote-getting power. Those who did win for the Tea Party likely will in my view begin to regard her, after a few weeks at their new jobs in the national legislature, as an outsider looking in, and themselves as better experienced and qualified on the national scene than she is.
     They might also begin to think of Ms. Palin as having used the 2010 Congressional election campaign for no other purpose than to further her presidential ambition.
     And, last but not least, they can easily blame her, as the most prominent face of the Tea Party, for the fact that on Nov. 2 the Tea Party Republicans elected only about 32 per cent of their candidates, after having held much higher expectations.
      So there you have it, my two-cents-worth. Does it foreshadow some greatly entertaining TV viewing, and newspaper and magazine--and Blog--reading over the foreseeable future? You will decide that for yourselves. But I say it does, in spades.
      And I haven't even talked yet about the menu of economic, fiscal or foreign policy changes that will result from this election.
      So I expect you will stay tuned, folks, to those U.S. news channels. Because you know it's going to be a blast.

WRAPPING UP SARAH'S VISIT

     SEEKING PERSPECTIVE-- By standing back and trying to view the story of the Sarah Palin visit in context, I think we can reach some clear and fairly definite conclusions.
     For one thing, we must consider that her visit in fact involved something not generally realized by the local populace--that is, it involved more than just one speech in Vancouver. That's right, she wasn't here only for the date we all heard about several weeks in advance, namely the $500-per-ticket speech she made to a posh gathering at the Vancouver Club, an event organized by the Bon Mot Book Club.
     That second speech, in fact, might explain something to people (like me) who have been wondering why she'd give an American-style campaign speech outside her own country (in Vancouver) in the middle of a heated, crucial U.S. Congressional contest.
     I know, the Bon Mot speech would have meant only a day or so off her native campaign trail, yet it might have been precious time lost for her beloved Tea Party, some of whose candidates are reportedly involved in tight races.
     Her first speech, the Bon Mot one, was delivered on Wednesday evening, Oct. 13. And that second speech was made on the morning of Oct. 14--it was the keynote speech for the 2010 National Hardwood Lumber Association's Annual Convention and Exhibit Showcase at the Hyatt. I could not find any report on this event in the mainstream Vancouver dailies.
     Now, while the hardwood association has some Canadian members, that "national" in the group's name means, on the whole, the nation of the United States of America. As with more than a few "national" business and industrial organizations, Canada kind of piggy-backs onto the membership rolls. Thus it's probable that a good majority of the hardwood membership would be American. Behind this conclusion is the fact that while Canada is a big producer of softwood lumber, it is not a significant producer of hardwood. On the other hand, the U.S. produces huge amounts of hardwood, much of which Canada imports.
     My point is that Ms. Palin would be quite confident that in delivering her speech to the hardwood association, she would be heard by plenty of American ears among convention delegates, thus making her visit to Vancouver quite worthwhile in terms of U.S. electioneering.

     THAT SPEECH WOULD ALSO HELP HER BANK ACCOUNT.  Ms. Palin was paid $75,000 for the Bon Mot appearance, even though she was not just speaking but also promoting sales, to her profit, of her book, Going Rogue. (Talk about making money with both hands!)
     Now, if the same speaking fee applied to the Hardwood Lumber speech, then in the space of two days in Vancouver she would have collected $150,000.
     But wait--she was scheduled to jet out of here after her lumber speech on Oct. 14 to San Jose, California, where she made yet another speech that very day to the Liberty & Freedom Foundation. The word is that, while her speaking fee rate for the Bon Mot affair was $75,000, that fee was arranged some time ago, and her fee is now $100,000 per, because she has become such a big draw.
     So, conceivably, in those two days, the 13th and 14th of October, she could have picked up a quarter of a million dollars for making three American campaign-style speeches. And there's even more--she also was scheduled to make a speech on Oct. 15 in Sacramento to "Perspectives, the Chamber of Commerce Speakers Forum."
     All right, I hear some voices saying, but maybe the Sacramento thing was a true campaign event, where the politicians speak for free, being in self-and-party promotion mode. We then should not draw too many sweeping conclusions about precisely how much money she may make from her speeches. One, however, must remember as well that her speaking contracts require all expenses, from luxury hotels to super-deluxe air travel, plus lots of little perks, including even bottled water with bendable straws in her hotel suites.
     But just from her Vancouver appearances, and the San Jose one, I think we can fairly conclude that this lady has one great serial gig going. We therefore have to address the question: How is it that  Ms. Palin got a reputation for being some kind of airhead?

     IT APPEARS SHE HAS BEEN UNDERRATED. Politically, she has certainly displayed flaws, and some bad ones, but one thing you have to give her is that she is bent on her objectives with a determination and a personal organizational ability to be envied, including how to make big bucks while the sun shines.
     This is quite a turnaround for a politician whose entry on the big political stage became something of an embarrassment and failure for her party. Specifically, her stumbles as vice-presidential candidate, especially on international matters, proved an embarrassment to Republican candidate John McCain's 2008 presidential bid.
     History records that Sarah Palin became the butt of humor for the late-night comics, and McCain lost that election badly. It would be hard to deny that he was hurt by his lack of judgment in selecting as running mate one who was not ready for the big leagues.
     He might have lost anyway, given the burden he had to bear after eight years of Bush, Jr., but Ms. Palin and her failings probably did help add to the Obama landslide. And, so, McCain's political rise was over.
     Ms. Palin's current fame comes, of course, from her move to the right of the usual conservative right, after the electoral debacle of 2008, and from her fervent embrace of the Tea Party. The thing is, America now seems ripe for a revival of the right, including the far right. And when the Congressional vote is held on Nov. 2, expectations are that her brand of Republicanism is going to be quite successful.
     The meaning of that vote result will be a continued presence of, and growing fame for, Sarah Palin, as she continues her relentless bid for the Republican presidential nomination for the 2012 presidential contest. In the meantime, her speaking fees probably will inflate as she continues to show how true it can be that, when handed a lemon, one simply goes ahead and makes lemonade.

     FINALLY, I MUST RETURN TO THE ONLY VANCOUVER SPEECH  by Ms. Palin for which there has been made a record, because I have had requests to put something on this blog's record about it.
     The Bon Mot speech was given little or no coverage by the two main Vancouver dailies. The Globe & Mail of Toronto, a sponsor of the Bon Mot club, was the only press allowed into the Oct. 13 event, which no doubt upset the two main Vancouver dailies, The Sun and The Province. The Globe had this favored position, one can only conclude, because it, as a corporation, happens to be a sponsor of the Bon Mot club. It may even have paid $500 for a ticket, something newspapers normally do not care to do--that is, pay to get in to cover any event.
     The report in the B.C. edition of The Globe appeared on Oct. 15. A separate report was prepared for the 14th, but it did not appear in the B.C. edition of that date, although it was available online.
     As far as the two Vancouver dailies were concerned, The Province had no record that I could find of Ms. Palin even being here on the 13th and 14th, and The Sun had no news story as such.

     PERHAPS THE ONLY ONE AT THE SUN with the news sense to say something about the Palin speech, three days after it was delivered, was Malcolm Parry, whose lead item in his Town Talk column of Oct. 15 was a good eight-paragraph summary of the speech. He also ran a picture of a glowing Ms. Palin, flanked by the Bon Mot club founder, Leah Costello, and by one of the 180 attendees at the event, merchant banker David Rowntree.
     The Sun and The Province may have decided to shun the event, news-wise, in light of The Globe's corporate "in" with the Bon Mot club, and in light of knowledge of Ms. Palin's own aversion to and avoidance of the press.
     I am one, however, who would view such a decision as a news judgment error. In my experience, it is unusual to see a newspaper turn its back on an event just because a competitor may have a coverage advantage, especially when someone as famous, and as pivotal in U.S. politics as Sarah Palin comes into your circulation area.
     When something like that happens, you try to show your readers and your competition, and the reluctant politician, that you are on the job. You show that even though the event tried to freeze you out, you got the story anyway, including the news favoritism part. In other words, you turn the tables.

     THERE'S ANOTHER ANGLE AS WELL:  What if the famous visiting politician falls ill, or is hurt in an accident? What if she says something really newsworthy? What if, in this case, another gaffe is made? Don't you as a newspaper want to be in the forefront of covering such things when they happen in your own territory? These would be the kind of stories that gain worldwide notice. The questions, I think, answer themselves.
     Now back to a review of that speech. And because The Globe seems to have accepted the role of official news outlet for the event, I feel free to quote liberally from its reports, thank you.
     The Globe report on the 14th, the one I found online, said Ms. Palin did deliver an American campaign-style speech. In it, said the paper, Ms. Palin spent most of the evening denouncing what she called the free-spending ways of the Obama administration. The paper's reporter, the very well-experienced Gary Mason, also quoted her as saying President Obama's current platform represented the "failed policies of a leftist politician."
     What the U.S. government needed, she suggested, was a lot of budget slashing--and she would cut personal and corporate taxes at the same time. She spoke highly of the corporation-supportive policies of the late Ronald Reagan when he was in power, saying she'd do the same as he did; she'd let job-creation be the duty of business, which she held was better at it than government.
     In a feature-ish type of followup story two days after the event, Mason gave a generally favorable review of Ms. Palin's appearance, declaring her to be more politically savvy and mature, showing none of the inclination to stumble and lack of preparedness she had displayed in her days of national political baptism.
     Over all, said Mason, "Ms. Palin's speaking skills have greatly improved. In an hour on the stage there wasn't one 'you betcha.' She seemed like someone preparing for another campaign, one that will be waged on her terms this time." Meaning, not on McCain's terms.

     PERSONALLY, I DON'T THINK THERE'S ANY DOUBT at all about her determination to go for the big nomination. It only remains for her to announce it. That likely will come some time after the Tea Party and other Republicans show significant gains on Nov. 2. As I suggested earlier, she'll ride those gains to more and more book promotions, more and more speaking contracts, and more and more extensive politicking.
     Right now, my own view is that she probably will not get that presidential nomination. In the end, the real Republican conservatives won't have her.
     But Ms. Palin is likely to remain a force in the Republican party--and might even be a candidate for a cabinet post in any future Republican administration. Yes, I'd say that, barring some major unforeseen development (such as a big Tea Party setback in the Nov. 2  U.S. elections), Sarah Palin will be around for quite a long time.








  

COME THE REVOLUTION

     GET READY FOR ITS QUEEN--Here are some quotations to contemplate in anticipation of the Oct. 13 visit to Vancouver by Republican-Tea Partyer Sarah Palin, U.S. history's most recent, unsuccessful, vice-presidential candidate:
     "Don't retreat--reload!"
     "Revive the revolution!"
     "A revolution is brewing!"
     All are quotes from what we are told is the mightiest, most prosperous, most successful democracy in the world. How, we might ask ourselves, could such thoughts be ringing through such a land?
     The first quotation came from Ms. Palin, herself, who has of course in recent months filled the role of most famous enthusiast for the U.S. political phenomenon known as The Tea Party. One commentator, Margaret Wente in the Globe & Mail, Oct. 1, 2010, dubbed her "the de facto Queen of The Tea Party." (I have not been able to find any record of Ms. Palin directly refusing that title.)
     The second and third quotes were produced under the banner of an outfit called The Republican Express. The "revive revolution" slogan is on one of their campaign buttons, priced at $1.99. The "revolution brewing" line is from another button, same price.
     The Republican Express also markets T-shirts, one of which reads, avoiding revolution rhetoric: "FOXY NEWS." This label is right next to a smiling photo of Sarah Palin. (Question: Even though she does gigs for Fox News, is she really foxy? You tell me. See space for "comments" below.)
     If you want one of those FOXY T-shirts, it will cost you $12.99 (U.S.).

     THE QUESTION MANY CANADIANS WILL HAVE in the days leading up to the 13th, it seems to me, would be: Is there really armed rebellion brewing down there among our American cousins?
     Leading figures in The Tea Party have been asked about real revolution--the kind with guns and everything. And a number of them have in reply sought to downplay that notion. I can't say I've seen a great many, though, who have given a definite, outright, emphatic, no-shilly-shally denial that any such thing could be promoted by them. Plus, we keep seeing those not-so-subtle suggestions coming from the rank-and-file of that political movement, as well as from their buttons and T-shirts and bumper stickers, and so on.
     Actually, shortly after Ms. Palin came out with her "reload" cry, she caught a lot of flak over it, and quickly shifted ground, saying she meant "their arms are their votes." I suppose a lot of people heaved a sigh of relief when they heard that.
     When The Tea Party began to become broadly known, my own thought was, well, the very name of that movement at bottom suggests the taking up of arms to overthrow repressive and oppressive government. And since the Obama administration took office--as the result of a fair democratic vote--haven't the Tea Partyers been declaring the Obama government to be beyond the pale for oppressiveness? Yes, that oppression coming mainly through tax changes and government spending not to their liking. So they talk about throwing off oppression, just as it was in the days following the original Boston tea party of 1773, with the American Revolutionary War, or War of Independence.
     This suggested to me that one might well expect at some point to see actual shooting to "take back our country," a modern version, somewhere in the nation, of the shots heard 'round the world (in the Emerson phrase) at Lexington and Concord, Mass., in 1775. Is it any wonder, then, that many people have asked when the shooting will start in today's U.S.A.?

     HOW WILL THE LOCAL NEWS MEDIA COVER SARAH?--A good question (before we go further into the Lexington-Concord event). I have this day discovered that the coverage isn't going to be easy for our news outlets. And this, I expect, could cause quite a dust-up between various news rooms around the Vancouver area, and beyond.
     I am informed by the organizers of the event (first through e-mail questions and answers, then by follow-up phone call) that news people will not have much presence, except for the Globe & Mail.
     In reply to my e-mail, which asked if the press would be present, the reply I received from Leah Çostello, founder of the Bon Mot Book Club which is staging the event, was: "There will be no media at the event - not because she (Ms. Palin) doesn't allow it. I just prefer keeping the events focused on the book club members/guests and their questions."
     I also had asked in my e-mail if she had a sold-out event on her hands. Ms. Costello replied:
     "All the original tickets have been sold, although I have three people who are now going to be out of town and so have their three tickets available to sell."
     If those three tickets are sold, and I'd guess there's every likelihood they will be, then the event will have an audience of 180 dinner guests. Ms. Costello says she limited the ticket number to 180 because "that's about the size of the room." Tickets are $500 each. Ms Palin will receive a fee of $75,000 for her appearance at the Vancouver Club next Wednesday.
     I asked in the e-mail if there will be a press conference by Ms. Palin, and Ms. Costello answered:
     "No press conference that I know of, although I do have a list of requests for her agent to to decide on. Again, we've just invited her to stimulate discussion at our book club, not to make any announcements."
     I was grateful to Ms. Costello for her assistance, she was pleasantly cooperative. But, after thinking over her e-mail answers, I had "just one more thing" to ask about. So I phoned her to ask if perhaps a transcript of the event might later be available. And as our conversation progressed, she said there might be a "podcast or the like" made available.
     And then she mentioned that the Globe & Mail of Toronto will have access to the event, and I assumed from her remarks that there was some co-operative thing between the Globe and her company, in what I assumed might be in more of a corporate than a news way, but I can't be clear on that.
     So you can see what I meant above when I suggested there would be quite a lot of heartburn among other news outlets, who all must be itching severely to get into that event.
     But I'll leave that to them. They're the ones into the hard news, the "now" news, not me. I'm just a blogger, I've done all the news-hounding that I'm going to, that working life is behind me. Observing and commenting on the passing scene, that's the ticket for me. The organized news media can argue with Ms. Costello. To me she seems like a very nice person.
     I suppose that if I want to get the details on Sarah Palin's speech I'll just have to buy a Globe & Mail the next day, hoping it will have been there for the news in it.
     NEWS ALERT--We now insert information obtained Friday, Oct. 8, that may shed a slightly different, and perhaps more interesting, light on the question of press presence: A local Globe & Mail source has told me, regarding the Globe's planned presence at the event, that just buying a $500 ticket can get a reporter in. Which may explain why the Globe will be there--they simply bought a ticket. Whether the other news outlets have done the same remains to be seen. However, I would have thought Ms. Costello would have known they had, if she knew of the Globe's purchase, since practically all tickets had been sold when I spoke with her. I now await the event with even more baited breath than before. Ms. Costello's clear statement to me showed she did not want the press there, which perhaps means there's conflict ahead on that score. END NEWS ALERT.
     My own view, I must say, is that the lack of a full news presence at the event might be a mistake, because, agree or disagree with Ms. Palin's views, people at large ought to be able to make their own judgments on what she says.  Her views concerning Canada should be of interest to Canadians, since it seems she actually is a potential candidate for the U.S. presidency two years from now.  And, like it or not, any president the U.S. gets is going to have a big influence on our country.

     NOW FOR THAT HISTORY--The original tea party was not extremely revolutionary in what it did, 'way back then. When the colonists disguised as "Indians" boarded three tea-laden British East India ships in Boston Harbor that night, and dumped chests and bales of tea into the sea in opposition to a British tax on tea, destroying someone else's property was a fairly serious crime for that era--but it was a non-fatal, non-shooting protest.
     History records that the Boston tea party took place on the night of Dec. 16, 1773--and it was just 16 months later that it was followed by shooting, on April 19, 1775, at Lexington and Concord, as British troops, going after two revolutionary leaders, exchanged fire with Minutemen militia--thus starting the bloody, bitter, cruel and long American Revolutionary War.
     It was the night before that opening skirmish when Paul Revere and two or three others, having realized the Red Coats were on the march to Lexington, rode through the countryside warning fellow colonists that the British were coming.
     Today, there's at least one militia group in the U.S. that has taken the name Minutemen.
     Most people, including Canadians (even though it is a Canadian sport to criticize the U.S.), agree that the Revolutionary War was a necessary and valuable thing, and that the world was, in more ways than not, made a better place by this new country. (Although lots of people may have been changing their minds on that, over American foreign actions and policy over a number of years recently.)

     BUT THE SITUATION OF THAT TIME was in no way parallel to the political circumstances of today's U.S.A., a country run on principles of democracy (despite those principles being subverted at times by the "bought politicians" we hear so much about). As practiced in the U.S., that democracy certainly is not perfect, but ultimately the voters, the citizens, do have a good deal of say in picking  their leaders. Violence is not normally a part of the process by which Americans make up their governments.
     Yes, that word "militia" nowadays has a way of of repeatedly coming up in the news. Armed, private, non-government militias are appearing in many places, and have been in recent years. Many of their members tend to espouse quite revolutionary views, perhaps more extremely than the Tea Partyers themselves.
     Myself, I can't agree with the hard-right rhetoric of the Sarah Palins. Although she may try to appear more moderate than many of her fans, she still commands their support, she feeds their fires, especially when she says things like, "America is ready for another revolution."
     To me, there is a menace underlying the Tea Party and its ideology.
     So, Sarah Palin will be here to promote her "Going Rogue" book (and apparently has a new book coming out in a while). Well, no one can object to a famous person like Ms. Palin promoting her books--free speech lives in Canada at least as much as it does in the U.S. And no one can deny that she is an interesting person, though it's mainly because she's quite a bit off the beaten track in her conservatism.
     The more she talks, the more we might understand her . . .  if we ever come to learn much of what it may be that she tells her Vancouver audience.
      I just hope that someone in the elite audience will ask her, during the question-and-answer session, for a definitive answer to the question: "What's the meaning of all this Tea Party talk about a real revolution?" And I hope we learn what that answer was.

A POLITICAL MINEFIELD

      WHAT'S THAT ON THE HORIZON?--I'm starting to feel a little jittery, even alarmed. Something ominous is looming. I mean, they keep mentioning me in the news, and not in a very good light at that.
     Most people can agree that one naturally will feel nervous if one isn't used to that sort of thing.
     But I must be clear on this. I do not mean they're talking about me specifically, or personally, or by name. No, that would be far-fetched. What I mean is, they're talking about me in a general way. Yet, it's still about me, and it's about a whole lot of other people, too, people like me, millions of 'em.
     What they're doing in these news reports, and commentaries, is repeating continued harping by various forms of economic researchers, experts, "think" tanks, and officialdom on what seems to be a huge concern for them: The Greying of The Population.
     For example: Last February the parliamentary budget watchdog in Ottawa, Kevin Page, bluntly warned that the fast growing numbers of the greying will soon put a big strain on our governmental finances, both federal and provincial. This theme wasn't especially new then, but it has been increasingly sung by quite a few others since. It seems to have become a popular tune, and I don't think it's a very pretty one.
     For example: It took on greater import when it was mentioned last spring in the Speech from Throne opening parliament. This was direct from the government, not just a parliamentary officer, with the Harper government noting that this demographic shift--the greying population--would "challenge the sustainability of our social programs. . ."
     For example: No end of columnists and editorialists have found it handy grist for their mills. One even went to the extent of pointing out that the problem was people were living longer and the country wasn't having enough babies. I guess.
     And so it goes on and on, and on.
     In fact, this "greying obsession" in the news looks to me to be so intense, so continuous, that one might think there's a subterranean public relations campaign being conducted with it--you know, to more or less condition the public mind, soften us up, for some sort of coming bad news for the grey and greying crowd.

     IT JUST SO HAPPENS that I am one of the greying, so you can see my deep interest in the matter. (Other "greyers," and up-and-coming greyers, too, ought to have a similar interest. Not to mention worries.)
     To be exact, I should say that I used to be grey. But I have graduated, in a sense, by turning white, in the areas of my head that still carry hair. This makes no difference, though, in my status. Once you join the big club of the greying, you're pretty well in it for the rest of your life.
     Thus, every time I read one of these "greying" yarns, or hear them on the radio or see them on TV, I get a faintly startled feeling, and I think, gosh, what are they saying, that I'm becoming a burden on this great nation of ours, on its pension plans, on its health care insurance plans, and so on? How dare I get older? How dare I stay alive? How thoughtless of me! But, what to do, what to do. . .?

     THEN I GET A BIT INDIGNANT, and I say to myself, By George, we grey and white-haired ones have got to do something about this. We've got to smoke out those researchers, those experts, the "think" tankers, officials and, yes, those politicians, and demand that they let us in on their plans for us. We have to tell them we need some definition here, get them to state precisely where they're going with this, open up on what they may be proposing in any of their non-public studies and discussions.
     All of which is why I'm writing this entry to my blog.
     The growing numbers of the aforementioned complainers-about-greying are concentrating their attention on the financial and economic impact of this accelerating population-greying.  They see it now, in the near future, and well into the long-term future, as turning into an increasingly expensive crisis, overstraining budgets, even causing economic stagnation, if not collapse.
     Horrors, what a scenario!
     It's possible, I suppose, that some of these people might say to a person like me: "Why are you trying to make such a big deal of this now? We've known about this phenomenon for a long time, we've been thinking about it, studying it. What's so new? We'll meet the challenge, we assure you. We believe our present financial approach and planning will handle the problem well into the future. At least we think it will. Trust us."

     MY ANSWER TO THAT IS: "Haven't you been listening to me? What is new is that we are hearing more and more about it. Near-panic about it is accelerating. So I think it's time you gave us Canadians the real goods on how you're thinking about dealing with the problem. Because, you see, our experience sometimes has been a trifle negative when placing too much trust in politicians."
     One official body, the Public Health Agency of Canada, which advises the minister of health (the cabinet minister responsible for seniors), and is responsible for public health in Canada, has attached a qualifier to the prospects for keeping the present seniors programs' financing scheme going, saying it can be done "assuming continuation of existing economic and expenditure trends."
     That, my friends, is one very big qualification. (I can't find a date for that statement, by the way, but I would think the website pages of that agency don't change a lot or swiftly, so possibly it was there before the financial crisis and recession that began in '08. If so, then. . . ?)
     At the same time, we have a record of statements made by the federal finance minister warning, not so long ago, that the rapidly growing costs of health care coverage must be contained. I don't know that that suggests any very happy prospect for seniors.

     THROUGH MY DILIGENT INQUIRIES into this subject, I have even seen one report in which a sociologist mentioned the word "euthanasia," suggesting it could come into vogue under the economic pressures of cutbacks in health care, heavily used by seniors.
     So you can see it's easy to have misgivings about efforts to calm down anyone with concerns over policies that might arise from the "greying crisis."
     The grey (and white) ones must pay attention, because our politicians sometimes set great store in what they hear from the economist-statistician-researcher-bureaucrat-sociologist sets, and have been known to go along with them. Such diligent people are handy for providing justification for whatever politicians might decide to do. But I do believe our pensions, our health care, and probably other areas of seniors support, such as housing policy, can be directly affected by this.

     SHADES OF JONATHAN SWIFT--As I have reflected on this whole business of "the greying problem" I, for some strange reason, have found myself recalling the brilliant essay by Jonathan Swift, some 280 years ago, with respect to Ireland's poverty, and the reluctance of the well-off to contribute to its relief. How could that be relevant to our subject? Well, just for fun, let's look at his satirical gem.
     The clergyman and writer, who was born in Ireland of English parents, entitled his essay, "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country."
     Swift wrote: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a  young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

     TEN SHILLINGS PER CHILD CARCASS--Dr. Swift, who was Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, also declared:
     "I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifth of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included, and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child. . . "
     Now if, just for the sake of devilment, we were to switch the dial from "children" to "senior citizens," well, there you might have a solution to the "greying problem" in Canada. Instead of babies, which the experts now seem to feel we'll need to produce in goodly numbers to bolster a future work force burdened by grey ones, well, maybe we could accomplish much by having nutritional servings of oldsters.
     All, right, I know--Dean Swift's proposal was "only" a satire. But you have to remember that experts and bureaucrats can take some things awfully seriously and . . . well, perhaps I should say no more. Actually, no, I deny it, they'd never come up with anything like that, not even in jest.
     Still, I think it will be very useful in the public interest for those hard-eyed, terribly serious economists-statisticians-bureaucrats-politicians-think tankers-et al to take warning:
     We seniors will be no pushovers for whatever unpleasant plans you may plot to solve this perceived "greying burden."

     NO, SIR, WE'LL BE ON WATCH, we'll man (and woman) the ramparts, we'll dig in, we'll give you the biggest battle of your misspent lives if you come up with the wrong policies!
     And be further warned:
     Although a few of us seniors definitely are a little on the plump side, lots of us are more on what might be called the husky and muscular side--and considerable numbers of us are much leaner. But whatever our girth, large or small, we all have especially tough hides and sinews. We would, in brief, make extremely difficult chewing, fricasseed or not.
     At the end of the day, though, one thing I'm sure of is this: Any politician who tries to mess with senior voters and their well-established, their well-justified rights is going to come down with a severe case of electoral indigestion. You can bet on that.
     Seniors--to the barricades!

ABOUT THE BLOGOSPHERE

   BLOGGERS AND NEWSPAPERS--It seems to me that, as a new entrant to the Blogosphere, I should begin by showing where I'm coming from, how I'm motivated. For me, that means looking at the unusual relationship between blogging and the news media, particularly newspapers.
     As most people know by now, the newspaper game has been severely shaken up by a communications free-for-all, powered by computer technology's advances.
     I've watched the process with fascination since before my retirement 20 years ago, a fascination arising from my deeply ingrained interest in news, after having spent most of my working life as a newspaperman--in addition, I should add, to now having a newspaper pension as an important part of my income, which makes the future of newspapers of rather special interest to me.
     Today we see that the World Wide Web is, among other things, a monster bugbear to newspapers, while being something of a help at the same time.
     It has forced the print news business into vast, expensive, transformational change to meet the Web-carried competition in news and opinion, of which The Blog is no small part. The broadcast media has challenges of this kind, too, but has appeared more able and quicker to use and accommodate itself to the new technology. I'll leave the broadcast side of the story for discussion at another time--right now, I see the newspaper shake-up as the technology-revolution story of the day.
     My chief motivations in joining the Blogosphere are the following:
     1) I have personal views about my corner of the world, about my country, and about the world in general, and I as a citizen offer them here (along with other categories of material, as indicated in the above title logo) for the consideration of anyone who gives attention to this soapbox.
     2) I've seen too much concentration of ownership and loss of competition within the newspaper business, and I want to add my voice to those of the competition--as a blogger with a news background; and
     3) Very simply, I can be a blogger, which might be enough motivation in itself for one to, well, give birth to a blog.
     While new and fast-moving technologies may have made things difficult for newspapers in recent years, past technological advances have indeed helped them, and I think it worthwhile to remember that. So, let's do a little reminiscing.

     HOW FAR BACK SHOULD WE GO?--Well, I guess the first tech change that I witnessed as a rookie in news, in the late 1940s at The Vancouver Sun, was the electric typewriter. Not a huge change, to be sure, but it had its interesting side. The electric typewriter was something I, for one, hoped to be able to use, because it appeared to be so much more efficient. But there were few in the news departments, perhaps because of their expense, and so I did not, ever, get one of those sleek, quiet electrics for my own regular use.
      I almost always had one of the clattering manual jobs, an Underwood, a Remington, a Royal. And I owned a Smith portable, which served me well for years in on-the-road assignments. Of all the major manuals, I liked the Underwood best, and I actually was still using one when the big change, the ultimate big change, came in the form of...The Computer!
     But hold it a second. I've overlooked one technological gadget that I'd just as soon forget. That would be the pager. I never had one of those, either, but that was because it hadn't come into general use where, and when, I worked as a reporter. (The cell phone was still a long way off, as was the laptop--but I'll bet the young will find it hard to imagine that it could have been thus, in the innocent belief that cell phones and laptops have always been with us.)
     How did we, in my day, live without a pager? Simple--the office would phone us, if it could reach us, or we would phone the office, through landlines of course, and we would do that in either direction at more or less pre-set times. Photographers also had radiophones in their cars, so that if a reporter went out on a job with a photographer the reporter's communication problem was usually nonexistent, barring bad signal interference.
     Generally, reporters out on a job on their own just kept in touch with the office by phone, and dictated stories against deadline by phone to the Rewrite Desk. When on out-of-town assignment, we'd phone in stories, or send them by telegraph if there was time enough. (Young people are forgiven if they now ask: "Telegraph? What's that?")
     As a matter of fact, when I worked for quite a few years as correspondent in Parliamentary Press Galleries, in Victoria and Ottawa, I relied on direct telegraph contact between those places and head office for sending copy. For breaking stories on deadline, of course, the good old telephone was necessary.
     Telegraph people were there in those Press Galleries, or near them, full-time, to get our stories transmitted to Gallery members' papers. The telegraph folks were good, and we Gallery members felt privileged. Other technology equipment we had was the teletype machine, for me only when I was in Victoria, which gave instant texting ability back and forth with the office. These technologies had been around for many years, though, so I don't list them as new in my newspaper time. Does anyone use, or even make them any more? Oh, I think the Internet pretty well does it all.
     It was quite a bit later in life, while I was on the News Desk, when I first noticed photographers and reporters going around with those little black devices called pagers. Poor devils, I thought, constantly at the beck and call of the office, not a free moment. Some progress. Ah, but it was probably cost-effective. It was, after all, Technology, and who could knock that?

     WE MUSTN'T FORGET BROADCASTING--It has become so pervasive, and has been for so long, that we tend to forget radio and television's influence on newspapers. Radio remained weak in news for many years after its beginnings, but ultimately did eat into newspaper ad revenues when it smartened up on broadcast news, realizing the appeal of its immediacy. And the radio talk shows, especially the sensationalist ones (remember Pat Burns?), in the late 50s and early 60s caused further erosion to newspaper revenues.
     But it was TV that struck the strongest broadcast blow. It was obviously huge, although it didn't seem so at first when, in the early 50s, it joined the party. Few channels were available when it arrived in my part of the universe, and cable didn't exist. Furthermore, early TV was quite feeble in news while concentrating chiefly on entertainment.
     It took a while for TV to have a significant effect on the way newspapers did their thing. But when it did, developing color, finding news and commentary growing in popularity, with more and more channels coming into markets, and then cable--well, newspaper advertising and circulation departments had fits.
    The papers' editorial departments found it hard to compete with swift, on-the-spot TV news. People didn't have to wait to read it in the paper the next day, they could see it happening, right there on their TV screens.
     Print news manfully hung in there, but as we've seen, had to make huge adjustments, shifting to fewer editions, and concentrating more on "what-it's-all-about" analysis and backgrounders than on up-to-the-minute news. Newspapers still did more or less fill the role of supplying a detailed record, but they were no longer the principal rulers of the news roost. Irreversible change had taken place.        

     LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE REALLY BIG CHANGES--The pager and the car-imprisoned radiophone and the landline phones today have morphed into the cell phone and the laptop. There's no more need of finding a pay phone or a hotel phone or a hastily borrowed phone in someone's office to get that news in.
     Personally, I have to say I do rather like the idea of being on assignment, let's say covering a political convention, and right there on the scene knocking off your story on a laptop, and with one tap of a finger instantly transporting your report into the office. But, then, having been out of a newspaper office for years, what do I really know about all that? Was it --is it-- that simple? And is there now something even better than the laptop for getting out those instant stories? Like the texting-cellphone-video-computer-music-player that's now so wildly popular, with everything all there in one little handful? Think I'll have to talk to my grandchildren about that as a valid scenario.
     I admit that I am sorry to have missed the laptop experience and whatever has or may replace it. It sounds a lot easier than having, in the age (my age) of landline phones and no computers--to get on a strange phone somewhere and dictate to a Rewrite person a story off-the-top-of-the-head from notes, extemporaneously. In those days we had to do that quite a lot.
                                                      _______________

     BUT IF I DIDN'T HAVE THE LAPTOP reporting experience, I did witness the introduction of computers for newspaper production purposes, at a time when I worked in the 1970s as a reporter for The Vancouver Province division of what was then Pacific Press. I can't resist noting here that when the computers came, the office let me buy my old Underwood (it was no longer of use to the company) at a "cut rate" of $30. I used it at home for a few years. You know. . . I'm thinking the office got a good deal on that transaction.
     I wrote many stories on those primitive, no-color, limited-function first computers, and after becoming a sub-editor on the News Desk edited thousands of stories and wrote bushels of headlines on them. Those early computers were prone to crashing, so there were a few messy production nights. If you had written a story of which you were quite proud, and which might actually have been good, and it was on one of those crash nights, well, you had to start all over again. That was a very bad thing, and could lead one to pull out the hair.

     HARD ON THE PRINTING TRADE--Those first computers pushed reporters and copy editors into the added role of virtual type compositors, without them needing to apply much extra effort. This was because the working of the computer keyboard in the writing and editing of stories was just about the equivalent of setting type. That is, those in the Composing Room found themselves not setting type on Linotype machines, but instead, cutting and pasting text in the preparation of newspaper pages, text printed out from Newsroom computers.
     This was serious upheaval for the hot-type-setting trade, for it as much as ended the occupation of newspaper typographer, which had engaged thousands of highly skilled and intelligent men and women all over the world for many decades. They were known as the knights of labor, and enjoyed the respect of other working people, as well as of many employers. They are still respected but their work was immensely changed, and has been diminished.
     The computer continued to develop and develop, gaining quickly in sophistication and function. For newspapers it meant wonders in versatility for newspaper production and, we were told, significant efficiencies and big cost saving.
     For the world in general, of course, further major computer advances brought us the World Wide Web, the Internet and its "byproducts," like Facebook and Twitter--and, oh, yes, blogging.
     All of which adds up to a downer for the newspaper industry, with newspaper companies and other conventional media as well, constantly casting about for ways to check their relative decline by getting in on the more popular computer communication rages, and exploiting them for their own needs.

     THE PAPERS GO INTERNET--A good many newspapers seem to be making a success of converting to meet the challenge. They've grabbed the internet with a vengeance, producing online versions of their print products. A few, we've seen, have dropped print production entirely and shifted to the Web, and apparently are making a go of that.
     They also have taken to blogging, bigtime. Newspaper readers are reminded daily that their favorite reporters, commentators, analysts and columnists these days don't just write for their print editions, they also put versions of their stuff into blogs. Well, the Blogosphere is a terribly competititve place. How could it be otherwise, there being well over one hundred million blogs. But professional newspaper bloggers (or bloggists?) feel superior about their chances of beating out the "amateurs" of blogging.
     In fact, I've seen examples of newspaper people pretty much looking down their noses at the "ordinary," or "citizen," or "personal" blogger. People like you, and like me--because I do consider myself, as of today, a personal blogger, independent and free to say what I want to say (short of libel). Sure, I earned my daily bread from the news game, but I'm under no writing obligation to any newspaper and have no interest at all in going along with those who so easily downgrade the views, expressions and interests of regular folks who blog.

     WHAT I AIMED AT IN REPORTING--In my reporting years, I tried to think of the interests of the average person, to take complex subjects and translate them from expert to non-expert language. The aim was to put things into everyday language while still doing justice to the facts involved. That sometimes led to charges by politicians of "over-simplification." But one can counter such charges by pointing out you can almost take it for granted that more than a few politicians tend to prefer obfuscation over clarity.
     In my work I tried to imagine what kind of questions the reader would want to ask a prime minister, a premier, a cabinet minister, a party leader, or any other politician or relevant person, on any issue of the day. And then I'd put those questions. The politicians' answers to the "people's questions" often produced quite arresting news results.
     What is the public interest in the matter at hand? That was my concern. So I was a public-interest person then, it was my job. It may not be my job now, but I'm still a public-interest person. And I can tell you that my soapbox, whether it's high and loud, or of medium elevation and subdued, definitely will not be a lofty one, will not, I emphasize, be of the peering-down-the-nose kind.
     Those high-toned critics want to make a big deal out of spelling, grammatical and structural errors, and errors in facts and logic that find their way into personal blogs, and believe this is because the common blogger is not in their profession, lacks the necessary professional skills for the blogging task and thus serves up more unsupported opinion than useful or reliable commentary.
     I'm amused by this, because the notion that ordinary people somehow aren't qualified to be professional writers or fact-checkers or editors is really beside the point. People do have opinions, and if they want to use the Web Log to express them they will, factually based or not. If they have something to say and are convincing, it'll work for them--otherwise their readers will say, "Next." And, take it as a given, if bloggers are careless and libel someone, it will cost them.

     LOOK TO YOURSELVES, PROS--I think it fair to point out that that what forms and informs the opinions of bloggers, certainly in political, economic and social matters, is to a large degree what they see, hear and read in the news. Thus, if lofty commentators fault the "uninformed opinions" voiced by personal bloggers, then perhaps they ought to look to themselves.
     They should ask themselves whether they're doing an adequate job of communicating with the public. Are they giving the public what it needs, in news and commentary on politics, on social and cultural and economic life, so that the public can be more aware of the vital facts necessary for forming sound opinions? Do they actually give all sides in controversial matters?
     As far as faulty spelling and grammar may be concerned, the point is whether the views of the writer can be understood. Take a look at usage in e-mail and Facebook and Twitter. It's a fright if you insist on perfect spelling and grammar. But that, as I see it, is mainly because the people, especially the younger generations, who use those avenues of expression are in a hurry, they have little time for worrying about  typos and grammatical niceties, and they comfortably use multitudes of abbreviations and graphic symbols. So cut them a little slack. But even if you don't give bloggers with these flaws some slack, many of them probably will say to you, "Language, shmangmage," and do what they want anyway. If opinions and ideas are debated, isn't that the main thing?

     A NOTEWORTHY OTHER CRITIC--Newspapers haven't been the only source of criticism about blogs. No less a personage than the occupier of the largest "bully pulpit" in the world, Mr. Obama himself, has expressed views similar to those one has heard from the press, though he has been less lofty in tone.
     According to the excellent Wikipedia, which carries a good short history of blogging, the U.S. president has complained that much opinion voiced in the Blogosphere neglects "serious fact-checking" and shows "no serious attempts to put stories in context." Consequently, Mr. Obama said, we get "shouting across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding." Well, maybe he was talking about blogs produced by his political opponents.
     Here again, perhaps there's a need for politicians, as well as newspapers, to question whether they are doing the right job of communicating with citizens, a need even of politicians as intelligent and clever and personable as Mr. Obama.
     My own view on blogging is, first, to realize that it is a fantastic medium in which scores of millions of people participate, with the number expanding by thousands daily (says Wikipedia, reliably). I would point out to any critics of blogging that large numbers of the bloggers of the world are not, in any event, political, or economic, and do not or state much that's controversial. What they're about is cooking, hobbies, family life, homes, gardens, clubs, and cars and music and poetry and other arts, and just about anything else you can name.
     On personal blogs generally, I don't know that we should expect to see a great many using highly polished or fancy language. We're more likely to see plain language, from generally sincere people who want their families and friends and neighbors to know something of their interests and views. Flaws cannot help but  appear, it's not a perfect medium. People do know that lots of newspapers and other sections of the news media are good, but they also know that they're not perfect either.

     VOICE OF THE PEOPLE--Surely personal blogging has the great value of being an immense part of the voice of the people. And many times it has been said that, right or wrong, the voice of the people must be allowed to be heard. I'd say the Blogosphere, although it's something like 17 or 18 years old, is still a developing phenomenon. If it competes with the conventional news media, and it most certainly
does, that's a good thing, because the whole concept of a democratic and just and thinking society depends on expression of opinion, without censorship or other curbs--and on lots of competition.
     I would think people will be bound to learn from it. It will advance literacy, as will its allied Web participants, like Facebook and Twitter. I say "advance literacy" because not many people are going to engage in writing even roughly-worded material, for consumption by families, friends and neighbors and, yes, potentially the world, without once in a while having to look up a word in the dictionary, including especially the young ones among us, because the young have built-in and naturally inquiring minds.

     DO WE LIKE THE BLOGOSPHERE?--So, yes, absolutely yes, I'm in favor of blogging. I will, however, confess to feeling a touch of trepidation about getting into it: it takes time, it's work if you want to do it right (especially when you don't know what "right" is for blogging), and it is a schedule changer. Really, though, if one is going to do it, one simply has to accept the need to take the time, do the work, and make adjustments in the settled routines of  retirement. You know, there are worse things.
     I don't doubt that personal blogging is something of an experiment for anyone starting it, and one never knows how experiments will turn out. But I'm an optimist and I do believe it will be worthwhile.
     On that note, then, I will end this blog dispatch. We now step off our soapbox for a break (my morning paper has just arrived)--but the break won't last more than a few days, because there's material to be readied for my next entry.
     Future posts will come in what might be called a regularly irregular way, more or less as the spirit moves--but every couple of weeks at least.
     Young's Soapbox & Journal now Blogs Off.