WHEN YOU HIT THE CASINO, YOU COULD BE STAKING MORE THAN JUST YOUR MONEY

      THE INIQUITIES OF GAMBLING have long been noted by poets and philosophers:
                                  "The Whore & Gambler, by the state
                                       Licensed, build that nation's fate. . ."
wrote William Blake (1757-1827), in his Auguries of Innocence.
      I hasten to note that so far in Canada we're not into licensing brothels -- but our governments do push lotteries, and more than a few of our local and regional governments have become exceptionally enthusiastic about licensing gambling casinos.
      Since we fill half of Blake's prescription for the dire consequences that he seems to be predicting for our gambling sin, we can only guess what fate he may have had in mind, although I'd bet (sorry, Mr. Blake) he meant something terrible.

      LONG BEFORE BLAKE, the English clergyman and poet George Herbert (1593-1633) declared the following on the dangers of gambling:
                                    "Play not for gain, but sport. Who plays for more
                                       Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart;
                                         Perhaps his wife's too, and whom she hath bore."

      Those words of wisdom by the Reverend Mr. Herbert will not commend themselves, I'd expect, to the minds of folks in the gambling trade, who prey upon the poor and the greedy (and the gullible), seeking to attract them in ever larger numbers to their gambling halls.

      FOR PROPAGANDA PURPOSES, of course, the gambling merchants who are licensed by government to work their trade do accept (superficially, in my view) the Herbert advice, urging casino customers, in similar language in fact, to enjoy, but to play responsibly. We've all heard the slogan, "Know your limit, play within it."
      I'm pretty sure that a huge percentage of those entering organized gambling establishments to bet have an idea of "making" money. Now, we occasionally do hear a friend or acquaintance relate how he or she came home from the casino the other night with two or three thousand dollars in winnings. What you will rarely hear, though, is the truth about how much that casino player had to lose, over time, on the road to those winnings.

      I'VE BEEN IN CASINOS in a number of places over many years. The first time was on a visit to Reno -- some 40 years ago -- when Reno, probably ahead of even Las Vegas, was the main gambling spot in North America, at least for people in British Columbia. Reno gambling was a great novelty.
      At that time, Reno was a much smaller town than it is today, and its casinos were on the whole quite homey places; people seemed to be having a good time, and they liked the plentiful supply of free or low-cost meal tickets.
     I went back about ten years ago and found it much different: bigger casinos, bigger hotels, hardly recognizable from the good old Reno where people had fun.

     TODAY OF COURSE THERE ARE casinos just about everywhere, including, in plentiful supply, around my own stomping grounds, Greater Vancouver. There are, as I see it, too many.
     Actually, it wouldn't disturb me one little bit if there were none. It seems to me they serve no useful purpose, and probably do more harm than good. It must be remembered that the casino form of gambling is a large departure from the government-run and government-controlled lotteries we have in Canada.
     The lotteries are what I call a "separation" form of gambling, meaning you make your wager, usually in a store, then move on, dealing with other day-to-day matters, like buying groceries or doing other kinds of shopping.  You're separated from the betting point and the "cash-in" point (if there's any cashing in to do).
     You're taking a flyer (the odds against winning the 6/49 are massive, and the odds against winning the Lotto Max are massive-massive) but, as is often said, someone might win, and you don't have to spend very much to have a chance. There's no sitting at a slot machine in a privately-owned and operated casino and mindlessly working it (pouring money into it) in the hopes of "winning" a big payday -- while the private owners or their representatives look on and and make sure you're "having a good time" and do whatever else they can to help you separate yourself from your money. When it comes to plain, ordinary lottery tickets, though, I think most people usually spend a modest amount on them, hoping to win something.

      THE ATMOSPHERE OF OUR CASINOS bugs hell out of me. Very few people  seem to be having any fun at all. (Maybe because most are going to be losers when they leave?) In fact, many  people I've observed in casinos have a somewhat melancholy look about them. And the security guys? Oh, yeah -- you can't miss 'em. Those I've seen usually travel in pairs. They are very tastefully dressed, but they are big guys (I almost said bruisers), and they don't look happy. In fact, they look sort of mean and threatening.
      To put it simply, I don't like our casinos, find them quite boring. But my experience tells me many people spend a long time in them, and have long (funless, I say) sessions with various forms of gambling.

      THIS COMMENTARY AGAINST COMMERCIAL GAMBLING establishments comes as a response to current news of a casino expansion proposed for downtown Vancouver.  I am opposed to it, and I wish to state my support of an organization called Vancouver Not Vegas, which is against that expansion.
      Vancouver's Mayor Gregor Robertson, according to news reports, says he won't allow new casinos or existing casino expansion as long as he's mayor. This is welcome news and I'm sure Vancouver Not Vegas will approve.
      I worry about the position of the provincial government, however, because it is heavily dependent upon gambling revenues. Oh, yes, it certainly does clean up financially with its lotteries (through the B.C. Lottery Corp.), but also takes a chunk from the commercial casinos, too. It hauls in well over one billion dollars annually from gaming, so it has a large stake in keeping the games going. This is not good.
      A former Vancouver city councillor, Peter Ladner, who is dubious about casino expansion, made some cogent comments earlier this year at a public meeting about the proposed expansion, and I think they are worth repeating.

      "WE NEED A MORATORIUM on further gambling expansion in Vancouver until we understand its impact," he said.  The Vancouver Courier noted the following in its report on that meeting:
       "As for concerns about crime and problem gambling, Ladner pointed out the RCMP's Integrated Gambling Enforcement Team disbanded in 2009, leaving monitoring  of casinos largely to the B.C. Lottery Corp."
      Ladner was then quoted as saying:
      "To put BCLC in charge of monitoring abusive gambling is like having he Hells Angels in charge of abusive gang activity."
     Ladner suggested that a referendum be held on the casino proposal, but that idea seems to have  dropped out of sight.
     Do the gambling operators always appear to win? Well, I guess they're the dealers, aren't they?     
       
     

     
     
           

   

WHAT DO YOU THINK, FOLKS: KEEP THE CBC?

   

       I'D BE THE LAST TO ARGUE that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation does a perfect job in its assigned role as a unifying Canadian cultural force, with its obligation to link all regions bilingually, and to provide news coverage in a way that is free of bias, political or other.
      There have been times, in fact, when I have been so ticked off at the CBC -- usually in matters involving general and political news, rather than entertainment programming -- that I'd have backed the idea of dismantling the whole bloody network and selling off its assets in order to reduce the public debt.
       Then I have remembered that lurking in the background, waiting to pounce on the CBC share of the broadcast market, are private broadcasters, whose chief goal seems to be the coining of advertising profits through entertainment, huge chunks of that entertainment emanating from the show biz mills of the U.S.A. (as well as the goal, of course, of providing heavy airing of conservative viewpoints).
       
       BUT THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE that brings me back to the support of the CBC, in spite of its faults, and that's the realization of a peculiarity that I have noticed many times in my professional experience of covering political news.
       Before I describe that peculiarity I must state that in all my years of political reporting, I always tried to be balanced in the way I handled my work. It was standard practice to seek comments from "the other side" in political news. If a premier or prime minister made a statement, or was involved in news in some other way, then getting a response from his or her political opponents was obligatory. In addition, digging into the facts of matters was essential, aside entirely from any politician's statements or desires.
       One is entitled to think that political leaders would understand this obligation on the part of news organizations and their reporters, and not take it amiss. Many of them did, and do today, accept that, but  the peculiarity of which I speak is that there were some who at times did (and do) not.
       On more than one occasion, I heard gripes from government leaders (Premier W.A.C. Bennett was one, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was another, and, yes, I do go that far back) about the way newspapers could find criticisms of government policy by opposition representatives to be worth much as news.

        BENNETT'S POINT OF VIEW was that we should not give those parties any sizeable coverage because they were not in positions of power; they lacked the ability to do anything more than criticize and present unproven ideas. And he sometimes darkly hinted that -- well, no, he actually used specific terms, sometimes calling us "the Liberal press" and even suggesting reporters were "socialists," and if not that, still were guided by some political motive or other.
       I often suspected that the Bennetts and the Diefenbakers and the like would have been quite content to see the opposition get no publicity at all. In other words, the government won election to power, not the other guys, so why should they receive all that attention?
      This approach, in my experience, tended to come more from the right than from the the left, more from the conservative than from the liberal side of the political spectrum. (To be fair, I should remind readers that Diefenbaker was something of a "red Conservative.")
       We've had a sample of this attitude in the past week, with parliamentary committee hearings in Ottawa on the CBC's budget, which depends upon just over $1 billion a year in government subsidies.

       CONSERVATIVE MP JOHN Williamson accused the CBC of providing one-sided news coverage -- which of course meant he was unhappy with CBC coverage of his side, the government side.
       I think his argument boils down to the same thing: it was the Tory point of view that won the national election last May, so other points of view just don't rate. Therefore (although Mr. Williamson did not put it quite this way), we want to stick our noses into your (CBC) records and maybe get to see who your sources were for this or that, and so on and so forth, and then possibly be able to shut them up. I'm not saying that's precisely the case, I'm just kicking the subject around, being of suspicious mind when it comes to politics.
      Anyway, the motivation is political because the source of the questioning is a politician. And, naturally, the CBC is not going to fold under such outrageous pressure, nor should it.

      POWER IS A PECULIAR THING.  Even in democracies those who gain power can persuade themselves after exercising power for a relatively short time, that they not only deserve to wield it, but truly own it. This leads them to reason further that they therefore are not subject to criticisms and can do no wrong and are entitled to constant public cheering.
      Fortunately, in democracies they always learn they are wrong about that.
      I suppose it can be galling to any Canadian national government to be called to account as a result of news stories generated by an organization that the government itself owns. And I would guess that it's difficult for more than a few politicians to accept the idea that an outfit like the CBC is actually doing its news duty when it holds political feet to the fire, as any self-respecting news organization must.
      My opinion of CBC news coverage -- I'm not constant viewer, but I catch quite a bit of it -- is that it is, on the whole, good, professional and energetic. I do not, however, give such a high rating to the CBC's commentary programs. For one thing, they tend to use too many of the same "talking heads," which can lead to boredom, since the viewer is likely to sense in advance what these talking heads are going to say.   
      And then there's this: On a recent political discussion-analysis program I was astonished to see that one of the "authorities" on the panel was a practitioner of what generally goes under the title "public relations counsel."

       THIS OFFENDS ME,  because my view of "public relations counsel" is not terribly favorable. That is a somewhat dignified occupational title, "public relations counsel," but in my day many in news regarded people with that title (pleasant though they may have been personally) as "press agents" and "publicity agents" and (sorry, but it's the truth) as "flaks." I mean, their job was/is to get favorable publicity for their clients, whatever their ilk, whatever their aims.
      And all I can say about that is, "CBC news, what'n'hell are you doing, giving such formal respect and dignity to flaks?"
       I also have a problem with some of the CBC's entertainment line-up -- it has more import programming than your true-blue Canadian might want. So far, the MPs of the inquiring committee don't seem to have gone into that general question. I think they ought to -- I mean, we can already get "Wheel of Fortune" on American cable. So why does the CBC need to carry it too? (There are other "duplication programs" as well.)
       My opinion is that the CBC can and should be sharpened up a bit, can and should pay attention to some of the things that concern the public, but not for political reasons or purposes.

        WHEN IT COMES RIGHT DOWN TO IT, though, I think I'll vote to keep the CBC, while insisting that it is not beyond improvement and should seriously get to work on improving itself -- but do so while holding firmly to the value that it is not a mouthpiece for any government or political ideology. Period.

        Oh, I almost forgot --

        HAPPY 75th, CBC!

DREAM ENTRIES FROM THE SOAPBOX NOTEBOOK: READ 'EM AND WEEP (or not)

   
                               THE FASCINATION OF DREAMS


     Who hasn't awakened on many mornings -- sometimes quite early -- after having experienced absorbing, arresting and, more often than one might like, absolutely terrifying dreams?

      I know I have. In fact, at times I have been so impressed, even staggered, by some of my dreams that I have taken to making notes about them, thinking they might serve as a basis for future stories of imagination. But recently, having come across a few of those notes, I've decided they can stand on their own, without elaboration or revision into some other form, and are well-suited to Blog recording.

     I mean, they do amount to fiction on their own, don't they? Certainly they do. In fact, they in many ways are more fictional than the finely crafted material of conventional fiction, for the simple reason that they come from unconscious, unfettered, natural inspiration within the sleeping mind.

      And, so, friends, I now proceed to share a couple of recent dreams, of two different nights, that I feel, even in their twisted, disconnected logic and sometimes ghastly "events," may be of general interest, and even provide fodder for those psychologists and psychiatrists, both amateur and professional, who believe dreams actually mean something (but can't agree on what, thanks to the variant theories of the late, great Drs. Freud and Jung, and their intellectual descendants).
                                                            ------

              I THINK I WAS JUST ON MY WAY TO WORK LAST NIGHT
      I am on foot, making my way to work, following a group of workmates. It is daylight, a grey, overcast day. I am trying to catch up, but can't. My mates start to cross an open field. Perhaps it's the city's fairgrounds, but in the off-season: there are no buildings or fixtures on the field, but office buildings and homes surround the field perimeters.

     My mates are taking a shortcut in crossing the field. As I follow them, I suddenly encounter a cat attacking and chewing on a roundish, bun-shaped smaller creature. As I watch, struggling with a vague thought that I ought to do something, the bun-shape morphs into the form of a dark grey rat. The cat is much larger than the rat and it doesn't seem a fair fight.

      The cat runs off, leaving me with what looks like a dead rat. The animal is absolutely still, and I begin to think I should try to revive it. There's a burning cigarette in this scene somehow, and as I stand there looking at the rat, smoke is rising from the area of the rat's abdomen. I mentally note, "This rat has swallowed a burning cigarette!"

                       SO LET'S TRY REVIVING THE CRITTER
      It seems like a good idea, I tell myself, to pour water on the rat, perhaps squelch the smoke and bring the rat around. Oh, yes -- here's a shoebox, the rat will fit into it, and I can pour water into the box, cover the rat, then pour the water out and the rat will revive. (I had not the slightest thought of what on earth I was doing trying to save a rat. But we must try to remember that this was "just a dream.")

      I begin to implement my rescue plan. And after I've poured the water out of the box, the rat is far from conscious. Seems clear to me now that it is not going to revive. It is just a drowned, dead, rat.

      Somebody in the crowd that this rat drama has attracted says of my hesitation, "Forget it -- bury the goddam thing."

      I look around for a possible grave site, but it strikes me that I ought not to be burying a rat in these historic fairgrounds.

      I am mystified, and a bit forlorn, at being incapable of finding a rat grave.  I realize I have an impossible problem here . . .

      And thus ends, or fades out, that weird, crazy dream.               
                                                             ------

                              LEAPS OF FAITH CAN BE OVERDONE
      The second dream I relate in this chronicle (which will have future chapters, I do believe, of other dreams) begins with my walking among the streets of huge and tall office buildings, hotels and apartments -- I suppose somewhat like those of downtown Vancouver.

      But then, all of a sudden, I am no longer on the street, but on the top of one of these buildings, very, very high.  How I may have found my way up there is of no concern to me whatever. And, once on top, it is my feeling that I am and have been for some time walking and jumping from building-top to building-top, from flat roof to flat roof,  all of which are very close to one another, making each leap relatively easy.

      Each leap provides an exciting and joyful feeling.

                            PERHAPS IN A DREAM IT MATTERS NOT
      Except that, because I have been making all these easy leaps continuously, I have formed something of a habit with this series of jump-jump-after-jump. And, so, I find myself unable to stop the pattern; it just seems very natural. I am more or less invincible in my jumping, and there is no jump too difficult for me to make.

      Unfortunately it is only when I am in the midst of the last one that I realize I have taken one leap that is over a distance too far for me to be sure of covering. I naturally come up short.

       As I find myself falling rapidly from many storeys high, I say to myself -- calmly, as if I am a mere observer -- "You know, you are quite a sorry idiot . . . "

       At that exact moment I awaken, terribly glad to find out I had not been in the real world. Letting out a huge exhalation of air, I am secure in the realization that I have been experiencing only a dream.

       And yet I also realize in that moment that I have one hellish headache . . .

                                                                  ------

     P.S.   Re: the Rat Dream: Perhaps in a future dream I could "bury" the rat corpse in a novel way -- say by leaving it on the roof of a skyscraper, instead of worrying about finding it a burial place in the ground. No, just kidding. Anyway, one would think that different dreams on different nights can't "communicate" with each other in such a way. Or can they . . . ?
      P.P.S. Re: both dreams described above. Any comment on or analysis by readers of the dreams I've reported -- you know, your take on "symbolism," theme, underlying meanings, and all of that -- may be inserted in the comment space below, and will be welcomed. Think of it as a chance to exercise your inner psychologist.

                                                                  ------

PRINCE CHARLES RIGHT ON GRAVE DANGERS TO ENVIRONMENT, AND TO OUR SURVIVAL

                                    CHARLES TELLS IT STRAIGHT


      Royalty and its often idle pursuits are not something I have been inclined to warm to. My view has long been that royalty doesn't fit any genuine democracy, and ought not to be revered by one.

      Not that Canada is what you might call a total democracy, of course. For one thing, we have a Queen, a member of an historically non-democratic institution, though a modern-times "reformed" and "symbolic" one; for another, and completely aside from the question of royalty, we have in our country electoral laws that rarely produce democratic representation (a fact I have discussed in the past and will do again in the future, but not in this piece).

      I am now forced to admit, however, that my jaundiced attitude toward monarchy has lately been tempered by a noteworthy entry into matters of the common good by Prince Charles. He has shown, as he has in past offerings, that he accepts a positive public role and will not shrink from delivering rather arresting, even non-establishment, opinions to the world.

      And I would say he has earned special credit with his latest offering in acceptance of the position of president of the World Wildlife Fund-UK. He has been an environmentalist for a long time and has used his position of fame to further the goals of the WWF.

                                                    * * * * * *

      IN HIS SPEECH TO THE WWF, HE USED some of the most dire words that have been heard by his members concerning human use of nature and its resources, even warning as possible the extinction of humanity if it doesn't change its ways.

      Of special interest to Canadians was one sharp caution on global warming, and it's consequences for Canada's arctic, referring to the "terrifying" possibility of an ice-free Arctic Ocean. If it happens to the Arctic it will happen in the Antarctic, as well, he intimated, and we will have horrendous global warming.

      Although that Arctic warning didn't, from what I've seen, draw particularly large space in the Canadian news media, the rest of his speech drew great attention and coverage internationally.

      The UK's Guardian, for example, showed intense interest in the prince's "impassioned plea for humanity to safeguard the natural world for future generations." And the Daily Telegraph provided extensive coverage.

      All media were taken, as they should have been, by Charles's claim that the world is already in the "sixth extinction event," faced as it is with global threats of climate change, rainforest destruction, widespread droughts and loss of fish stocks.

      "History will not judge us," said Charles, "by how much economic growth we achieve in the immediate years ahead, nor by how much we expand material consumption, but by the legacy we leave for our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren.

      "We are sacrificing what is rightfully theirs by sacrificing long-term progress on the altar of immediate satisfaction and convenience. That is hardly responsible behaviour."

                                                    * * * * * *

      AFTER HEARING OR READING ABOUT the Prince of Wales's speech, how many of us are of the opinion that the world's industrialists and resource-extractors, and political leaders, will take more urgent action than they have, so far, to head off the environmental consequences of what is happening in the pursuit of consumption -- or over-consumption, mostly in the so-called First World?

      Deep environmentalist concern has been sounded frequently for years about such things as:

      -- The massive output of chemicals, and their entry into the environment, with lack of sufficient knowledge about their effects on humans and the environment, with not much political angst about it.
      -- Control over and elimination of such toxic substances as plastics (to be found in almost every corner of the globe, and polluting the oceans by the millions if not billions of particles).
      -- Still inadequate limits on carbon emissions.
      -- Corporate resistance to environmental controls, and at times actual denial of any global warming, positions taken out of more concern for balance sheets than for the health and survival of humanity.
      -- The weakening of the soil and the oceans as buffers against global warming, according to recent European studies.
      -- Continued threats of lowering ozone levels. (Just wear lots of sunscreen, you say? Well, it ain't that simple, bub.  For example: The U.S. department of Agriculture on Aug. 30, 2011, worried about a possible 10 per cent drop in soybean crops as a result of ozone reduction.
      -- And then there's the longer-range environmental issue of what's to be done about safe storage of nuclear wastes from the worrisome expansion of the nuclear-power-generating industry.

                                                    * * * * * * 

      YET, IN SPITE OF THOSE PROBLEMS AND CONCERNS, we have great, greater and greatest threats to the environment, and to humanity's future, still confronting us.

      Now, I'm not an expert on the environment, though I do try to keep track events and issues in that field.  But I don't have to be an expert. Prince Charles is authoritative when he speaks of the environment, because he has been a champion of the need to clean it up for many years. He has, I have no doubt, studied it well, and has the best advice from some of the best experts there are.

      I am therefore confident that the environmental facts are what Prince Charles says they are,  and I'm not going to fault him for making his case in as dramatic a way as he wishes. My confidence, in fact, grows greater with the knowledge that another high-profile personage, UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, is on the same message. A couple of months ago he warned the UN Security Council that human-generated climate change, as one headline declared, "threatens world peace." He put it this way:

      "Extreme weather events continue to grow more frequent and intense in rich and poor countries alike, not only devastating lives, but also infrastructure, institutions, and budgets -- an unholy brew which can create dangerous security vacuums." Thus, he found, concerted actions worldwide to counter climate change are vitally essential.

      All of the above quite definitely makes me more environmentally concerned, and supportive of environmental-protection efforts, than I may have been in the past.

      And I would like to add that I believe I will have to rethink my previous attitudes toward British Royalty (which is really Canadian royalty, too) -- and must offer thanks to Charles, Prince of Wales, for the work he is doing on the environment. He is a credit to that often-controversial institution known as royalty.

                                  ______________________________


       

LET'S HAVE MORE NEWS MEDIA DISCLOSURES ABOUT . . . THE NEWS MEDIA THEMSELVES

  
 
      IT HAS MORE OR LESS FALLEN OUT OF THE HEADLINES, but the Murdoch-News Of The World scandal did raise some questions related to the trustworthiness of "The Press" in general -- and they are questions that I believe need to be explored.

      Since that revealing UK parliamentary inquiry last month into the now-deceased News Of The World's morbid cellphone-hacking caper, there have been few, if any, proposals from within the conventional mainstream press for reforms in the field of news gathering and publishing -- even though the conventional press is not always shy about about wandering into scandal sheet territory itself.

      I mean, sex and scandal sell well in all forms of popular information dissemination, don't they, and not just in the tabs. Yet, somehow, that reality has been overlooked in the handwringing over the Murdoch press.

      The mainstream press, of course, is always eager to adopt a lofty position and treat the trash press as by definition unworthy of being taken seriously, saying in effect, "That's not us -- we are responsible."


      THE PRESS IS A BUSINESS THAT IS NOT especially comfortable with the idea of criticizing or investigating its own methods and practices, while at the same time reserving to itself the right to pry into everyone else's business.

      I've been retired from the game for more than 20 years, but I'm still a news junkie, and over those years I've thought quite a lot about how easily the news media get by without being called to account that much.

      So, today, I'm going to throw out, in a helpful, speculative way a few suggestions that might contribute to improvement of public trust in The Press. (Surveys show, by the way, a relatively low rating for public trust of the news media, aside entirely from the Murdoch thing.)

      Just before I get into my suggestions, however, I'll repeat one of my biggest complaints, which I never tire of voicing -- and that is my objection to the relentless concentration of ownership in the conventional news media, seemingly just about everywhere in the English-speaking world. The sad part of it is that the general public doesn't seem to notice, or else doesn't really care, so muted are any protests. Oh, that's right, I just remembered -- the mutes are operated on the whole by the concentrating forces themselves, aren't they? But the good news is that we do occasionally see the on-line "press" taking the ball away from the big boys, and this is to the public benefit.


      A LONG TIME AGO the Canadian government commissioned an inquiry into the monopolizing trend in Canada's news media. The upshot was a report, based on complaints and suggestions to the inquiry by many concerned citizens, containing a number of constructive recommendations, including legislated limitations on concentration of ownership. The idea was to encourage competition in news, the better to inform the pubic.

      Nothing came of it, the concentration continued.  I suppose there weren't then (as now) many politicians who wanted to arouse the hostility of news media owners, managers, and publishers intent upon diminishing competition in news coverage and thus improving their profits.

      Okay, that battle seems to have been lost, at least for now. But let us not despair -- there are other ways in which improvements can be made with the objective of making The Press more reliable and trustworthy, and that's what I'm on about here.

      What I have to suggest would go under the heading of "conflict of interest," a topic that does engage the interest of the news media, because it is one major activity of news gatherers. Looking into conflicts of interest, mostly in politics and business, and the publicizing of it in its news spaces, is a significant part of the bread and butter of news-gathering-and-publishing businesses.

      Therefore, I propose, that same principle ought to be one that is equally applied to those who do the news gathering, including news commentaries and editorials. And applied as well, where it might reasonably be applied, to publishers, managers and other news media executives.


      FOR EXAMPLE:

      * The business-news editors and reporters should have to disclose what investments they own, in what companies, if any; or at the every least disclose whether, on any given story they have handled about any given company or class of business, they hold any personal interests.

      * Ditto for political reporters and commentators on where their personal political -- and business interests too -- may rest, if any. Do any of them hold a publicly undisclosed membership in any political party? And, if a political story or government policy affects a company or class of business, have they any personal interest in any of those businesses? It might even be fair to ask how they vote.

      * Ditto for the writers and editors of the sports pages, where any personal interest might involve any of the sports or teams or athletes or personalities written about (including animal racing).

      * Ditto for the writers and editors of the entertainment pages.

      And so on and so forth, for culture, for religion, and for all the other sections and content of a newspaper (TV or radio station).


      NOW, WOULDN'T YOU AS A NEWSPAPER READER,  TV viewer or radio listener feel more comfortable, and enlightened, if you knew those personal things about the people you pay to keep you informed?

     And, knowing those things, wouldn't you feel a good deal more trust toward them and view them as more reliable as well?

      All right then, the people of The News Media have to act: they should suck it up and give us the lowdown on their personal selves and interests, and their relationship to the news. If there's conflict, they need to own up to it, and get rid of it. Create a better-informed readership. We are entitled to that information. It could be a fascinating part of many a story.   

   

DISSERTATION ON MURDOCH'S MELODRAMA

                        
                              DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH
     
      Pardon me if I sound a little cynical here, but having spent most of my working life in the newspaper business,  I have to say that I suspect Rupert Murdoch and his "journalistic" empire will emerge from their current troubles without suffering much long-term damage.

      So, okay, the News of The World is gone. But as Murdoch himself suggested, that was virtually peanuts, less than one per cent of his holdings. Everything else, it appears, is intact within his empire, and no doubt the byword in his organization worldwide is something like, "Onward and upward, the sky's the limit," and so on.

      The time element in the probing of the Murdoch empire's shenanigans, both in the UK and the U.S., is such that he and his minions will be able to keep on doing for months and months, perhaps even years and years, what they have been doing, before any serious or deep  changes and reforms are imposed, if any can be.

      What I'm saying is that the whole thing shows every sign of being such a long and drawn out affair that people will have lost track of it before a lot gets done.

      Sure, some stock market dip in the Murdoch companies' shares did occur, but that's unlikely to be serious or lasting. The thing is, Rupert, already worth about $7 billion, has a keen knack for making money (although there's a question mark over certain iffy ventures he's attempting in China). But, let's face it, anyone who controls $7 billion isn't likely to suffer anything approaching heavy-duty financial penalty. For someone like Rupert, suffering a little embarrassment -- "the most humble day of my life" -- can't hurt much within the context of his entertainment empire.

      The situation is the following:  An extensive UK police investigation has been ordered into a particularly goulish and gruesome example of Murdoch press cellphone hacking. That's good, except that the best estimate of the inquiry's duration is one year, which probably means it will take longer, especially since some highly questionable links between the Murdoch people and cops in the UK are involved.

      And only then, we are told, can the promised judicial inquiry begin.  How long that will take, only Murdoch's maker knows. And of course there's talk of a probe by the U.S. Congress concerning allegations involving his large U.S. operations, but what might happen there is uncertain, given the conservative-dominated, Murdoch-ideology-leaning House of Representatives.

                              AFTER THE PROBES, WHAT THEN?
      What might then happen? Perhaps some criminal and/or civil charges against any lawbreakers. There might be quite a few of those, in light of reports that as many as 12,000 people were victimized by telephone tapping and other "blagging" incidents allegedly perpetrated by a UK branch of Murdochs' News Corp.

      Fortunately for the Murdochs and the News Corp., the mysterious death of the chief whistle-blower in the Murdoch  phone hacking scandal, Sean Hoare, evidence-gathering is severely compromised -- unless, that is, Hoare left behind well-protected notes and documents in support of his allegations.

     Hoare was a totally key figure in the whole story, having worked for the Murdoch scandal sheet, News of The World, where he gained first-hand knowledge of phone hacking.

      Rupert Murdoch and his son were the very picture of sincerity and contriteness before the UK parliamentary hearing yesterday, protesting complete innocence of these nefarious practices in their empire -- and they still refused to take responsibility for the misdeeds of their trusted executives.

     This to me was sheer evasion, to put it mildly.  It made me think of the U.S. president, Harry Truman, a gutsy guy who had a sign in his office that said: "The buck stops here." I guess the Murdochs don't know about such things.

      No -- my impression of the Murdochs is that they have a sort of understanding with their empire's executives that they, the executives, operate on "principles" perhaps expressed this way: "Get audience, get readers, expand market-share, do whatever you need to do to improve the bottom line. But don't do anything illegal in your news and information-gathering. And keep me out of it, I don't have time for all the details of every operation. If you do anything illegal, it will not be with my approval, I will deny all knowledge and disown you." Just speculating, that's all.


                              A BIG POINT IN MURDOCH'S FAVOR
      I watched a great deal of the five-plus-hours testimony before the UK parliamentary committee inquiry on July 19, and there was one matter that I never heard mentioned, even in passing, but it is something that must be discussed.

      It is the question of freedom of the press. All democratic societies, to my knowledge, advocate and support freedom of expression, whether by oral or printed or broadcast means. Without the embracing of that principle there can be no democracy.

      I wish to point out that freedom of speech and the press does not mean it can only be freedom of a "responsible" or "ethical" or "principled" press or speech. No, it is simply freedom of speech. You say and write what you like, and you take your chances as to whether you are guilty of libel or slander. There are laws against those, and it can cost you and hurt you a lot if you break them.

      Information-gathering takes many different forms, most of them legal, but not all of them perhaps "ethical" by puritanistic standards. During my career, I had my own moments in that regard, but my lips are sealed. In the news business, you get your news where you find it, we always used to say.

       Just to clarify, though: I never was involved in or ever heard of any other reporters being involved in telephone tapping. But I can't say that I never did gain possession of purportedly "confidential" documents or make them public in an "unauthorized" way; and I can't say I never eavesdropped on what were supposed to be confidential meetings. The results of such actions usually turned up good news stories, all of them in the public interest (to the chagrin of many a politician), and I apologize in no way for any of those activities.

     If the News of The World or other Murdoch news outlet violated some other law than laws against the admitted cellphone-hacking -- such as laws against libel and defamation, or of theft or blackmail, and so on -- then the perpetrators ought to be charged and tried on the evidence. Those laws exist and are sufficient, I say, to deal with any of the problems covered by the heading, "journalistic misdeeds."

      Other than that, though, it's fair game. If the Murdoch press wishes to produce mostly sleazy news of scandal and crime, or political and economic propaganda (as many of the Murdoch interests have been characterized as doing) then that is its choice, and it is perfectly free to do so.


                              THE MORE COMPETITION, THE BETTER
      People will either purchase its publications, or listen to or watch its broadcasts, as they please. It is the people  -- in the marketplace of ideas and information -- who will decide the success or failure of that news endeavor.

      My own view of the matter is that the more competition in the news marketplace there is, the better for society. So, yes, I do have criticism of the Murdoch empire for its clear efforts to build monopoly-like holdings that can overwhelm the print and broadcast world with one particular point of view -- in the Murdoch case predominantly conservative and right wing ideas and interests. Its critics are strong in their  claims that Rupert's empire uses political influence through its media to improve its profitability.

       Concentration of ownership in any industry, in my view, is bad for society. It is especially bad in the information media. (Canada, unfortunately, has seen examples of that that.) And I hope Murdoch is not given the necessary government permission to further concentrate his UK empire in broadcasting.

      Much as a lot of British politicians might wish to bring down the hammer on Murdoch, I'm not sure the UK parliament can do much -- other than prosecute actual breaches of the law, and prevent concentration of ownership -- to otherwise "curb" the Murdoch press there, without infringing on freedom of speech generally.

      And, after all's said and done, I believe it's a good thing that they can't.

    
    

    
    

          

REFLECTIONS ON AFTER-HOCKEY ANARCHY

              
       FIRST, LET'S DEAL WITH THE CULPRITS -- I say the perpetrators of the Vancouver vandalism ought, at the very least, to be severely spanked and sent to bed without supper for at least 30 nights (and days) in secure, steel-barred rooms.

      Those who performed physical violence on other people in that post-Stanley Cup idiocy should, of course, get more appropriate penalties, according to the severity of their crimes.

      All convicted rioters should also have to undergo training, while in jail, in how to write on a chalkboard, a couple of thousand times:  "I will be a good boy (or girl) after all future sporting events, win or lose." (None of the rioters could be called a boy or a girl, admittedly, because they are people in grown-up bodies -- but it seems their skulls still contain infantile brains.)

      On their release, the culprits should be facing big bills for the damage they caused in Vancouver's downtown region with their rampaging, all such bills to be ascertained by the courts and/or the "searching" public inquiry we almost certainly now can expect to see launched by our political leaders here in British Columbia.

      In the meantime, we non-rioters can sit back and soak up the advice and reflections we'll find it hard to avoid from editorialists, columnists and other sociological "experts" on the toilet-training, parenting, possible educating and social and economic status of these only-marginally-civilized rioters.

      We also need to consider other factors related to the rioting and its aftermath, and I will now contribute to that debate,  but mainly in one particular only -- and that a somewhat political one.


      THE RIOTS HAVE BROUGHT AN OLD TERM TO THE FORE:
      "ANARCHISM!"
      Except that in the newspapers they didn't put it in italics and caps, or follow it with an exclamation point, in the way I have here, or in the way it was done frequently many, many decades ago.


      Our Vancouver police chief, Jim Chu, led the way in using the word "anarchists" to describe the sources of the rioting. Commentators have being using it as well. So it is out there and must be given some attention.


      "Anarchism" is a word loaded with political and economic meaning -- and it has been used in the past by entrenched interests against people working for social, political and economic justice and change aimed at improving life for citizens.


      Women's suffrage activists a hundred years ago got the anarchist label. So did people who worked for broader representation generally in elected bodies. People struggling for improved working conditions in sweat-shop days (still far from gone in many parts of the world) were "anarchists." People who demanded workplace bargaining power and unions, to improve wages and get better and safer working conditions, were given that appellation.


      In short, it has been a convenient term for those seeking to protect economic, political and other self-interest -- an all-encompassing pejorative aimed at denigrating someone or something.




      
      THE ANARCHISM MOVEMENT HERE, in Vancouver and B.C. generally, seems to be more or less non-existent.  I know -- there is an Anarchist Party of Canada, but I don't believe we can view it in the serious way that our law enforcement chief does. Here's why: it is called the Anarchist Party of Canada (Groucho-Marxist).  It is supposedly a dadaist sort of group. (You can look up "dadaism" on the web, if you like; it's kind of kooky, but too damn complicated to detail here.)


      Every once in a while the Groucho-Marxist anarchists have been in the news for pushing pies into the faces of well-known people, including onetime prime minister and opposition leader Joe Clark, and Bill Vander Zalm, before he became B.C. premier.


      About the only notice taken nowadays of this group, if it actually is one, is by Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. One of its mottos has been "vote with a pie." Wikipedia says it was loosely affiliated, or shared many members with, the short-lived Rhinoceros Party of Canada, which championed the legalizing of marijuana, among other things.


      In the interests of balanced reporting and commentary, I have sought to make contact with somebody associated with the Anarchist Party, for a statement in response to the allegations about the riot and the "party's" part, if any, in it. So far, I have been unsuccessful, but will keep on trying.




      THE OXFORD UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY says an anarchist is someone "who admits of no ruling power, (is) an advocate of anarchy," or "one who upsets settled order."


     Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary says about the same, but also describes "anarchism" as "the theory that all forms of government are incompatible with individual and social liberty and should be abolished." Funk & Wagnalls also says anarchy is: 1. Absence of government. 2. Lawless confusion and political disorder. 3. General disorder.


      Another interesting definition of anarchism is to be found in the Great Encylopaedic Dictionary of the Reader's Digest, which states: "Political doctrine standing for the abolition of all organized authority and state machinery, and advocating the creation of a society in which men will be expected to live together in harmony on the basis of voluntarily respected mutual contracts."




      THOUGH IT IS SIMPLISTIC AT TIMES, I'D SAY IN THIS CASE that the Reader's Digest has given a pretty useful and concise definition of anarchy. It and the other word authorities combined would seem to give credence to Police Chief Chu's conclusion (except, I guess, for that "harmony" bit in the Reader's Digest definition).  I do wonder, however, whether the chief has given much, or any, thought to the idea that anarchism is a political concept, and not just violent, unlawful activity.

      I will study carefully anything he might say about anarchy in future. I do, however, have this question for him now: Is the chief making a suggestion that an actual organized group, who style themselves a political anarchy movement, started this riot by intent? If so, I think he ought to give the public the facts of the matter as soon as possible. Any time the police interest themselves in political matters, lawful or otherwise, we ought to be told.

      Although Chief Chu was not precisely accurate in his remarks about anarchy as a political concept (because, as we've seen, it theoretically does aim at societal harmony, cooperation and peace), he certainly was on the mark to state the Hockey Riots were a good sample of what anarchy can be like, perhaps in a non-political form, as in a breakdown of law.

      It might even be fair to say that what we witnessed in downtown Vancouver on the night of June 15, 2011, probably went far beyond anarchy.


      JUST ONE LAST THING -- a sort of sociological note. About all those car-burnings in the riots.  Surprised by that? Well, you shouldn't be.

      Don't you know? It's a cultural thing, learned behaviour, I think it's called. Take a look at movies and TV. How many dramatic programs and crime programs, and "action" and "adventure" movies are there that don't have at least one car-burning in 'em?

       Now, there's something for Chief Chu and our coming commission of inquiry to examine.               


            

RIDICULOUS OR NOT, 'JUDGMENT DAY HAROLD' COULD ACTUALLY BE ON THE RIGHT TRACK

    
   
      AT GREAT RISK TO MY PERSONAL REPUTATION, I want to say a word or two on behalf of The Rev. Mr. Harold Egbert Camping, the California radio evangelist who claimed it would be game over for most of us on Saturday, May 21, 2011. That is, it was to be God's Day of Judgment, the Day of The Rapture.

      With egg all over his face, the morning after, he can't have felt very rapturous, having just suffered a massive failure, again, of his holy predictive capabilities, on the question of humanity's existence.

      It was the day on which some of us -- the chosen, the deserving, the believers -- were to be "raptured up" into the sky to be with Jesus. And the rest of us (meaning, if I'm not mistaken, most of us) were to be left behind to perdition, the place of eternal damnation, also known as Hell. For good measure, this Christian preacher added that five months after May 21 to the day, God would destroy the Earth and the universe.

      All of this is based upon Rev. Camping's interpretations of the Bible, and his complex calculations for the crucial dates, drawn from Biblical prophesy.


      I WILL NOT EVEN TRY TO GET INTO THE BIBLICAL convolutions that give rise to the Camping predictions. It is sufficient to know that his conclusions were made and, as these kinds of predictions generally do, attracted widespread public attention and response.

      That response, as we have seen, is made up mostly of jokes and wisecracks, many of them I think quite clever. However, I suspect the feelings of Rev. Camping will not be hurt, because his beliefs, backed in his mind by scriptural authority, undoubtedly give him confidence that scoffers will face special punishment.

      Here's my take on Rev. Camping and his imaginings concerning the End Time: he may be on the right track, but he is lamentably on the right track for the wrong reasons. He also is far too impatient in his desire to get to the end of the world.

      Of course, this may be a function of age. At 89, this gentleman, like all aging folks (yes, I include myself in that category) is holding onto the wrong end of what might be called "the stick of time," and some subconscious awareness of this might be influencing his religious outlook. A kind of "if it's going to be over for me, so it will be for multitudes, my Bible tells me" attitude; in this may lie some consolation for him.


      PERSONALLY, THE WAY I VIEW THE PROBLEMS OF AGING is to resolve that, whatever they are, one must do one's best to deal with them, and just keep on trying, to get the most out of and to give the most, to whatever time is left.

      I hope Rev. Camping has some similar rule to live by, but my point is that he doesn't have to rely on the Bible as the source for his concern over the end of the world (if it in fact is concern, in light of his apparent religious delight in the prospects for the end). No, the events of the world, and the condition of the world today ought to be enough to satisfy any need he has to see the world come to an end, or something close it. As I say, he just needs to crank it back a bit, and not be in such a hurry.

      If Rev. Camping would pay more attention to the daily news, he would see that humanity and its leaders are engaging in conduct that cannot continue for long with success.

      Has this reverend gentleman not acquainted himself with the problems of environment degradation, no small part of it irreversible?

      Is he informed on "the population bomb" and where it is inexorably leading?


      WHAT IS HIS KNOWLEDGE OF A RELATED PROBLEM, that of deep poverty in what we in North America regard as the disadvantaged Third World (but toward which a great many of us feel quite superior, even though we have substantial poverty problems of our own)?

      And let us not overlook what may be the most gigantic threat to the continued existence of humanity -- the growing militarization of the globe, including that of the outer space surrounding us.

      The weaponry available today worldwide, Rev. Camping, is so effective and destructive, and the existing and potential international conflicts so intense, that sensible investors must be salivating over the profits to be made from investments in war industry stocks.

      Thermonuclear bombs exist in the thousands, and range in power to many, many multiples of the tiny bombs that destroyed two Japanese cities in August, 1945, and brought World War Two to an end.


      I DON'T KNOW WHETHER OUR REV. CAMPING SAW IT or not, but an article was published eight or nine weeks ago in the San Jose Mercury News (in Camping's state), under the byline Nadia Drake, the first two paragraphs of which said the following:

        "SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Life on Earth is hurtling toward extinction levels comparable to those following the dinosaur-erasing asteroid impact of 65 million years ago, propelled forward by human activities, according to scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.
        "This week, scientists announced that if current extinction rates continue unabated, and vulnerable species disappear, Earth could lose three-quarters of its species as soon as three centuries from now."

     There you are, Rev. Camping. Little doubt exists that the end is going to come. It's just a question of when. And some of us will breathe easier in hearing highly qualified scientists in your state say it'll probably not be for another 300 years or so. So, unfortunately, you're not going to be around to enjoy it. Just the wrong time.

      Well, that's show biz. And, as you undoubtedly know, being something of an entertainer yourself, timing is everything.  

          
    

    

    

    

    

      

A POLITICAL BLANK CHEQUE FOR HARPER?

  
       IF I HAPPENED TO BE A SERIOUS GAMBLER, why, I'd be dealing in big bucks right now in the aftermath of Canada's important national election -- and I'm sorry to have to report that my bucks would all be going the wrong way.

      Yes, I have to admit it:  I would have bet on the wrong horses. Today, therefore, I will operate on the principle that, like it or not, you can't deny a winner, and do record my surprise at the showing by Stephen Harper and his Conservatives. And one absolutely has to congratulate the New Democratic Party for its historic advance, while feeling a bit sorry about the demise of the Liberal Party.

      The Harper Tories won the big prize in an all-out battle that was relatively fair and square, with only the occasional blob of serious mud hurled. Today is the first day of four straight years of Harper majority government.  And, after five years of minority Harper government, Canadians will find out how realistic were concerns, by people like me, that a majority Conservative government would not be good for the nation.

      In my pre-election comments in this space I found it difficult to see how the Harperites could achieve majority status, in light of some serious policy issues they represented. These included their suspected leanings toward: a probable shrinking of health care; tax breaks for big business; heavy deficits; inability to cope with worsening inflation and a poor employment picture; and wasteful financial commitments to  militaristic ventures -- to say nothing of control-freakishness, authoritarianism, government scandals and Tory contempt of Parliament.


     MONDAY'S ELECTION RESULTS SHOW that those issues had no negative influence whatsoever on support for the Conservatives; in fact, the Tory vote went up. A great many Canadian voters, it seems, really don't care a lot about such issues. (That's now -- but who knows? Perhaps in the next four years they will find some issues, in addition to the aforementioned, upon which they actually will be moved to vote.)

      But isn't what we got still a minority government? I expect some people will ask that question, pointing to the fact that the Tories received only about 40 per cent of the popular vote, and yet won more than 54 per cent of the seats in the Commons. And it will be said, as well, that a total of only 61.4 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots, with the effect that the Tory 40 per cent actually is much less than 40 per cent of eligible voters.

      Well, I'm sorry, folks, that's just the way our electoral system works. Yes, there was talk election night about the need for electoral reform, to more fairly and democratically reflect voters' wishes, but I'll bet that Mr. Harper, who benefited hugely from the present system, is unlikely to do much about changing it. (That's one bet I wouldn't mind losing, though.)


      AS MUCH AS ONE MIGHT LIKE TO SAY the Tory mandate isn't really a decisive one, and that the party has only a minority mandate, I insist it isn't that way at all. If nearly 40 per cent of eligible voters are regarded as having failed to participate in democracy, I'm here to say they did.

      Without casting ballots they were still voting because they were saying: "Hey, I'm perfectly happy with whatever the voting outcome might be. I'm too busy, anyway, to get to the polls. If others can afford the time to vote, then that's great --  they can decide for me, I'll go along with them whichever way they vote."

      I'm not recommending such an attitude at all, because it's my view that if you decline to vote then you have absolutely no complaint coming; should a government be elected that does things you don't agree with, you've pretty well already shown you don't care.

     So, on that basis I have to say that the Harper mandate is a very solid one, and he can now proceed in the knowledge that he has what looks to me like a blank cheque, politically.


      EVERY ELECTION IS HISTORIC, BUT SOME ARE MORE historic than others -- and of course the May 2, 2011 vote was historic, bigtime. Especially when it comes to the Liberals and the New Democrats.

      With respect to the Liberals, if a medical person were describing what happened to them, that person likely would be diagnosing the Liberal party as being in "guarded" condition, meaning "We're not sure we can save the patient."

       That party on May 2 suffered a serious, near fatal attack and is on life support. Mr. Ignatieff may become a footnote to Canadian history, if he's lucky -- but it will be only in the sense that he was on the bridge when the typhoon struck his party's ship, and was completely unable to find the wheel (or if he could find it, didn't know which way to turn it). To say the Liberals struck a reef is putting it mildly. Plus, I don't think it is overstating matters by saying that any party selecting two losing leaders, for two elections in a row (i.e., the Liberals), well, that party can't look to much of a future.

  
      SO, THE LIBERALS HAVE BEEN SHOVED OUT OF THE WAY by the New Democratic Party into the political region we recognize as nowhere. The NDP's Jack Layton ran a masterful campaign, found the right words, and knew how to use them. He stunned Canadian politics by surpassing the wildest dreams of his party's rank-and-file, and perhaps even his own expectations of success.

       Imagine -- he turned Quebec politics completely on its head, destroying the Bloc Quebecois (probably Quebec separatism, too), and virtually shutting out the Liberals and Conservatives in that province.

       Now that he's Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition, Jack Layton knows that in this position he leads a party that is "the government in waiting" -- it is the alternative to the government of the day. He cannot help but feel himself on a historic path to power. It has been said that if your party achieves Official Opposition status is will be government one day. We'll see.

       How Mr. Layton performs in his new position, how he carries out his significant responsibilities "on behalf of average, working Canadians," these things will be important not just for his future, but for  Mr. Harper's and, more importantly, Canada's future as well.

      

    
  

HARPER AND THE TORIES NOT A GOOD BET

  
         
     IT'S NOT GETTING THE POLITICAL ATTENTION it deserves, but the fast-inflating cost of living is severely bothering most Canadians -- and they want action.

    They fear, with some justification, that if things keep going the way they are, we're all going to be in a much tougher place economically.

    Such a situation is really not a good one for the party in power, since it makes the voting populace quite restive and quick to put the blame on those in Ottawa who had the ability to make things better, but didn't.

    And this, friends, brings me to my first prediction for the outcome of the election: It is not going to go well for the Harper Conservatives.


     OKAY, THE DISCERNING READER WILL SAY, BACK THAT UP.  Fine, I'll try.

     First, you can't deny that the cost of living -- inflation -- is getting out of hand. And I think those who  pretend that the government tells the truth when it issues national inflation figures, are living in fantasy. I claim it is higher than they say, and by quite a lot.

     I mean, come on: the loaf of bread from the local bakery, what was it a year or so ago, maybe 18 months ago  -- something like a buck and a half? And today? Hah! Only $2.75!


     But forget such petty things as loaves of bread. How about gasoline? Out of sight, and getting higher. Not only that -- in addition, everyone sees the price of oil (meaning our car gas) as the root cause of almost everything else going up, because almost everything else requires energy to produce, and so on and so forth.

     (Insert, April 19, 2011: Now, today, Statistics Canada has documented this, four days after I wrote the foregoing. Its report says there was a jump to 3.3 per cent in inflation -- from 2.2 per cent -- in March, led by food and gasoline prices. We all still know in our hearts that it was probably more than that, because there is a compound increase as inflation rises.)

     In some of the campaign-platform literature I found a promise by Harper that he'll really bear down on enforcement of competition in the market place, if reelected. You bet. Hey, this is the guy who goes for multi-billion-dollar warplane purchases in a no-bid (that means "no competition") contract. Hardly looks as if he really has a lot of time for competition, does it? Not in armament purchases, not in the oil trade, not in banking.

     In the oil business, by the way, how is it that a petro-power like Canada, sitting on huge oil reserves, finds it so convenient to go along without a whisper of criticism with rip-off "world" prices set by a blasted cartel, namely OPEC? This ensures that Canadian consumers pay through the nose at the pump, because our governments just love OPEC.

     Why? Well, I suspect it's because the North American oil companies, fattening off OPEC price-fixing, tend to be major campaign fund contributors to political parties of conservative bent. So we lowly consumers might well ask: Why can't we be like oil-rich Venezuela?  Even though it is a member of OPEC, it has been known to give its citizens a break on gas.



     AND THEN THERE'S THE CANADIAN DOLLAR, sitting right up there as the world's premium currency; today it's some four cents higher than the former mightiest currency in the world (that of the mightiest nation in world history, the good old U.S. of A, our closest neighbor).


     Just thinking about that dollar-rise makes me furious. Not because it might suggest we're superior to the U.S. and nobody recognizes it -- no, it angers me because most Canadian retailers, well-versed in the entire book, cover-to-cover, on how to rip off customers, refuse for the most part to give the poor consumer a break, say by even splitting with the consumer the benefit to be had from now-lower cost U.S. imports on their shelves.


     I think Canadians would like to hear their prime minister -- and the other party leaders -- leaning on retailers to make sure the consumer receives a benefit from that currency advantage.




     THE YOUTH VOTE IS ANOTHER REASON for my belief that Harper could be headed for the exits.


     The extremely wide viewership attracted by a website lampooning the Conservative leader is a strong sign that Harper is not making it with the younger voter. Those who are not aware of this spoof need only call up www.shitharperdid.com to view it.


     But I didn't need to know about that parody to realize that young people view Stephen Harper as somewhat of an anal personality, robotic, pre-programmed and probably not especially interested in their issues. I talk to young people a fair bit (after all, I've got six grandchildren, three of them of voting age) and I find from them that Harper does not rate.

     I don't know how strong an influence the youth vote exerts on election outcomes, but I'd venture the view that if the youth vote is concerned enough about Harper's leadership over the past five years, then they'll get to the polls and have a significant negative influence on his political future.

    The youth vote is also important because of a tendency in the young to need novelty.  Five years in office is a long time to them, and with such an outlook on regime length, they are probably more inclined than older folks to cry, "Time for a change in Ottawa!" This is not good for Harper.


     ANOTHER VERY TOP ISSUE:  HEALTH CARE.  The three main parties are falling all over themselves to persuade the voters that they will preserve and protect Canada's national health care insurance system. I believe Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton when they issue their health care promises, but I am suspicious of Stephen Harper's.

     I am skeptical because of statements Harper made before he became prime minister. His background, before he rose to the political hights, indicates he was somewhat of an Ayn Rand kind of conservative, with her "objectivism," a very rigid doctrine in supporting the "every man (and, by extension, woman and child, too) is on his or her own," it's the individualist society for all, the greatest good for those who can get it, and so on in similar tone.

     With respect to national health care insurance, Harper once called it "socialism," and he is a sworn enemy of that political philosophy.  Also, back in 1997 he delivered a speech to an American think tank in which he referred to Canada as "a northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term."

     I know that his current campaign platform pledges allegiance to health care, but I'm afraid I cannot trust such a pledge. My view is that if his party should win a majority in Parliament, a year later we will find our health insurance plan in a drastically altered, eroded, and diminished state. I think his secret agenda is to turn it into the American style of plan in which you have to buy health insurance from private, for-profit insurance companies with their habit of denying claims. Oh, that Harper does love things American.

    And while we're on the subject, I just want to say I'm getting tired of hearing all the guff about health care insurance being "unsustainable." If you can afford to spend billions on new fighter-bombers, then you can certainly afford national health insurance. If the success of the plan needs a little more in fees, then I believe people who can, will be prepared to pay.

     Then there's another point -- I would like those who claim we get "free" health care in Canada would cut it out. It ain't free, folks, we pay for it in fees and taxes. It's a good plan -- we all put some money in the insurance pot (through fees and taxes) and it keeps us from going broke or dying before we really need to.  Canadians find it good, and firmly believe it's a fine thing to have a healthier nation than it would be without that insurance.


     THERE'S MORE THAT BOTHERS ME about the Tories, but I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. We could talk about corruption, probably for another couple of thousand words; we could point to Tory neglect in environmental protection; we could talk about the power-mad, control-freak aspects of the Conservative campaign, much evidenced by the "bubble" around Harper; we could talk about the G8 scandal, about very questionable and wasteful defense (war goods) contracts; and about contempt of Parliament  (a very bad thing). These are definite issues and I'm sure they will be thoroughly aired on the campaign trail.

     Speaking of the campaign trail, I did watch the leaders' debate, and I found Harper wanting. In fact I was calling him "the Great Denyer" before it was over, because he kept saying things like "That's not true," and "You are totally wrong," or just changing the subject instead of answering the question.

     The main point I'm making here (in case you haven't guessed by now) is to show my personal dissatisfaction with the Harper government, and have done so by discussion of things that concern me, and that I'm sure bother many Canadians. The Tories have had their chances, for five years, and have far from satisfied me or earned my trust. I think it's time for a change.

     And just how am I going to vote? If not Tory, then what party will I pick? I'm thinking it over, I'm thinking it over. About all I will say for now is that my vote will not be for the Bloc Quebecois.

     
     SO, WHAT ABOUT THE GREEN PARTY?  Glad you asked. The Green Party has noble motives, beyond a doubt. And it is running lots of candidates. In the last election it received something over 900,000 votes, and that makes it a very noticeable player in our nation's politics.

    As most people know, the Greens won not a single seat in the House of Commons. In this election, I  hope that the Green leader, Elizabeth May, wins in her constituency of Saanich-Gulf-Islands, because Parliament needs a strong environmental voice, if for no other reason than to keep the other parties honest and true to their environmental pledges.

     Practically speaking, though, it does not seem the Greens have a chance for more than token representation. People admire them, but they are inclined to vote for a party they think has a real chance of forming a government, and all parties do claim to have strong environmental planks in their platforms.  The Greens, as I see it, represent good reasons why Canada must take a sincere look at its electoral system, and get serious about bringing in proportional representation.

     Under the current system (termed very poorly the "first past the post" system) it is a scandal that a party with the support shown by the Greens is without a voice in the Commons.

  
     FOR ME, A REASONABLY GOOD OUTCOME would shape up like this: a minority non-Conservative government, which could be only a Liberal or NDP minority, with the likelihood that it would be Liberal.

     I know Ignatieff has ruled out any coalition, but should the Liberals form a minority government, then they would have to rely on and accept some ideas and policies from NDP leader Jack Layton. I can see Ignatieff doing this without much difficulty, since he knows Layton to be one of the brightest minds in Parliament, an intelligent man with Canadians' interests at heart.

     Of course, if there is basic change in the air by the time election day rolls around (and I suspect it is already building, and not in Harper's favor), then it could be a big change to, in fact, a majority government, thereby eliminating any need to discuss what might happen in a minority situation.

     Yes, I'm sure the night of May 2 is likely to be one of the most interesting nights in Canadian political history. It'll make for fascinating TV. In the meantime, I hope everyone remembers this:  To be part of the big election show, to express your real stake in the outcome, you've got to get out there and vote.

     Good luck, Canada.


  

  

    
  

 

COULD THERE BE MORE FUKUSHIMAS? YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO BET AGAINST IT . . .

  
    
     HAS HUMANITY DUG ITSELF INTO A NUCLEAR PIT with little or no way out? Is the day of that great advance in physics, nuclear-powered electricity, nearing its end? Are many nuclear scientists, after all, not exactly the brilliant brains we once thought they were?

     Many such questions are being framed in the minds of people everywhere in the aftermath of Japan's nuclear disaster -- which still threatens to become a catastrophe. These are eminently worthwhile questions,  I believe most people will agree, and must be debated.

     Although it could be that politicians and the nuclear power industry will not do much more than launch vast public relations campaigns aimed at calming public concerns, the pressures created by those concerns, we must believe, will have to have at least some influence on future approaches to nuclear power development.

      I'd expect Canadians above all are worried about the status of nuclear generation of electricity, because Canada is a huge player in the field of nuclear electricity production, and has been for nearly half a century. Canada has 18 operable reactors, most of them in Ontario, according to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), which represents the nuclear industry.

     The exact number of "operable" reactors is hard to pin down, since reactors require shutdowns from time to time for maintenance -- or repair of leaks, as with one in Pickering, Ontario! It seems the total for Canada could be as much as 22 if all are operating at once. In addition, Canada has two reactors under construction, three are planned, and three more are proposed, says the WNA in a March 2, 2011, listing of worldwide reactor distribution.

     CANADA'S ROLE IN THE NUCLEAR WORLD has involved renunciation of any nuclear weapons development or use. We have determined that no uranium exported from Canada can ever be used in the production of nuclear weapons, and insist on that before issuing export permits.

     Whether that prohibition is totally effective, I cannot say; one might expect some of the exports could possibly, somehow, get diverted to nefarious use. At any rate, we intend to be pure, we will not add to the already thousands of thermonuclear bombs that exist in, and are a grave hazard to, the world, and that's it.  Canada will use the atom for peace, we will concentrate instead on research, and build and use nuclear reactors for electricity production. All very peaceful, right? -- all very nicely-nicely Canadian, yes? Well, now we know it's not exactly quite like that.

     Now we know -- as I heard one unidentified nuclear-power critic say on TV the other day -- that probably there is no such thing as a "fail-safe" nuclear power reactor, anywhere. If Three Mile Island in The United States, in 1979, and Chernobyl, in Ukraine, in 1986, were not enough in the way of disasters, then (many people are saying) the last straw has now been presented to the world by Japan.

      The nuclear power industry, quite naturally in its own interests, is arguing that we shouldn't panic, that there are specific elements in the Japanese disaster which suggest that we shouldn't blame the event on what is called the inherent instability of nuclear reactors. Instead, they say, we ought to blame the combination of natural disasters -- the huge earthquake and subsequent tsunami; the true cause of the horrible event.

    The argument then develops into: Yes, the real fault lies in nature's unpredictability and, admittedly, in the human error that led, to begin with, to the construction of the Fukushima reactors in an earthquake-prone nation. There we have it -- it's human error.

    Hmm. Let's see -- wasn't human error a factor in Three Mile Island? And, oh, yes, it was a major element in the Chernobyl catastrophe. But we must ponder this too: Japan, again according to the World Nuclear Association list, has a total of 55 nuclear power reactors, has two under construction, plans 12 more, and is thinking of building one more. How can this make sense, now?

    ARE WE TO TAKE FROM THIS POINTING TO HUMAN ERROR the idea that we mustn't fault the nuclear-reactor industry, or the nuclear power plant owners and operators? Well, a huge part of the multi-billion-dollar nuclear power industry (and I mean mega billions), including plant designers and equipment providers (like the huge General Electric Corp.), has private ownership, and operation, at times under lax government regulation. And isn't it true that private industry must aim at maximum profit? Does this not mean the possibility of cutting corners, economically, in operation and oversight, and thus, perhaps, fewer carefully applied safety measures against extremely dangerous radiation? Some say yes, some say no. I'm personally inclined to say yes.

     This means the public is forced to accept risks that should be unacceptable. Anti-nuclear groups, like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, have called for an end to heavy government subsidization and tax breaks for the nuclear power industry, claiming that the industry could not survive (thankfully, they would say) without these breaks.

     They also have made this point: "Canadian reactors produced about 35,000 tonnes of high level radioactive waste (spent fuel) by the end of 2000. Despite a 10-year study, and the expenditure of $700 million for research, a national environmental assessment in 1998 failed to support the nuclear industry's proposal for deep-rock storage of radioactive waste. The waste will be hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years."

     See what I mean about getting into the nuclear reactor pit and not being able to escape from it? You can build and operate these things, if you have the unbelievably high sums required, but the problem of radioactive-waste disposal is a great challenge. You bury it, or you dump it in the sea or some other body of water -- yet those methods, the critics say, are not foolproof. Hundreds of thousands of years of hazard, indeed!

     Organizations like Greenpeace have been on top of the inherent dangers in nuclear reactors for a long time. Eleven years ago they and the Sierra Club argued for shifting from such expensive and dangerous ways of producing power to more environmentally friendly ways, such as wind power and solar power, and more efficient use and management of hydro-power. They refer to Canada's nuclear power industry as representing 50 years of failure, and emphatically point to the problems the industry had by then -- eleven years ago -- experienced, outlining a list of "devastating accidents" that had plagued Canadian CANDU reactors. (In recalling the situation back then, they say today that little has changed in the interim.)

     ONE OF THOSE DISASTROUS ACCIDENTS threatened a horror at Pickering Reactor #2 in 1994. That event started with a major-loss-of-coolant accident that spilled 185 tonnes of heavy water. "The emergency core cooling system was used for the first time ever at a CANDU reactor to prevent a meltdown," say Greenpeace and Sierra. (My italics.)
      
     I wonder whether a man like the prospector-miner Gilbert Labine, who made Canada's first discovery of economic uranium in 1930, ever dreamed of such scenarios when he was mucking about in the region of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories? I'd guess not, but as things turned out he goes down in history as the man who turned Canada onto its modern nuclear path. The Great Bear Lake is where he discovered the Port Radium deposit. As the Canadian Encyclopedia notes, it was originally exploited for its radium content.

     The exploration for this substance picked up pace, with other discoveries, in the 40s, of big deposits  in the area of what is now called Uranium City, northern Saskatchewan, and, in the 50s, in the Elliot Lake region of northern Ontario.

     So if you think Canada is not a major nuclear power, better think again. We not only have lots of nuclear reactors (none in this Blog's province of British Columbia, I'm thankful to be able to report) -- we  also produce some 22 per cent of the world's uranium, the key element in nuclear reactions. We are in second place among leading uranium producers; we were first for a long time, until overtaken in 2009 by Kazakhstan.

     We can say, however, that without Canada's production, the world likely would not be as nuclear-reactor infested as it is. Our uranium production businesses have a stake in the use of their product in the rest of the world's building and operating of nuclear power reactors. Contrary to popular belief, then, Canada's hands would not seem to be so clean when it comes to nuclear energy -- at least to those worried about proliferation of power-producing reactors.

     What I'm trying to say in all of this alarm over nuclear reactors is, I suppose, that while the nuclear focus right now is upon Japan, and will be no doubt for at least several weeks, and perhaps much longer, we should not limit our nuclear thinking to Japan (or, for that matter, to Canada). We should be thinking about the entire globe's nuclear reactor involvement. There's lots of it, and there are big plans for expansion.

     I DON'T WISH TO UPSET PEOPLE,  but facts are facts, and I do think everyone should be alerted to the following information from the WNA. (Note that the following is completely separate from the world's manufacture of thousands of thermonuclear weapons. It more than underlines the reality that we live in a very heavily nuclearized world, and with all of its accompanying dangers.)

     Our Earth has upon its surface a total of about 440 operable civilian nuclear power reactors. (The number was 443, until those earthquake-tsunami problems occurred in Japan and shut down at least three  reactors, with three more turned off, meaning all six of Fukushima's reactor units out of action.)

     The nation with the largest number of operable reactors is, no surprise, The United States of America, with 104. The WNA says the U.S. also has one reactor under construction, nine planned, and 23 proposed. All of these figures and plans, I must note again, were on the WNA list prepared as of March 2, a week before the Fukushima blowup; since Fukushima, the issue of nuclear reactor expansion has grown quickly into something politicians in the U.S., and everywhere else, are finding they now have to look at with great care.

     In second place, with 58 reactors, is France, with one under construction, one planned, and one proposed.

     No. 3, as mentioned earlier, is Japan, with 55.

     Russia is next, at 32, with 10 under construction, followed by South Korea at 21. India has 20 (with five under construction, 18 planned and 40 proposed), the UK has 19, and Canada is next with its 18, closely followed by Germany at 17. China has 13 reactors, with 27 under construction, another 50 planned -- and a breathtaking 110 proposed.

     Ukraine has 15 operable reactors, Sweden has 10.

     And we must not forget Iran. It is listed as having one reactor under construction, two planned, and one proposed.

     In total, the World Nuclear Association lists 47 nations as having either operable nuclear reactors, or  reactors under construction, definite plans for reactors, or simply proposing some.

     The most telling statistic of all, and let me shout it this time, is the fact that the world has some FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY operable nuclear reactors. And worldwide there are also 62 under construction, 158 planned, and -- 324 proposed! Whew! This definitely sounds like a nuclear-reactor race to me.

     How many of those reactors now operating are likely to have really big problems, and I mean really BIG  problems (since practically all of them have "little" problems from time to time) -- that is, big,  fatal  problems like those at the complex known as Fukushima?

     I'm not sure I'm qualified to say. But one doesn't have to be a nuclear scientist to toy with the idea that-- well, perhaps using the nuclear scientist allusion isn't such a great choice right now . . . so I'll just say that one doesn't have to be excessively bright to regard the nuclear power reactor as terribly and tragically problematic for the world.

     WE'VE JUST GOT TO BELIEVE, IT SEEMS, that the headlong charge to a greater nuclear reactor future will moderate. But will the politicians and nuclear industry mouthpieces give us much more than talk?  Will anything really change? Who can say?

     The outlook isn't promising. There was a story in the paper just today, with the headline, "Ontario to spend $33 billion on reactors." The Ontario energy minister, who made the announcement, was quoted as also saying that, of course, all kinds of public input will be sought on the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, Ont., about 85 kilometres east of Toronto. The new reactors will replace aging nuclear plants, the story said. Mindful of the Japanese disaster, he assured everyone that Ontario's nuclear plants are and will continue to be terribly safe.

     So the prospects for cranking back nuclear things don't seem good.  Perhaps our only answer is that most of us have to trust, have faith; we have to believe that the nuclear reactor world will reconsider its activities, and phase itself out, and sooner rather than later.

     As crazy as it might appear, I'll say it again: We've got to believe -- but back up that belief through application of pressure from the public on the dim-sighted (and/or misguided) politicians.

     After all, we can argue that a lot of nuclear scientists truly do accept their responsibilities. In the past they've sounded constant alarms over thermonuclear weapons and the need to eliminate them because those weapons are absolutely inhumane and genocidal by their very nature. The nuclear-war clock is winding down, or up, at least some disarmament is afoot, etc. Quite a few nuclear scientists seem to be stepping forward now in the current reactor controversy.

     Also encouraging is the fact that respected and responsible public organs like the Los Angeles Times are more and more in the fray. It recently ran an editorial on nuclear reactors, some of which merits repeating (which this area's Vancouver Sun has done, and which I now also will quote, because The Times spoke very much to the point).

      The LA Times, commenting on Fukushima, took a dim editorial view of nuclear reactor expansion, saying that such power plants "are so expensive, and their risks so extreme, that private investors are reluctant to fund them, even with huge government subsidies and loan guarantees."

     The paper said plans to build a "national repository" for waste in Nevada had been shelved, "meaning radioactive waste is being stockpiled at individual plants in a way that is unsustainable. And then there's the threat of a Japan-type disaster."

     The LA Times said the U.S. gets 20 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power plants (the like figure for Canada, I should note, is about 16 per cent).

     Concludes The Times: "There are more cost-effective ways of weaning the country off climate-warming fossil fuels, namely improved energy efficiency and more renewable power. In the cost-benefit analysis, nuclear doesn't add up."

     Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and all Canadians concerned about the proliferation of nuclear reactors will agree with that.


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