NEWS FLASH: THE U.S. IS A THEOCRACY

   

     IT'S SUMMER, IT'S HOT, BUT WE STILL MUST stick selflessly to our post and attempt to define the larger picture. We'll be brief.
     My inclination in pursuit of this objective is mainly to ask questions, most of them related to the passing parade of news, large and small.

     FIRST QUESTION: NOW THAT HE'S AN OFFICIAL CANDIDATE,  will U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Willard Mitt Romney, a highly-ranked member of the Mormon church, disclose his intentions with respect to tithing -- a fundamental requirement of Mormonism -- should he win the presidency?
     Tithing: that's the word for turning over a tenth of one's income to the benefit of the church.
     
     ONE WONDERS WHETHER MOST AMERICANS -- especially including Republicans -- are aware of this Mormon rule. (I personally am aware, by the way, that tithing is a long-standing idea within mainstream Christianity, but few branches of the Christian church are so strict about it, in almost a cultish way, as the Church of Mormon.)
      Will this tithing principle of faith require Mr. Romney to somehow transfer the practise to his governmental duties, as president; in other words, to make branches of government tithe in some way?
     My reading of the U.S. Constitution says there's no way such a thing could happen because of the idea of separation of church and state. But that doesn't change the fact that the U.S. Constitution has been bent in the past in some very awkward ways (think slavery).

      THE U.S., IT APPEARS TO ME, IS A NEAR-THEOCRACY, if not wholly one. I mean, every candidate for political office in the U.S. (and this has been the case since the beginning of that nation) must express belief in "God" (and, mark my words, it's the Christian God, very heavily so) in order to have any chance of winning any elective office.
      At the Republican convention over recent days and nights, I didn't hear a single speaker of note who failed to finish his or her remarks with almost exactly the following words: "May God bless you all, and (speaker voice-volume goes up here strongly and so earnestly) may God bless the United States of America!" (Goodness me -- could you imagine some Canadian politician making it a habit to end every speech with "and may God bless Canada"? Well, actually, I guess one could, with PM Harper.)


       BUT WE MUST NOT ACCUSE the Republicans of being the only ones wearing their theology  on their sleeves. The Democrats, as you will clearly see when their convention comes up soon, will be doing just as much "God blessing" and "one-nation-under-God"-ing, and all the rest of it, as the Republicans.

       JUST AS A REMINDER,  I am obliged to state here that the American Constitution says no candidate for office shall be subject to a religious test. Unless I have mistaken the meaning of what sounds to me like extremely clear, plain constitutional language, it is my claim that  U.S. politicians violate their own constitution every time there is an electoral contest, and many times in-between.
       Here is what Article VI, paragraph 3, of the U.S. Constitution states:
       "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (My italics.)       
      Yet, almost without exception candidates are unable to escape the religious test, because each and every one of them must say "God Bless America." That is, if they wish to be elected.
       And that's, well, you know, kind of like a . . . theocracy.
     
     

       
   

BE READY FOR A MIDDLE EAST EXPLOSION

                                             
                                           
      BY GOLLY, YOU'VE GOT TO HAND IT to those Americans -- they sure know how to get your attention.
      And I'm not talking about the Olympic Games, in which Americans almost always shine, as they have done in the recent Games.
      No -- what I'm referring to is the U.S.A.'s military virtuosity.
      There's hardly a diabolical weapon of war known to humanity that successive American governments (and their military leaders) haven't found it necessary to pursue, including the chemical warfare variety.
      Please -- don't gasp. America has in fact pioneered chemical warfare. In their war against Vietnam some half-century ago the U.S. military used "Agent Orange," containing the super-toxic chemical dioxin, long before we'd even heard of the late Saddam Hussein and his use of chemical weapons in Iraq.
      Even in 2012, many Vietnamese civilians, and even their offspring, continue to suffer from the horrible health complications produced by the U.S. chemical industry-supplied, and U.S. military-delivered, Agent Orange. Even members of the U.S. military who handled this stuff were victims, too.
      (NOTE: By coincidence, I began preparing this piece in early August, and on Aug. 9 a new U.S. project was announced to "clean up" Agent Orange residue remaining at a former U.S. airbase in Vietnam. Half a century later? How generous, how filled with feelings for humanity is that!?)

      UNFORTUNATELY, THE DAY SEEMS to have passed when we worried about The Bomb,  presumably because no one appears terribly willing to actually use one.
      Nuclear arsenals have been reduced, down to a mere 19,000-23,000 warheads (who knows for certain just how many?) and tensions between the big powers have moderated. More or less.
       This shrunken arsenal of nukes, of course, is still much more than enough to destroy world civilizations several times over. And that once again raises a vital question: How can most ordinary citizens fail to suspect that the leaders of the nuclear nations, and of their supporter-nations -- including Canada, which backs the nuclear U.S. and U.K. all the way -- are severely deficient in mental health, and have been for a long time?
      But even if we grant that our leaders are "on top of" the nuclear problem and will do all they can to avoid any kind of nuclear conflict, those weapons still exist and most are "ready to go" into action. There is, of course, much more to the weapons story. "Nuclear" is only one of the armament problems facing the world. A perhaps more immediate danger is present in the most explosive non-nuclear, or "conventional," bomb ever known: The "Bunker Buster."

      THIS WEAPON, CLAIM U.S.  military leaders, will easily take out underground nuclear power-producing plants in places like Iran. Especially Iran, on which the U.S. has its sights aggressively set.
      The Bunker Buster cannot be classified anything but a Weapon of Mass Destruction, otherwise known as a WMD, right along with nuclear and chemical weapons.
      We all came across the initials WMD quite a lot during the U.S. war against Iraq, thanks to George Bush, Jr., whose political ideology sacrificed scores of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and hundreds of American military lives as a result of his discredited and shameful claim that Iraq was armed with WMDs.

      JUST TO GIVE IT A BIT OF LOCAL perspective, we should realize that one of those massive Bunker Busters creates a blast probably big enough to destroy, say, most of Vancouver's downtown peninsula (if not more of the city) and most of the scores of thousands of people in it. So, really, with "conventional" bombs like these, who needs nuclear?
      I checked out the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP -- the U.S. classification of this bomb -- on the Web, and saw an entry for a video of an MOP test explosion, but when I clicked on that link all I got was was a tangle of garbled coding. Someone, I guess, had decided that such pictures would be too much for delicate civilian eyes, and killed the videos.
      At any rate, further research and development, more refinements and perfection of these awesome weapons, is ongoing within the mighty American military-industrial-financial complex (or is it "financial-military-industrial complex"?).
      About the only "good" side to this weapon is that it is so big and weighs so much (13.6 tonnes) that only the largest of military planes can carry one. That is, one bomb only, per huge plane. Which is probably something of a disappointment to the warriors who daily plan death and destruction from within the safety of the Pentagon.

       IF THESE BUNKER BUSTERS ARE USED TO take out buried and "hardened" Iranian nuclear power-production facilities, I wonder how many people would die from the blasts -- and, ultimately, from the resulting environmental radiation that would be released at those exploded nuclear-fuelled sites (declared by Iran to be for legitimate civilian power-production use only)?
       And, to get to the heart of this essay, I wonder how many scores of thousands would be likely to die in the Middle East war that would be inevitable in the wake of  such attacks? I ask further: Does anybody in the U.S. leadership really care? One continues to suspect that the western world's deep interest in Iran has something other than a military objective.
      It should be remembered that the International Atomic Energy Agency checked out Iran's nuclear program and found it to be non-military in nature and purpose. In light of this, one might conclude that the western world's fixation on Iran has an ultimate objective -- control of Iran's vast oil reserves. This can be achieved most efficiently through "regime change" (remember Iraq?) -- and that kind of change would be unlikely to come about without heavy loss of life, military and civilian, both Iranian and "western."

      SADLY, RECENT OMINOUS DEVELOPMENTS have taken place in the region. According to the Associated Press, a very reliable news agency, the U.S. Defense Department is making huge arms-sales deals with Arabian Gulf states with which it is allied (such as Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). Involved are more than $11 billion in weapons. The deal, it is reported, will make the Arabian Gulf states part of U.S. efforts to "contain" Iran.
      And while the U.S. acknowledges that Iran's nuclear efforts so far are concentrating on civilian energy and medical uses, it appears to be worried that Iran could or might "eventually" develop nuclear weapons with its nuclear expertise.
      Sometimes it seems that no excuse is too weak for the U.S. Military-Industrial-Financial Complex to use as a cause for war. (Really, wars and preparations for wars make huge profits for the arms industries, which is why I have inserted the word "financial." It truly is a triple-complex.)

      THAT SOMETHING BIG IS BREWING in the Middle East appears undeniable, with the U.S. and its very close ally there, Israel, working on plans for action against Iran.
      It didn't get a great deal of notice at the time, but, at the beginning of August, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, during a Panetta visit to Israel, made threatening statements against Iran.

      NETANYAHU WAS GUNG-HO FOR ATTACKING Iran, because it continues to develop nuclear power-producing plants, which he seems to feel can be quickly converted to the production of nuclear weapons.
      Israel, a nuclear power itself, will act on its own, said Netanyahu, if the U.S. takes too long to curb Iran. Time, he said, is running out, but failed to indicate how much time he was allowing the U.S. to come to a resolve over what to do about Iran. This is extremely tough talk which, in my view, borders on the maniacal. This is because other, bigger, nations most likely would be drawn in to such a Mideast conflict, and the world would face a war of possibly massive dimensions.
      The best Panetta seemed able to deliver under Netanyahu pressure was to vaguely pledge some form of "option" to proceed against Iran "if they make the decision to proceed with a nuclear weapon."
     
      THE REST OF THE WORLD CAN ONLY watch and worry, sensing that bad stuff is brewing. Syria, an ally of Iran, is deep in a civil war, said by some to be covertly promoted by "outside western forces and support." This fits in with the theory of a few analysts to the effect that Syria would have to be side-lined first, so as to clear the way for a "western" attack on Iran.

       THOSE OF US IN LANDS FAR AWAY from the Middle East hot spots (as I am here, on the Pacific coast of Canadian North America), can only hope that the religious, racial and real estate differences which divide and sub-divide nations and cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean region, can and will be overcome without the horrific human suffering that results from modern warfare.
     
       

     
   

 

TIME TO TALK ABOUT . . . DOOMSDAY

     
   
      DOOMSDAY!
      What a word -- so arresting, the kind that just has to be printed in boldface capital letters. With an exclamation point too, of course.
      I mean, it's about as dramatic a word as there can be. In English -- in any language.  But perhaps best in English, because in English it is terse, concise, sums it all up on one word.
      For example, in French it takes four words to say "doomsday" -- that is, "Jour du jugement dernier." German states it in three words,  "Der jungste tag." Spanish says it in five,  "el dia del juicio final." Italian in four, "il giorno del Giudizio."
      In those languages, the meaning of their equivalent to the English "Doomsday" is somewhat different from the meaning generally given it today in the English-speaking world. The French, German, Italian and Spanish terms mean "day of judgment," and that is a religious concept.

      IN CHRISTIANITY, Judgment Day is the day of the promised Second Coming of Christ.
      This is a current subject, because in recent years and months, we've heard much about various wild-eyed fundamentalist preachers, mostly in the U.S.A., issuing their Doomsday prophesies. But, so far, those deadly dates have come and gone, nothing has happened, and the preachers are forced to go back to the drawing board to conjure up new forecasts of doom. The next doom date, I believe, is Dec. 21, 2012, said to be related to ancient Mayan belief . . . or not. Anyway, it seems that, if you believe this, folks, we've got only half a year left.
      The theory held by the modern-day Christian prophets is that Doomsday will see the separation of those of us who have been good and just from those of us who have been wicked and evil.
      Those who have been good and just and Christian -- this is strictly necessary, it is essential that they be Christian -- are to be elevated to paradise, with its gold-paved streets and curbs. But the wicked and evil, the unrepentant sinners, and the non-Christians, will be cast into an unimaginably large fiery, sulphurous lake or pit, where they will remain in excruciating pain and torment for eternity. (Hmm . . . am I detecting something of a Nazi flavor in all this fiery pit business?)

       BUT I DIGRESS. WHAT I REALLY want to examine here is a Doomsday concept tied into today's geopolitical scene, and not to religious versions of Doomsday. My concept is one based on existing military weaponry -- primarily nuclear weapons, and the quantity of them. Plus attitudes of governments controlling them.
      Those weapons are why we have the well-known Doomsday Clock, maintained at the University of Chicago since 1947, signifying the clear and present danger that has faced the world since August, 1945. (The date of the clock's most recent adjustment was Jan. 10, 2012, when the clock was moved from six minutes to five minutes to midnight. Oh -- say, isn't Chicago that "toddlin' town" of song, where much of the nuclear-bomb pioneering was developed?)
      As most people know, but which I mention here as relevant background, the first nuclear weapons to be used, ever, in warfare (and to date, the only ones) were dropped on Japan in early August, 1945, by the U.S. military. These two incredibly massive explosions, a few days apart, but in an instant in each case, they destroyed two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with the lives of scores and scores of thousands of those cities' mostly civilian occupants -- men, women and children, indiscriminately, on orders of the U.S. Commander-in-chief, one Harry S. Truman. (By all reports, Mr. Truman, of Democratic Party persuasion, seems to have gone to his grave with a clear conscience.)
      The nuclear bombs used on those two occasions were primitive by today's nuclear-bomb standards, which produce explosions hundreds, if not thousands of times greater per bomb.   

      THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK WAS the post-Second World War invention of a group of serious scientists, alarmed by the world's large supply of nuclear arms. They were scientists of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
       Their idea was a very good one, and their efforts, along with others by politicians, mainly Russian and American, have brought about reductions in the number of nuclear bombs. Unfortunately, it remains a fact that, practically speaking, these reductions do not bring the numbers down to anyone's comfort level.
      There remain in the world an estimated minimum of 19,000, and perhaps a maximum of 22,000 thermonuclear warheads, enough to destroy all humanity quite a few times over -- and a great many of those warheads are in ready-to-go condition, on "hair-trigger alert," as the military phrase goes.

      IN TODAY'S PARLANCE, THEREFORE, "Doomsday" and "Doomsday Clock" refer to a nuclear doomsday -- one that faces the world through the existence of those warheads, and the simple question springing from this may be put in the following way: Can the leaders of the world's nuclear nations be relied upon to maintain their mental balance and avoid nuclear war in the ongoing, and, I suggest, currently warming "cold" war over the world's energy and other resources?
       If you raise eyebrows over my suggestion of a new cold war, just look at recent events: the U.S.-inspired so-called "shield" in eastern Europe, which Russia sees as aggression and near-intrusion by the U.S.; plus the U.S. naval-military buildup by the U.S. in the Asia-pacific, which China sees as aggression and clear intrusion by the U.S.
       And so we have China and Russia only recently moving into a new mutually protective alliance -- it is mostly economic for the moment, but is looking to more togetherness, including militarily. These events are not terribly comforting insofar as world peace is concerned. The phrases "new arms race" and "a developing armaments buildup" rather easily come to mind on all this. (We must not forget that scads of highly destructive "conventional" arms exist, as well, and are being developed and produced at a quickening pace.)
      Armaments manufacturers have never seen better days for their balance sheets. The world, in short, is bristling with arms (the U.S. holding a massive lead over all other nations as the chief "bristler") probably at levels never seen in all previous history. Did I hear someone ask what armaments are for? To be used, silly.

        AND THEN THERE'S THE POTENTIAL for very bad things in the Middle East. My view is that a terrible conflict over Iranian oil is what's in prospect for the region, involving the U.S. (along with its allies, including a ready-to-launch Israel with its estimated 200 nuclear warheads) against Iran, a nation with immense oil reserves, control over which is firmly desired by "the west." This control can be achieved through nothing less than a regime change in Iran -- and it's hard to see how that can happen except through violence. Whether this might involve nuclear weapons, or not, no one knows.
        The excuse for this war would be the alleged development of nuclear weapons by Iran, whether such development is happening or not (and so far the evidence that it is appears to be non-existent). Still, we keep on hearing about the need for regime change in Iran to prevent that nation from acquiring such weapons. We also keep hearing about the possibility of "surgical" and "pre-emptive"attacks by Israel on those alleged Iranian nuclear development sites. Such attacks, of course, would be a cause of war.
       Well, Iranian leaders have made more than a few threatening statements against Israel, so Israel's concerns are not exactly imaginary. Still, talk and negotiations and agreements are far better than killing in warfare, whether it be nuclear warfare or not. Iran is not stupid, and it is quite aware of the devastation it would face, should it attack Israel.
     
      IF THE U.S. AND ISRAEL AND their allies embark on an attempted military solution to the "Iran problem," the whole Middle East, and perhaps much more of the world -- Russia and China being more or less supportive of Iran -- could be in for the worst conflict since the Second World War.    
       Would nuclear war in the mideast bring "Doomsday" to the world? It most certainly has that potential. This much seems obvious: it would be horrific doomsday for many in the Middle East, with a distinct possibility it could expand rapidly and draw other nations in, with highly unpredictable consequences. Such as the world-wide spread of atmospheric radiation, following any nuclear bombing, and the prospect of such radiation eventually killing multitudes more, and making humanity in general chronically weak, sickly and facing much reduced life-spans through radiation sickness.
        So, I'd say talking about a potential Doomsday is not really as over-the-top as some might suggest.

        I LEAVE YOU WITH A JOLLY 1970 quotation from Colombo's Concise Canadian Quotations (1976 edition), edited by John Robert Colombo; this quotation does not relate to the mideast, but to the question of nuclear war in general.
        "Over the long run," says this quotation, "it does not matter how small the probability of nuclear war is per unit time. It is mathematically demonstrable that, as time goes on, this probability approaches certainty." -- These words were written by J.L. Granatstein, who is a 73-year-old Canadian historian, and especially historian of war, having experienced Canadian Army service for 10 years, 1956-66.
        The only optimistic thing I can say about the quotation is that I still don't know whether anyone has produced, or intends to produce, such a mathematical demonstration as that which he mentions. But perhaps one doesn't need a demonstration, in the light of current circumstances.
        If and when we think about it, we all hope Granatstein was wrong, but are stuck with the uncomfortable feeling that he may well have spoken some serious truth.
                                              ------

        P.S. -- READERS OF ALL OF THE ABOVE might ask such questions as: "What can ordinary citizens do, to stop the insanity?" My answer is, "If you live in a democracy, then you have a vote -- so use it to support those candidates opposing militarism and war" -- and, between and during elections, contact, write letters to, phone, your Member of Parliament, your representative in the provincial or regional legislature, and express your views.   
       P.P.S. -- The issue of militarism and war is a huge one, one of the most urgent problems facing humanity --  facing you and your family, and facing me and my family. Because of this, I will be revisiting the issue from time to time in future Soapbox essays. (Provided, of course, that Doomsday doesn't intervene first. . .)

FIGHTING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT -- A LOSER?

                   
      The fight to preserve and protect the environment is unquestionably a noble cause, and a great credit to the people who actively conduct it. The campaign is up against powerful, greedy and irresponsible  forces. It therefore requires much individual and organizational exertion from its adherents.
      As an old saying goes, "There's money in muck" -- and the realization of that truth is no doubt one of the numerous reasons there is an environmental movement.
      It has to be acknowledged that a good many corporations and industry groups spend mega-millions to persuade the public that they, the corporations, do their utmost to keep the environment clean, that they're Good Guys, on the side of the people, helping the economy and providing thousands and thousands of jobs, and so on.
     Our profit-oriented news sources and outlets devote quite a lot of attention and space to environmental coverage, and that's fine, as far as it goes. In Canada, unfortunately, such publicity seems to be having little effect on the national government under the control of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his big-business-adoring Conservatives.
      I keep a reasonably close eye on developments in the environmental field, and I see little encouraging news for those groups active in the "save the planet" crusade, groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

                              EVIDENCE OF NEGLECT
      Earlier this month, environment-conscious Canadians received depressing news, in the form of a report and comments by Scott Vaughan, federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
      Mr. Vaughan indicated that Canada is not doing its bit for the environment, and said it is unlikely Canada will meet its previously-agreed obligations in the fight against carbon emissions and global warming. In one particular, the commissioner noted that the federal government has been slow to act in controlling emissions from the transportation industry. It is important to observe that he was not delivering a political judgement, but a factual one, because he is a non-partisan public servant.
      The Harperites might suggest that they are not necessarily bound by agreements made by previous governments -- suggesting in effect that turning back the clock on progress is okay.
       This is something that I suppose one might expect from Harper -- an MP from the oil province of Alberta, whose vast reserves are under mostly foreign control. Including the Athabasca Tar Sands. China has a large ownership presence in that massive energy development, and it is a nation not especially known for commitment to environmental protection. Several other nations, including the U.S.A. and  Britain, also are major "players" in the tar sands regions of Alberta.
                         
                             SAVE THE PLANET?   
      Permit me to pause here to take exception to the widespread use of that phrase. It seems to me that "save the planet" overstates the case.
      I note this on grounds that the slogan doesn't quite mean what it says: the planet, scientists assure us, is going to be around for another four or five billion years at least, no matter what sort of trials it may have to endure.
      Sure, it's true that the slogan is used with a kind of poetic license to highlight the idea that we want the planet to be livable for humans, and no doubt for other animal life as well.
      But, might not something like "save the planet for life" say it better?

                              SO, IS THE WORLD INTERESTED?
      Unfortunately, I think there's reason to question whether the world as a whole is, in fact, much interested in environmental protection, and recent evidence tends to support that view.  Asia, we often hear, has a very long way to go before it comes anywhere near so-called "western" standards. And then, as if to illustrate the internationality of the environment, there was the news headline from earlier this month:
     "Problem of floating plastics worsens."
      It seems tiny particles of plastic occupy a huge region of the North Pacific ocean in the millions, perhaps even billions, and the amount has grown 100-fold over the past 40 or so years. Agence France-Press has reported that the plastics are mixed in with all kinds of toxic chemicals ("heavy" with toxic chemicals, their report said), including, one might reasonably expect, those of the corrosive kind emitted by uncontrolled mineral, and other, emissions from land. This, of course, is very bad for fish, and very bad for humans who eat fish.
      The blame for this evidence of governmental failure to protect international waters from plastic pollution cannot, of course, be dumped on current governments alone, since the evil goes back many years. That, of course, is no excuse for inaction today.
      By the way, since we're on plastics, what ever happened to the alleged campaign against plastic grocery bags? Nothing that I've seen -- and the situation, it seems to me, is being made even worse by those supermarkets that use automatic checkout technology. Not much sign of "let's get rid of plastic bags" in that, is there?
 
                              GET IT TOGETHER, NATIONS
      As we have seen, Canada still does have much to do in environmental protection (Tar Sands, anyone?), but the wider world is in a similar and, in too many places, a much worse situation.
      Reuters news agency only recently reported that evidence has come to the fore about some quirky things going on in the plant world, with plants just about everywhere flowering faster than earlier predicted, as a result of global warming.
      Canada, by the way, is a considerable contributor to the global warming phenomenon, because our nation is, though not too many Canadians seem aware of this, very definitely a member of the world's group of "petro-powers" (or carbon-spewers), and is right up there with the likes of Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC nations. (The real and potential Tar Sands reserves range as high as Saudi Arabia's at around 175 billion barrels, but the comparison is not terribly exact, since Saudi oil is pretty clean and relatively inexpensive to extract, while the Tar Sands oil is very dirty and requires immense quantities of water in necessary cleaning processes.)

                              AND WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE?
      We know that environmental protection has been occupying many minds for many years, in places high and low (perhaps excepting Harper's Ottawa). As a consequence, laws and rules on environmental protection have been enacted by plenty of countries, to the extent that one has to feel that few nations, if any, lack a Department of the Environment. How actively they enforce such laws, of course, is a very relevant question.
      At any rate, here we are today -- still facing major environmental problems, constantly in controversy over to allow or not allow such things as oil pipelines (like the proposed, massive Enbridge $5.5 billion Tar Sands-crude pipeline to the west coast), and whether to okay or not okay wide varieties of other projects that present major environmental concerns.
      Since all these matters require huge sums of money to bring about, they are usually put forward by gigantic private economic interests. More often than not, the large economic interests cultivate political connections, they actively lobby in the halls and offices of power -- and to the surprise of few, choose to support the conservative political philosophies that tend to be more sympathetic to big money than to democracy.
      In such circumstances, I'm afraid, the environment must be the loser.
                                                                 ---------------

      UPDATE:  On May 23, 2012, the city of Los Angeles instituted a plan to eliminate -- gradually,  over a period of a year -- plastic bags used for packing customer grocery bags at supermarkets. Environmental activists, supported by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, are credited with leading the movement to rid landfills, waterways and oceans of the plastic pollutants. So, progress can happen toward protecting the environment. However, one city at a time, even a huge one like L.A., is not good enough -- the world still need firmer, more aggressive action at the national and international levels.
                                                                 ---------------
   
   
                              
                      
                         

A LINE OR TWO ON THE VANCOUVER SUN -- NOW CELEBRATING ITS FIRST CENTURY

   
      SO WHY SHOULD I CARE VERY MUCH about The Vancouver Sun's birthday, 100th or otherwise?
      A good question and somewhat timely, in light of the fact that the newspaper recently (Feb. 12) put out a humungous 100th anniversary edition, and has continued its Century theme by publishing more vignettes from its past.
      To start with, my answer is that I'm interested because The Sun was the first newspaper that I ever became aware of, at approximately the time I learned to read.  That "first time" was quite early in the paper's history -- in fact, some 77 years ago.

      It must have been a habit-forming experience, since I'm still a subscriber. But the best part -- and this is a personal-interest disclosure -- occurred when in early adulthood I became a reporter for the paper, and enjoyed 15 years on its news staff, about two-thirds of which I spent mostly as a political specialist, covering the legislature in Victoria and then covering parliament in Ottawa.

       

      YOU KNOW, I WAS CONNED into getting hooked on The Sun. By that I mean I, as a boy, couldn't resist the comics -- a full page of them in black and white on weekdays, and on weekends filling an entire section of their own, in color. Oh, those newspapers, they sure knew how to build readership.

     Blondie! Popeye! Terry and the Pirates! Alley Oop! Dick Tracy, etc. etc. I mean, what normal kid ever cared about anything in the paper outside of the comics?

      I must confess that, eventually, my interest did spread beyond the comic pages. Somehow, I  discovered a thing called The Editorial Page. I don't wish to mislead here, so I have to say that at the age of eight or ten I found no value whatsoever in the editorials; they were terribly dull, obtuse and pompous (as many editorials still are today).

     But I did find the editorial page section known as Letters to The Editor -- and that played a large part in my ultimate entry into the news business (with, I repeat, The Vancouver Sun) late in the year 1947.

      AS ANY FAN OF LETTERS-TO-THE-EDITOR can tell you, the letters were, and still are, about almost any subject that might be in, or not in, the news, and they came from ordinary people, expressing their genuine concerns and interests. I remember becoming quite worked up over the injustices people often wrote about.

      The letters and my habit of reading them stimulated in me a continuing interest in public affairs, and I'd say provided me with the beginnings of a long-term education in public issues and politics. So, looking back, it seems only natural that I could do nothing other than one day make my living by writing about those things.

      ACTUALLY, FAMILY LORE WAS also at the root of my reporting ambitions. The story was that my paternal grandfather, Christopher Craigie Young, had been a reporter in about 1895 for The Glasgow Evening News. He died in March, 1910, aged 55, of tuberculosis. His death was registered by a nephew named J. Wilson, of 304 South Wellington St., Glasgow. The Lanark County Register of Deaths lists him as a journalist, widower of Grace McGill, formerly of Stirling, and son of the late William Young, "book canvasser." (My thanks here to son-in-law Eric Wickberg for his great research help on family history.)
      There are no family records detailing any news work Christopher Young did; I  never met him, of course, his death having occurred 19 years before I was born.

      STILL, I HAVE SOME GROUNDS for claiming at least a touch of news-scribbling genes. When I as a boy heard that story about Christopher Young I thought, "Wow, my grandfather was a newspaper reporter -- sounds exciting, lots of fun, glamorous, being right out there, where things are happening, meeting lots of interesting people, recording history as it happens.  Oh, I think I'd like to do that . . .Well, maybe, some day. . ."

      Grandfather Young is recorded in the death registry as having died of "Tuberculosis Phthisis." He was probably susceptible to TB, having suffered coal gas damage to his lungs practicing his reporting trade a few years earlier. That damage occurred when he went down into a Scottish coal mine to cover a disaster, and it no doubt shortened his life. I resolved that if I ever became a reporter I would do my best to take every possible safety precaution in covering anything like a mine disaster -- but, still, a reporter I thought I could be.

       As things turned out in my 43 years in news, I never came close to having to cover any mine disaster, coal or other. Just political disasters, I suppose I could say. And perhaps a little lung damage from too much hanging around smoke-filled rooms, to say nothing of spending excessive hours in hot- air-filled legislative chambers.

       IT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED that the early letters-to-the-editor I spoke of above appeared during the 1930s, when it seemed as if half the population couldn't get a regular job. Winter had its good points then, especially if it snowed a lot, because when snow and ice gummed up the B.C. Electric Railway Co. streetcar tracks (our only public transit system then, and it was a very good one), calls went out for temporary laborers to work at shovelling snow and ice away from the tracks.

      My father, who fell on hard times like many scores of thousands of other Canadians in The Great Depression, was one of those temporary snow-removal workers one winter. The pay was low, but it was better than "relief," a term which, by the way, has for many years been replaced by the word "welfare." I believe the intent of those who made the change, the swine, was to make poverty sound better. 

      It was a terrible period and it was to my recollection pretty well covered by The Sun. There were scandals in the "relief " administration, including suicide from exposure of bureaucratic swindling of relief funds, and all of that made for sensational headlines.

                                                           ---------------

       I HAVE MORE TO SAY ABOUT The Sun and my time with it, but for now I'll  adjourn this bit of personal history. In due course, this space will contain additional installments on The Sun and me.

     

   

  

                                           

AN OPEN LETTER TO OLD UNCLE SAM

DEAR UNCLE SAM, AND AMERICAN COUSINS:
      You may not have heard the news yet, because often it takes time for word of Canadian events to penetrate the ever-frantic news-making-and-reporting realm of your media down there (or up there, taking into account the Great State of Alaska).
       But you probably will become aware soon that the Canadian establishment's biggest financial wheel, a chap by the name of Mark Carney, 46, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, has just this past weekend made some remarks that could affect our relationship. Some of you, perhaps many of you, might feel hurt by the tenor of his comments.
       In fact, you might even feel seriously offended -- because he has suggested, in effect, that it might be time for us to cool it a little insofar as our long, sometimes warm, sometimes not, economic relationship is concerned.
       Now when one partner in a two-way human relationship clearly hints, "Let's cool it for a while," what's happening in the vast majority of cases is the beginning of major, and negative, change in a relationship. Especially when it's a very close relationship, such as ours is with the U.S.A; we are, in case you American cousins have forgotten, or have even been aware of it, each others best customers. (By the way, I'm not sure where the concept of Canadians and Americans as cousins originated, but we all know it has been around for seeming eons. No doubt it started in the mind of some politician, Canadian or American.)
   
      IN HIS CTV INTERVIEW at the weekend with the excellent reporter Craig Oliver, Mr. Carney goes further: he suggests that we ought to not just cool it with the Americans, but to get a lot cozier with others, in international economics, in effect "play the field" more. (You Americans might be taking it hard that he also said the U.S. is not a declining power, just a "reclining" one. As for me, I thought it was a great line, though slightly snide.)
      Unless I'm seriously mistaken, Mr. Carney is proposing that Canada, trade-wise, should be shifting to what might be termed an "open relationship." (Newt Gingrich should appreciate that, in a rueful way though, since I think he personally has found making a suggestion like that to be risky.)
       To be more specific I take Mr. Carney to be saying we should not put so many of our economic eggs in the American basket, but work harder at finding better and bigger markets off-shore, particularly Asia.
       We are obliged to pay attention to Mr. Carney. He has, if anyone has, a gold-plated economic background: born in Fort Smith, NWT, he has degrees from Harvard (Bachelor of Economics), and Oxford's Nuffield College (masters and doctorate in economics). So, American cousins, you, too, really ought to listen to what he says.

       I'M QUITE SURE, OF COURSE, that you will not find it easy to accept some of his remarks, and you might even indulge yourselves in unkind remarks about Canada. Possibly words along the following lines:
       "Sure, you Canadians are good buddies when the going is good. But, now, just when America's having serious economic problems, and might not be able to give you as much business as we have, what does your big economic honcho do?  He bad-mouths us, saying that we can recover, mainly, but not enough to get back to the way we were."
       Probably some of you American cousins will regard the Carney remarks as "un-American," and totally unbecoming for one of Canada's top international spokesmen. You might even go so far as to say, "They're just fair-weather friends, those Canadians with all their gol-darn oil and natural gas. Some cousins they are!"
       Permit me to remind our cousins that there are inscriptions on the Peace Arch at the Blaine, Washington State, border crossing that suggest we're even more closely related than cousins. It says, on the American side of the arch: "Children of a Common Mother" -- referring, of course, to our common British origins. On the Canadian side, the inscription declares: "Brethren Dwelling Together In Unity."

       I THINK IT IMPORTANT that Americans understand we in Canada share your love for freedom of speech. It's in our constitution, as it is in yours. We also are huge customers of your movies, your books, magazines, almost anything in the entertainment field. In fact, sometimes I think Canadians look so much to American cultural products that they could be mistaken for wanna-be Americans.
      As I have said in the past, though, criticizing America is one of the main hobbies of Canadians. Could it be that we are sort of jealous of them? On the other hand, lots of Canadians have made it big in the U.S., in many fields, but especially entertainment. Is it because our entertainers seem like Americans?
       I think we'd prefer to have their good stuff, and forget about the rest.
       For myself in the criticism field, I believe that the U.S. is far too aggressive in its international politics and economics, in its militarism and the way it projects the attitude that its role is to rule the world.

       HAVING SAID ALL THAT, I return to Mr. Carney. Let me try to calm any anger you Americans may have worked up over Mr. Carney, and assure you that the whole thing will blow over. He has given you an incentive, a goal to be achieved. All you have to do is get your rear-ends into gear and work your way out of it. Your big goal: just prove Mark Carney wrong. Really, he has issued you a challenge.
        Permit me to close by pointing out that it's not unusual for cousins to have quarrels. So we shouldn't allow the "negativisms" from Mr. Carney to confuse the issue. I think it's pretty sure that we Canadians and Americans will remain cousins, of a sort.
        Just not kissin'-cousins, maybe.
            Regards,
               Cousin Alex      
                  Richmond, B.C.
                                                                                                                                                                 
        POSTSCRIPT: For people involved in the overheated real estate market of the Greater Vancouver area, I must note that Mr. Carney gave his usual warning that Canadians should beware of taking on too much debt. He said: "Canadians could overextend themselves and could get into a position where the debts that are sustainable at very low interest rates prove unsustainable when rates return to a more normal level."
        As the guy who has a lot of influence on interest rates, he should know what he'd talking about. He is, in fact, not "just" the person in charge of The Bank of Canada. He also is a very big bigshot on the world financial scene.
        He has been appointed Financial Stability Board chairman by the Group of 20 (the G20) industrialized nations. That board of central bankers, financial officers and regulators, set up after the 2008 economic crisis, has the job of, well, trying to ensure the stability of financial institutions. Its primary job, I suspect, is to determine which financial institutions will get bailed out by poor average joes the next time things hit the skids.
                                        ---------------
        (NOTE: For those who might find it more convenient to comment on this blog by way of e-mail, instead of by the Blogger Comment route, please e-mail me at young.alexander6@gmail.com)