SO, HOW'S YOUR GRAVITAS, WHAT'S YOUR NARRATIVE: ARE YOU GOING FORWARD, OR WHAT . . . ?

   

                                            DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER the word "gravitas" and its exhaustive political use a few years back? Yes? No? Well, how about the word "narrative," also widely employed a couple of years ago in a political sense, and still hanging in there to quite a degree? Surely it rings a bell.
      Perhaps it's impossible to pinpoint exactly who first employed those words in the political events of yesteryear. But, originally, they somehow became vogue words in the U.S., particularly among hosts and panelists on public affairs TV shows, as well as among political observers in newspapers and magazines.
      And since American political terminology has a tendency to sneak across the border and somehow filter into the minds of our own Canadian commentators and politicians, both "gravitas" and "narrative" did indeed make that trip.
      You could scarcely turn on any one of those programs without hearing an "analyst" or commentator say something like, "Well, (candidate) Jones seems to be a nice fellow, but he just lacks gravitas, and that will be a big drawback for him with voters."
                                                                 
                                                                  ------

                                           ALSO, WHEN IT CAME TO TALKING about political campaigns, their issues and controversies, and the prospects for the contending parties and candidates, the viewer and reader would come across such phrases as "the narrative has taken an unexpected turn" for X or Z party or candidate.
      My impression is that "gravitas" (very much a pomposity word) did not last long in Canada. I think this was because most people were suspicious of it, its meaning not being terribly clear, politically speaking. Readers and viewers would note that it was usually meant in a negative way -- "he lacks gravitas" -- since they would never hear any commentator or politician use it in positive verbal formations, such as "say, that candidate has a lot of gravitas."
      The voting public would, I think, prefer clearer terms like, "that candidate is a lightweight" (or heavyweight).
                                                                 ------
     
                                          AS FAR AS "NARRATIVE" is concerned, my view is that the word is pretentious when used by reporters or commentators to cover the way a political event or situation is developing: the clearer word in its place is the plain and basic "story." But then, maybe I'm old-fashioned and too appreciative of the ancient City Desk admonition to "keep it simple, stupid."
      By the way, I have consulted a number of word sources and am able to inform the reader that "gravitas" is from the latin, and comes to us through Spanish. It apparently is applicable to people of high seriousness, or those who show authority and expertise, and have intellectual weightiness.
      Does anybody know of, do I know of, a politician today of such description? Hmmm . . . let me think . . . Uh, well, it's a subject that might need further consideration and contemplation . . . will get back to you . . .

                                                                ------

                                          AND FINALLY, let me deal with one of the worst phrase forms ever dreamed up by the twisted and fevered minds of word-disadvantaged business people, political people and, yes, even of a few (quite a few) media people.
      Its use must occur millions of times daily among the English-speaking peoples of the world, in both oral and printed ways -- and it's use should be banned, outlawed, condemned, eliminated, scourged, blown up (you name it); anything to get rid of it.
      The term of which I speak is going forward. Let me repeat that so as to avoid any possible misunderstanding. We must destroy GOING FORWARD.  We must kill Going Forward. We must devise jail terms and worse as penalties to be meted out to those public figures and writers and scribblers who continue to use the term "going forward." Because what's usually in the minds of those who use it is a great deal of directional confusion.  And it doesn't mean a damn thing, anyway.
      So, in the interests of promoting (in my own small way), intellectual clarity in public discourse, I hereby offer myself as a Charter Volunteer and Supporter of any organization that might bear a name like "The Holy Crusade to Condemn To Everlasting Hell And Perdition The Term  'Going Forward'  (or, THCTCTEHAPTTGF)."

                                                 _________________________              
                 

BOUNCING OFF THOSE CRAZY AND SOMETIMES VERY OMINOUS HEADLINES

      

      JUST WHEN WE WERE BEGINNING to think that a degree of calmness was moderating tensions in the Middle East, along comes our federal government with a decision to send an indeterminate number of additional forces to Iraq. We are, it seems, piling into a new war -- the one against Islamic State militants.
      Many Canadians will be wondering what on earth our government is doing. Our citizens will be forgiven for having thought that that war was over, and for believing that if the various Muslim groups in Iraq wish to continue battling it out amongst themselves, fine, it's their business. But no, we have to keep sticking our nose into other people's affairs, more or less copying the good old U.S.A.
      What, we must ask, is this all about? Could we be in a war of Christianity vs. Islam? Quite a few Muslims do ask that question. They will not find the answer to be a religious one. No, it's much simpler: It's about the oil, stupid, it's still about the oil. As a number of others have observed, there'd be much less fuss centred on the Middle East if the area happened to be the world's biggest supplier of Swiss chard, rather than of oil.

      ONE OF THE ODDEST HEADLINES of recent days was the following (from The Vancouver Sun of Sept. 11):  B.C. school shutdown has China 'concerned'.  At least, I found that headline odd. But, on reflection, I have to note that B.C. has, long since, opened its schools to other nations, taking non-Canadian students because they, or their parents, can pay big bucks for the privilege of obtaining Canadian learning.
      To which I can only respond: It's not all about learning for our kids, stupid, it's about marketing. Of course, it also does say something positive about the quality of our schooling.

      'MIXED FEELINGS' would have to be my answer if someone asked me for my view on the report that Canada, along with Germany, has balked at the demand by NATO (dominated by the U.S.) that member nations commit two per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to "defense" spending. I put the word defense in quotes, because it really isn't for defense, it's for war-making; I mean, who are we defending against? Is Russia going to attack us? Well, that's a pretty far-fetched notion . . . except that . . . what?
      My mixed feelings come from the fact that in balking at the proposed NATO commitment, Canada's Conservative government has my support. That's hard for me to say, though, because I'm not in favor of much else that the Tories stand for when it comes to "defense".
       Canada is currently spending (according to Postmedia News, Sept. 3, 2014) approximately $19 billion per year on the military (a paltry 1.3 per cent of GDP, says the U.S.). Which means outlays on great supplies of guns, bombs, aircraft, fliers, soldiers, sailors -- all expenditures that Canadians have to cough up in taxes. I'm sure such spending creates joy in the hearts of the people who own and run the international arms industry, but for me, well, it just turns my stomach.
      What worries me is that history has shown any nation spending this kind of money on armaments will be more inclined to use the force so purchased.

      BUT WAR CLOUDS DO SEEM TO BE FORMING "over there," in what seems a serious way.  What other interpretation can one place on the growing hostility being shown against Russia by "the west"? The European Union and NATO (which basically, I repeat, is the U.S.), applying "sanctions" against Russia does bring back certain precursors to war that the world has seen in the past.
      Does anyone remember the economic conflict between the U.S. and Japan that preceded the Second World War. I was around then and one thing I remember is disputation, before Japan went to war against the U.S., concerning scrap metal -- which Japan was buying up in a big way, from wherever it could find it. Some Americans said things like "they're building up a war machine."
      There was also the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity scheme Japan was promoting within its economic orbit, and which also upset American competitors.
      And so, again, today, we have economic events of a kind we've seen before. Are they forerunners to war? Stay tuned, folks, stay tuned. In such matters, things can get out of hand very quickly indeed.

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






   

   

     
   

   

ON NEIL YOUNG -- AND ISAAC ASIMOV

                             
                LET'S HEAR IT FOR NEIL AND ISAAC 

      When I became aware of rock star Neil Young's recent criticism of Alberta's Athabasca tar sands projects, I could not help but think of an American science fiction writer who was also a professor of biochemistry -- and a leader in defense of the environment. His name was Isaac Asimov, and he lived from 1920 to 1992.

      Neil Young made headlines by labeling the Athabasca tar sands projects, in total, as a huge environmental disaster, declaring at the same time that they are crushing First Nation rights in the several regions involved.

      In touring the area "to see it for myself," Young (we're not related) likened the effects of the tar sands development to the devastation caused by the Second World War's U.S. nuclear bomb attacks on Japan.

      Young was not suggesting, as some of his critics try to hint, loss of life from the tar sands in any way resembling the scores and scores of thousands of Japanese killed by the American atomic bombs of World War Two. But he was saying that the Athabasca oil-development region looks as if it has been stricken by atomic explosions. And he suggested that the tar sands pose a distinct threat to human health in the tar sand regions, and possibly beyond.

      In issuing his dramatic warning about the continuing and growing dangers of the world-wide dependence on carbon-based energy, taking the tar sands as a prime example, I believe Young was acting as a sincere, prudent, and environmentally responsible citizen.


                FROM ATHABASCA TO WHAT FUTURE?

      The dependence to which he referred, we must note, is a dependence much beloved by the giant worldwide oil companies, and one we can expect them to promote and cultivate, even to the day there's little oil left.

      In discussing the Young story I want to state that it did not merely remind me of Isaac Asimov -- it also led me to search out and find, in a corner of my overloaded bookshelves, an old volume by that great man himself. It is a book that long ago showed where humanity was being led by governments and energy corporations.

      And, so, in support of Neil Young's case, I wish to review the Asimov book, especially one key chapter in it. (I urge the readers of this Blog to try to find a copy of the book -- in a public library, or a book store. My copy came from a 1998, Richmond, B.C., library book sale. Price: one dollar. Perhaps it was considered by local librarians to lag behind the times, and was therefore tossed into the discards for sale. But, as the reader will see, I look upon the book as being very much still with the times. It was one of the best dollars I've ever spent.)

      Prof. Asimov gave his book a slightly ominous title: "TODAY AND TOMORROW AND . . ."

      Published in 1973 by Doubleday & Co., the book is a compilation of many articles that had been previously printed in a variety of publications. The book is divided into two sections: Part One is entitled "Today" and covers the basics of biology, astronomy, chemistry and physics.  Part Two, which he headed "And Tomorrow," was divided into chapters covering space, the computer age, science fiction in the future -- plus a part labelled "On Earth."


                ISAAC'S KEY: LIMITING POPULATION

      I found the "On Earth" section to be the most arresting part of the book. In it, Asimov declares that the greatest threat facing humanity is the apparently never-ending increase in human population. And he does this in his own direct, clear-eyed style, and supplies plenty of science to support his findings.

      Prof. Asimov wrote this, remember, at a time when the world population was about 3.7 billion. In case you haven't looked at the figures recently, I can reliably report that we now have 7.2 billion humans on our globe (give or take a couple of million). This would sadden him greatly, I'm sure. He writes that in the environmentally best of all possible Earths, one billion people would be just fine, possibly even ideal. Much beyond that, though, he deplores as terribly dangerous for humanity.

      Prof. Asimov detailed some fascinating figures on, of all things, human tonnage. He said that if the current rate of population increase continues for 1,560 years (dating this from 1973, of course), by then the mass of humanity will be equal to the mass of the earth, which he placed at 6,600 billion billion tons (you read it right -- that's "billion," two times after 6,600, and you couldn't count that high if you could live without  food or sleep  for 200 normal lifetimes, counting one at a time).

      Such a human increase is, says Asimov, "Impossible." I will quote him directly as he expands on this. He describes certain fundamentals of the earth and its place in the universe.


                HERE' S THE NITTY-GRITTY

      "Let's search for a more realistic limit, then (Asimov wrote).  The total mass of living tissue on earth today is estimated to be something like 20 million million tons, and this cannot really incrrease as long as the basic energy source for life is sunlight.

      "Only so much sunlight reaches Earth; only so much of that sunlight can be used in photosynthesis; and therefore only so much new living plant tissue can be built up each year. This amount built up is balanced by the amount that is destroyed each year, either through spontaneous death or through consumption by animal life.

       "Animal life may be roughly estimated (Prof. Asimov continues) as one tenth the mass of plant life or about two million million tons the world over.  This cannot increase either, for if, for any reason, the total mass of animal life were to increase significantly, the mass of plants would be consumed faster than it could be replaced, as long as sunlight is only what it is. The food supply would decrease drastically and animals would die of starvation in sufficient numbers to reduce them to the proper level.

      "To be sure, the total mass of human life (Prof. Isamov's italics) has been increasing throughout history, but only at the expense of other forms of animal life.  Every additional ton of humanity has meant, as a matter of absolute necessity, one less ton of non-human animal life."

      But be quite certain, says Prof. Asimov -- something (my italics) will happen before we get to the state of impossibly dense population levels the globe over (all 200,000,000 square miles of it). Except that we can't make it that far, he implies, not nearly that far.  He concludes that humanity is unlikely to avert some sort of disaster, as it keeps growing to ultimately immense numbers, unless humanity achieves international cooperation in reducing births. I'll repeat that: Disaster! Unless we achieve international cooperation in reducing births.


                WARMING UP IS THE SUBJECT
   
      But that is not all -- there are other problems.  Energy, for instance.  More people means that more energy is needed.  Yet, more energy means more pollution, does it not? More pollution means more greenhouse gas, thus eventual overheating of the planet. Will that be overheating to the point of human extinction? Will we be able to overcome the negative elements of conflicting cultural, regional, religious and national interests on birth-control?

      Prof. Asimov, by my study of his writings, and on the basis of his scientific facts, figures that if we keep carrying on the way we've been doing, population-wise, then we've got about 400 years left as the dominant creature on Earth. Unless . . . something . . . is done . . . to slow down population growth -- with its accompanying huge, increasing demand for such things, don't forget, as tar sands oil.

      I believe we are all indebted to the late, great Prof. Asimov for his contribution to human understanding of an existential threat. And we are obliged to Neil Young, for standing up to the environmentally-challenged federal government and its corporate buddies on the tar sands issue.

      We wish Neil Young and his supporters good luck, and hope their work will encourage Canada and the rest of the world to find and develop cleaner, safer alternatives to the ultimate disasters lurking in carbon-based energy.

                                ______________________________

     

   
   

     


            


         
   

LOVE THAT SENATE SCANDAL COMEDY

      THE MOST INTRIGUING, ENGAGING and entertaining political news story of this year will have to be labelled the Duffy-Wallin-et-al show. And, quite properly, it is getting plenty of coverage.

      I have to say, though, that I have a problem with the nature of that coverage: Most of what I've seen and heard on it is just too damn serious in tone. And through being so serious -- both the print and electronic versions -- something is being lost.

      "But," you may respond, "it is a very serious business. You know, the allegation of fiddling on expenses is not an admirable thing, especially when it comes to our tax dollars. The public is entitled to know about it, every bit of it."

       My view is that the public isn't getting quite every bit of it. There's still a Big Question involving the news reporting on the senators' difficulties. It piques my curiosity because I have yet to see this Big Question answered, or even raised, in any news coverage I've encountered. And so I figured: Well, guess I'd better ask the question myself -- along with any further questions that it might spawn.

       I'll get into the(those) question(s) in a moment. First let me say I don't plan to list the details of the scandal, because, in itself, that scandal is secondary to the point I'm making. Who did or didn't contribute politically to whom, and who did or did not okay it, seems to me a rather empty discussion. In fact, it might well be asked, "Don't they all do it, from the top on down?" Beats me. It seems that eventually it's the Mounties who'll be answering such questions in this case.


      I BELIEVE WE NEED TO DO a little reflecting on the matter. I will admit, personally, as a Canadian, that The Senate of Canada tries hard to be a place of great dignity.  I, in my past, have walked its well-carpeted halls and byways (usually just to get from one place to another through that massive Parliamentary building complex in Ottawa), and one impression that remains with me is the silence in those halls, most especially on the Senate side.

      I guess silence is a big part of dignity, especially in the "corridors of power," dignity and power being qualities too many senators believe they have. Inside the Senate chamber, of course, those senators do put forth some effort, droning on and on, for all of about three months a year, into their "work" obligations.

      Let us examine the word "senate." It comes from the Latin senatus, meaning highest council of the state in ancient Rome, or "council of elders." And from senis -- old man; see also: senile. Hmm. Could we be getting somewhere here? Average age of the Canadian Senate, by the way, is 64.53 years -- at least it was in February, 2013, date of the latest calculation. Well, 64.53 years old is a pretty young old these days, the way I look at it.


      THE CANADIAN SENATE has 105 seats, of which I believe half-a-dozen or so are at the moment vacant. The body was created more or less with Canada (you can look up all the precise historical details), and its purpose was, depending on whose history you read, to provide "sober second thought" to the doings of the elected House of Commons, our true house (most of the time) of democracy.

      It's true, however, that one point of view away back then was that one of the motives for having a senate, from the far right, was to keep Canada from becoming "too democratic." To which the peanut gallery no doubt will chorus, "Right up your alley, eh, Harper!?"

      During my five years in Ottawa I spent a great deal of time sitting in the Press Gallery, right there, inside the House of Commons, covering big news stories (in the Diefenbaker-and-then-Pearson days). We Gallery reporters all loved the Commons daily question period, as Gallery reporters do to this day. (By the way, the very lively, argumentative Commons question period, in which the government responds to daily questioning by the Opposition, does not involve an awful lot of dignity.)

      But I also did occasionally visit The Senate press gallery in the Senate Chamber, on the rare, the very rare, occasions when actual news was made there. So, I can justly say I'm more than slightly acquainted with "the workings of Parliament." (Although I cannot remember just what that news was which occasionally drew me to the Senate Press Gallery looking down from above the senators, lo, those many years ago.)


       FAST-FORWARD TO October,  2013, and we see that the Senate has taken a top spot in news-outlet budgets. The Senate is being recognized now more than ever as an institution for rewarding of political war horses in need of a richly fertilized grazing ground for their retirement.

      "Richly" is a word I use advisedly, because those senators do drink deeply at the public trough, receiving annual  income of $132,300 (Cdn.) plus fairly liberal expenses, as in Duffy-Wallin. I must also point out that senators receive excellent medical and dental coverage. That's right, and it explains why the common Canadian masses never see on TV any senator (or MP for that matter, since MPs get such coverage, too) without whiter-than-white, and very even, teeth. Would that all Canadians could have such dental coverage.

      All right: Now that we have set the stage, let's get to the nub of things; the following are my questions (and, trust me, Ms. Wallin and Mr. Duffy will not like them, nor will one Mr. Stephen Harper, except that Mr. Harper has even more incentive now to get rid of, or severely reform, the comedy known as The Canadian Senate).

          Ms. Wallin and Mr. Duffy were in the news reporting and commentary business for many years. So here's The Big Question, which I'm sure many members of the public would like, along with me, to have answered:


      WHAT SERVICES DID THEY provide in their news work that politically helped Mr. Harper and his Tories? I know of no such services, but I still think it's a question that ought to be asked -- and looked into and answered. People like Harper simply do not appoint anyone to rewarding "jobs" like the Senate for no bloody good reason.

     Most Canadians are aware that appointments to The Senate are usually highly political inspired; they are for political services that have been performed for one party or another (in this case, the Tories). The term "political payoff" has, I know, often been applied to Senate appointments (which are made solely by a prime minister). But I, of course, am too dignified in my commentaries to use such a vulgar term as "political payoff." (Oh, goodness, there I go -- I've just used it twice. Well. . . rhetorical license. . .?)

      Anyway, I ask such questions from my point of view as one who spent nearly all of his working life in news, and most of it reporting political news. I did my very best to operate as an objective reporter in my work -- just as reporters still are duty-bound to do. In pursuing that ethic, a reporter finds that a lot of material he writes does not meet with the approval of powerful political figures. Consequently, if a reporter does his or her work according to those ethical obligations that reporter if highly unlikely to be asked to receive any plum appointments, such as senator.

      Yes, I know: more than a few reporters have taken positions with political parties, often in public relations roles for cabinet ministers, for governments, and so on. I say that if they are happy with that, so be it.  No law against it. I also say, though, that when I hear of such appointments my face takes on what might be best described as a sardonic grin.


      NO DOUBT MS. WALLIN AND MR. DUFFY are not grinning that or any other way very much just now. But, and although I will watch for an answer to my Big Question somewhere in the progressing Wallin-Duffy-Senate comedy show, I can't resist the temptation to offer an opinion on where it will all end.

      I think the Senate will wind up being terribly, uhmm, conservative, and that its members will be concerned that new standards of conduct might come out of it if they are too stern with their so-called "offending members." In which case -- oops, they would themselves have to meet such new standards, possibly a tough challenge for some of them.

      Senators might also worry about the possibility of lawsuits from Duffy, and maybe Wallin,  too, which could lead to great expense. (And I'm thinking Duffy and Wallin might be able to make a good legal case, if Senate rules on such matters are as fuzzy as they seem to be.)

      On the other hand, perhaps Senate-and-related-powers-that-be are not much concerned with expenses; after all, the Senate of Canada, according to government records, costs Canadian taxpayers more than $64,000,000 per year. Including senators' expenses, naturally.
   
      Hell of an expensive comedy show, I'd say.    

   

   

   

     


   

   
       

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)

     
    

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!