Category Archives: Culture

Aug 13 2013
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Culture, Politics

Use Sochi to support human rights

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It should be clear by now that the Olympic Games is about as useful for promoting the vaunted notion of justice through sport as a hammer is for spreading paint on a wall. That, of course, doesn’t prevent millions of viewers from gluing themselves to their TV sets every four years to glimpse fleeting instances of true athletic grace.

It is, in fact, the rarity of such demonstrations of simple, unalloyed prowess, amid the cloying displays of national pride and corporate flackery, that keep us parked in our seats hoping for the best in human nature, though expecting the worst.

Six months out from Sochi, the underbelly of this quadrennial extravaganza is already showing itself. The host country, Russia, dislikes gay people so much that it has passed laws banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”. That means, if you are an athlete who is out of the closet, you’d be advised to go back in and shut the door lest you find yourself fined, in jail, or both.

Aggravating this insult were comments last week that suggested that at least one member of the International Olympic Committee remains sanguine about Russia’s hard line on homosexuality.

According to a CNN report, “Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, has called for Russian law to be respected ahead of his sport’s world championships, which begin in Moscow on Saturday. ‘I don’t feel there is a problem whatsoever,’ Diack, a member of the International Olympic Committee, told reporters. ‘Russia has their laws. Each athlete can have their own private life, so we won’t call upon people about this and that. . .We are here for the World Championships and have no problem whatsoever and I’m not worried at all.’”

Roughly 300,000 other individuals, who have signed a petition calling for Russia to repeal the legislation, are far less cheerful, given that the “the goal of Olympism”, according to the IOC’s charter, “is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

All of which has raised the unavoidable specter of a boycott. The well-known British actor, comedian and activist Stephen Fry has gone as far as to demand that the Games be relocated. In an open letter to his Prime Minister David Cameron and the IOC, he wrote on his website, “An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential. Stage them elsewhere in Utah, Lillyhammer, anywhere you like. At all costs Putin cannot be seen to have the approval of the civilised world. . .He is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews. He cannot be allowed to get away with it.”

He later changed his mind, and for good reason. Practically and politically, such a move would be impossible. But, in fact, any form of boycott would be both unfair to the athletes and counterproductive to the cause of human rights. Snubbing the Games tacitly acknowledges the legitimacy of the legislation. It says: the law may be vile, but it is still the law. Russia has thrown down the gantlet; the world must now pick it up.

I am inclined to agree with those, including Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird, who have remarked that Sochi presents an important opportunity for the athletic communities of all nations to forge a united front of principled protest against Russia’s backward social policies. Specifically, the opportunity to flout the law and send a message that acceptance, not discrimination, animates an increasingly enlightened world is too good to pass up.

At the very least, it would go some distance towards restoring a modicum of respectability to the apparatus of the Games, itself, the reports of whose ambivalence, corruption and scandals over the years could paper the walls of several Olympic-sized swimming pools.

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Jul 30 2013
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Culture, Politics, Security

Where did all the bad guys go?

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Enamored as it is by the sound of its own panic alarm, the federal government will have a hard time justifying its contention that Canada is riding a crime wave in the wake of new data that show just the opposite.

“The police-reported crime rate, which measures the overall volume of crime that came to the attention of police, continued a long-term decline in 2012, falling three per cent from 2011,” Statistics Canada reported last week. “The Crime Severity Index (CSI). . .also decreased three per cent.”

In fact, the numbers-crunching agency says that the crime rate in Canada has “reached its lowest level” in 41 years. The CSI, meanwhile, was off 28 per cent from 2002, with 415,000 incidents of violence in 2012.

Still, one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s signature social policies is his “tough-on-crime” agenda, made manifest by omnibus Bill C-10 (now the Safe Streets and Communities Act), which places unusual emphasis on the so-called rights of victims.

A government website outlines the guts of the legislation, thusly:

“Part 1 creates a new act entitled the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act;

Part 2 amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and the Criminal Code; Part 3 amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA), the International Transfer of Offenders Act and the Criminal Records Act; Part 4 amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act; and part 5 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. . .Part 3 . . .makes changes to the CCRA’s principles (and) reforms in four main areas: Enhancing sharing of information with victims; increasing offender responsibility and accountability; strengthening the management of offenders and their reintegration; and modernizing disciplinary actions.”

One of the legislation’s features that continues to stick in the collective craw of community activists, family welfare advocates and even a few international observers is the unreasonably harsh treatment it metes out to young offenders. Last year, The Canadian Press reported, “The UN committee on the rights of the child has finished a 10-year review of how Canada treats its children and how well governments are implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In particular, the committee says Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act complied with international standards until changes were introduced earlier this year.”

Specifically, CP indicated, “Bill C-10 ‘is excessively punitive for children and not sufficiently restorative in nature,’ the committee wrote in a report. ‘The committee also regrets there was no child rights assessment or mechanism to ensure that Bill C-10 complied with the provisions of the convention.’ The committee also repeatedly expressed its concern that aboriginal and black children are dramatically overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Aboriginal youth are more likely to be jailed than graduate from high school, the report said.”

Flash forward to the present day, and here’s what Stats Can stipulates on the subject on youth crime in this country: “Police reported that just over 125,000 youth aged 12 to 17 were accused of a criminal offence in 2012, about 11,000 less than the previous year. The youth accused rate fell seven per cent while the youth CSI declined six per cent.”

What’s more, “The majority of youth accused in 2012 were involved in non-violent incidents. The most common type of youth crime was theft of $5,000 and under, committed by 18 per cent of youth accused. Common assault (level 1) was the most common type of violent offence committed by youth in 2012, accounting for 11 per cent of youth accused. Other relatively common offences committed by youth were mischief (11 per cent), administration of justice violations (10 per cent) and cannabis possession (10 per cent). In 2012, 44 per cent of youth accused were formally charged by police, the rest were dealt with by other means under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.”

All of which paints a somewhat more wholesome picture of Canadian society – one that is, in fact, broadly consistent with those of other developed nations, where crime rates are also dropping – than the red meat crowd in Ottawa would have us believe.

If course, power politics is about nothing if not inventing problems to solve.

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Jul 29 2013
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Culture, Economy, Politics

The myth of the middle class

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In Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” – the 1939 classic film about graft, greed and coercion in American politics – Jimmy Stewart – playing the protagonist, possessed of both naivete and moxie, in equal measures – lambastes his senatorial colleagues for their cynicism and corruption.

“Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask,” he chimes. “Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That’s what you’d see.”

Then, just before he collapses in exhaustion, he declares, “You all think I’m licked. Well I’m not licked. And I’m gonna stay right here and fight for this lost cause. . .Somebody will listen to me.”

There was something decidedly familiar about America’s real “Mr. Smith” who went down from Washington to deliver a speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, the other day. Familiar, and cinematic.

“With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball,” U.S. President Barack Obama cried. “And I am here to say this needs to stop. Short-term thinking and stale debates are not what this moment requires. Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that the matter most to you – the people we represent.”

He pounded his pulpit like a preacher. “I will not allow gridlock, inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way,” he said. “Whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it. Where I can’t act on my own, I’ll pick up the phone and call CEOs, and philanthropists, and college presidents – anybody who can help – and enlist them in our efforts. Because the choices that we, the people, make now will determine whether or not every American will have a fighting chance in the 21st century.”

Fade to black. Roll credits.

Mr. Obama is on his last legs, and he knows it. Almost nothing he has tried during his nearly six years in office has worked. His country is even more divided than it was when he first marched into the White House in January 2009 (Oprah’s happy tears, notwithstanding). So, when all else fails, cue up the teleprompter. It’s time for rhetoric.

Speechifying is what Mr. Obama does best. And his dwindling cohort of ardent admirers still appreciate his soaring orations. But when he talks about reviving the middle class in America, one wonders whether he has missed the lessons of history, whether he understands the principle of cause and effect.

Washington’s “gridlock, inaction, or willful indifference” of which he speaks is not chiefly responsible for the wreckage skilled wage-earners and professionals now face; it is the result of years, even decades, of systematically dismantling the institutions, regulations and protections the middle class needs in order to survive, let alone thrive. The crew that now “represents” the people – the neo-cons, lunatic libertarians, science deniers, sneering accommodators – can’t help themselves. That’s how they were raised in the me-first, avaricious era of the late 20th century.

For this sea-change in attitude, government, itself, has been largely liable. Through Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations, lawmakers did everything they could to break unions, discourage small businesses, encourage corporate consolidation, and succor the most predatory instincts of free-market capitalism.

Some got rich. More got poor. Today, almost no one believes in the durability of so-called middle-class values. Why would they when the once-sturdy bargain between an employer and his employee can, and does, perish in an offshore agreement with a cheap, foreign supplier of human capital?

At the end of Capra’s ode to the working man, Mr. Smith triumphs, having taught his confreres a little something about decency and dignity. He even gets the girl.

But, of course, that was only a movie.

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Jul 27 2013
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Culture, Society

Following the herd straight to Hades

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The human race sinks to the lowest level of turpitude not when its members defy the standards of what is thought to be acceptable behavior, but, more often, when they obey them.

Nothing in history has caused greater depravity, deeper injury, than doing one’s duty without question.

The latest evidence that this is axiomatically true comes to us by way of one Ian Mosby, a historian of food and nutrition and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph. While investigating health policy in Canada, he uncovered documents which showed that in the years following the Second World War, federal government officials conducted experiments on aboriginal children to ascertain their nutritional needs. In effect, they deliberately starved their subjects.

The abstract of his research paper makes for some chilling reading:

“Between 1942 and 1952, some of Canada’s leading nutrition experts, in cooperation with various federal departments, conducted an unprecedented series of nutritional studies of Aboriginal communities and residential schools. The most ambitious and perhaps best known of these was the 1947-1948 James Bay Survey of the Attawapiskat and Rupert’s House Cree First Nations. Less well known were two separate long-term studies that went so far as to include controlled experiments conducted, apparently without the subjects’ informed consent or knowledge, on malnourished Aboriginal populations in Northern Manitoba and, later, in six Indian residential schools.

Dr. Mosby explains that the point of his examination is “in part to provide a narrative record of a largely unexamined episode of exploitation and neglect by the Canadian government. At the same time, it situates these studies within the context of broader federal policies governing the lives of Aboriginal peoples, a shifting Canadian consensus concerning the science of nutrition, and changing attitudes towards the ethics of biomedical experimentation on human beings during a period that encompassed, among other things, the establishment of the Nuremberg Code of experimental research ethics.”

The news has quite properly stunned the current office holders in Ottawa, who assure themselves that nothing like this could happen today. After all, we are so much more enlightened, so much more evolved than our forebears.

But are we?

All it takes is one goon with a truly bad idea and the authority to enforce it and watch the herd mentality take shape. The rationalizations pour like rain in a thunderstorm: It’s all for a good cause; the ends justify the means; you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs; everybody’s doing it, so it must be right; I was just following orders.

Following orders was what senior Nazi officials claimed they were doing when they sent millions of Jews to their death. In a famous string of experiments in the 1960s,  American psychologist Stanley Milgram sought to test the limits of obedience among “average” people – those who were not infused with ideological hatred or political fanaticism. He enlisted 40 men to administer electric shocks to test subjects.

“Each participant took the role of a ‘teacher’ who would then deliver a shock to the ‘student’ every time an incorrect answer was produced,” writes Kendra Cherry in the Psychology section of About.com. “While the participant believed that he was delivering real shocks to the student, the student was actually a confederate in the experiment who was simply pretending to be shocked.

“As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart condition. Once the 300-volt level had been reached, the learner banged on the wall and demanded to be released. Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and refused to answer any more questions. The experimenter then instructed the participant to treat this silence as an incorrect response and deliver a further shock.”

Dr. Milgram had expected that less than three per cent of participants would agree to deliver the maximum voltage. But, on the authority of the experimenter, closer to 65 per cent of them did, even though they had every reason to believe they were inflicting serious injury, or worse.

As the German political thinker Hannah Arendt observed in 1963, evil is banal, and blind obedience can make unwitting monsters of us all.

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Jul 11 2013
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Culture, Society

The chickens have left home to roost

Bogland: Where hipsters meet their natural enemies

Bogland: Where hipsters meet their natural enemies

According to Tumblr, the blog-cum-social networking platform, “hipsters” belong to a “subculture of men and women typically in their 20s and 30s” who “value independent thinking, counter-culture” and “progressive politics.”

To others, including Toronto Star staff reporter Alex Ballingall, the (mostly) “city dwellers” are “urbane” and “non-conformist. . .yet people seem reluctant  to identify themselves” as hipsters, per se. (Something about the uncoolness of being seen to be a member of a visible demographic, I suppose).

Still, says one Kayla Rocca – an urban people gazer in downtown TO – you really can’t miss ‘em. “You can spot a hipster from a mile away,” she told Mr. Ballingall for his piece this week. In fact, the reporter noted, she listed the “telltale signs from her bench in Trinity Bellwoods Park: tattoos, cut-off shirts, skinny jeans, vintage apparel, beards, bicycles, thick-rimmed glasses (prescription optional) and an affinity for obscure music and independent movies. . .’They strive to be different, and yet they’re a cohesive group,’ added Rocca’s friend, Angie Ruffilli. ‘And they’re never athletic,’ she laughed.”

That, alone, may explain a strange, but gathering phenomenon, underway in major and minor American and Canadian cities from Santa Fe to Montreal. Hipsters are abandoning their live chickens by the hundreds, maybe even the thousands.

Naturally, at this point, some background will be in order.

The hipster practice of keeping egg-laying hens in their urban backyards (at least among those who own backyards; though that does seem counterintuitively establishmentarian of them) has been gathering steam for some time. They’ve loved the message it sends to the world: See how environmentally sensitive, whole-earthy and animal friendly I am?

Meanwhile, increasingly, jurisdictions across the continent have either relaxed or clarified their rules for maintaining livestock (actually, just fowl) within their city limits. (In fact, Moncton ran a pilot program a couple a years ago; a permanent decision is expected sometime this year).

But a funny thing happened on their way to the chicken coup: The whole business got to be just too damn arduous for the aforementioned, athletically disinclined sub-group. “It’s a lot of work,” writes Globe and Mail reporter Amber Daugherty, who was presumably tipped off to the story by an item on NBC’s website. “Before you know it, you’re sweating tying to clean and feed those animals and you really didn’t consider that if you want to go away someone else has to take care of them.”

Ms. Daugherty notes that in Minneapolis last year, people deposited 500 birds at the doorsteps of various animal shelters. That was up from 50 in 2001. What’s more, she writes, “The trend is being seen in Canada. . .Sayara Thurston of the Humane Society International Canada, who is based in Montreal, said chickens are being dropped off at the SPCA in Montreal every week. . .’A chicken is a pet like any other and they need to be cared for throughout their lives, which people need to take into consideration if they’re thinking of adopting some chickens into their home,’ she said.”

That people are not taking such matters into consideration has got other people, like Mary Britton Clouse, clucking mad, especially at “hipster farmers”. The proprietor of the Minneapolis-based Chicken Run Rescue let it rip in an interview with NBC: “It’s the stupid foodies. . .We’re just sick to death of it. . .People don’t know what they’re doing. And you’ve got this whole culture of people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing teaching every other idiot out there.”

Never a truer word was spoken about. . .well, really, anything these days.

We generally don’t know what the hell we’re doing about politics, energy, the environment, climate change, banks, income inequality and, now, animal husbandry. But, in the words of Ms. Britton Clouse, that doesn’t stop us from “teaching every other idiot out there.”

About a month ago, Saint John became the first city in the Maritimes to legalize the keeping of backyard chickens (under strict conditions). As for the keeping of hipsters there, the jury remains sequestered.

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May 27 2013
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Culture, Politics

Fear and trembling in Canuckistan

The political process as we know it in Canada

The political process as we know it in Canada

Citizens of the world are united in at least one important respect: They’re feeling a might poorly these days, and they’re not at all sure what, if anything, can shake them from their malaise.

That, at least, is what we may conclude from a new Ipsos Global Advisory entitled, “The Economic Pulse of the World (May 2013),” in which “citizens in 24 countries assess the current state of their country’s economy for a total global perspective.”

The key findings, gleaned from interviews with 18,331 individuals between the ages of 16 and 64, suggest that, averaged overall, only 36 per cent think their “current national economic situation” is good. Most think it stinks. We Canadians are generally more positive (thank you Messrs. Harper, Flaherty and Carney). But, as Ipsos points out, even our confidence is showing some fissures of late.

In a section headlined, “Canada Cause of Growth Deterioration in North America”, the research firm states, “Also concerning is economic sentiment in Canada. The country has traditionally performed as the rock holding up North American sentiment, while the United States has struggled to recover from the 2009/2010 crash. However, assessments in Canada have dropped six points to 59% saying the economy is ‘good’, reflecting the largest drop in the country since September 2011.”

Of course, that’s still far better than many. “A considerable margin continues to exist at the top of the global ratings between global leader Saudi Arabia (80%) and the rest of the pack although this is closing compared to last month,” Ipsos reports. “Following Saudi Arabia is Sweden (70%), Germany (67%), India (66%), China (64%), and Australia (62%). Only a handful of those in Spain (3%) rate their national economies as ‘good’, followed by Italy (4%), France (5%), Hungary (7%) and Great Britain (13%).”

Accounting for Canada’s precipitous slide this month is a little like sifting through the leaves at the bottom of a teacup. After all, according to a report by TD Economics in April, “The Canadian economy beat expectations in February, growing 0.3%, following an upwardly revised 0.3% gain in January. Canadian economic growth has now accelerated to a 1.7% pace year-on-year. That is still sub-par, but a far cry better than its 1% clip at the end of 2012.”

Moreover, the bank states, “The Canadian labour market created 12,500 net jobs in April, a small bounce back from (March’s) 54,500 net loss. The trend pace of job creation moved back into positive territory as the 3-month moving average rose from -8,600 to 2,900 in the month while the 6-month moving average stayed steady at

12,400. The unemployment rate remained steady at 7.2%”

My theory about the mini-crisis in confidence here has more to do the the “weighted average” of bad news related to matters of a decidedly non-economic nature. With apologies to the Bard, consider these rough winds, ripped from the daily news, that do shake the darling buds of May in the late, Great White North:

“Senator Mike Duffy said Thursday he wants a ‘full and open inquiry’ to answer the many questions Canadians have about the spending scandal that prompted him to leave the Conservative caucus and now has the RCMP asking the Senate for more details about spending rules,” reported the CBC on Friday.

For something completely different, also from the CBC, “Members of Rob Ford’s executive committee say they are prepared to take over the day-to-day running of the city if the Toronto mayor is no longer able to perform his duties, amid a scandal involving allegations he was caught on video smoking crack cocaine.”

If these aren’t enough to send you screaming over to grandma’s house, then how about this from the Montreal Gazette: “Exploding cars, intimidating phone calls and clandestine meetings in the dead of night. The Charbonneau Commission was presented with a dark and unflattering portrait of the city of Laval on Thursday, with two witnesses describing their involvement in a well-organized system of collusion in the municipality that was both profitable and dangerous.”

A rotten economy? We should be so lucky.

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May 23 2013
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Business, Culture, Science, Society

How (not) to breed a culture of innovation

Think about tech at least once in your freakin' life!

Think about tech at least once in your freakin’ life!

Once again, a major Canadian think tank concludes that the nation’s private sector is not spending enough of research and development, on science and technology. Once again, the news runs buried in the tech sections of the day’s print organs, all but guaranteeing the predictable reader response of “so what.”

For decades – at least since the early 1980s – experts have warned that unless industry picks up the pace of innovation, the consequences for Canada’s productivity and competitiveness in the global economy will be dire. But what, exactly, does that mean and why should anyone outside the pearly gates of academe give a fig?

Not long ago, the Conference Board of Canada took a shot at answering the question. In a report entitled “How Canada Performs”, the organization had this to say about the country’s low ranking, compared to other economies, on innovation:

“Overall, countries that are more innovative are passing Canada on measures such as income per capita, productivity, and the quality of social programs. It is also critical to environmental protection, a high-performing education system, a well-functioning system of health promotion and health care, and an inclusive society. Without innovation, all these systems stagnate and Canada’s performance deteriorates relative to that of its peers.”

What’s more, the Board said, “With new key players – such as China, India, and Brazil – in the global economy, Canadian businesses must move up the value chain and specialize in knowledge-intensive, high-value-added goods and services. Although Canada has some leading companies that compete handily against global peers, its economy is not as innovative as its size would otherwise suggest.”

Now, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) – a creature of the current federal government – adds its voice to the chorus. “Canada’s gross domestic expenditures on R&D (GERD) declined from their peak in 2008 and, when measured in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), since 2001,” it reports. “In contrast, the GERD and GERD intensity of most other countries have been increasing. Canada’s declining GERD intensity has pushed its rank down from 16th position in 2006 to 17th in 2008 and to 23rd in 2011 (among 41 economies). . .The more recent declines in the country’s total R&D funding efforts are attributable predominantly to private sector funding of R&D.”

The Council also notes, somewhat cheerfully that “Canadians understand that, if we want to create jobs and opportunity in a competitive world and address the key societal challenges that confront us in the 21st century, STI must be an integral part of the national agenda.”

But here’s the thing: I’m not at all sure Canadians do – understand, that is. If they did, then this conversation, which feels like a toothache, would be over. So would the chimerical debate, in government circles, about funding hard, “blue sky” science at the “expense” of applied, commercially viable research. Notice where these discussions almost never occur: Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, and, yes, even the United States.

That’s because these nations, unlike Canada, have recognized the truth of their circumstances, which is, both simple and elegant: If you want an innovative culture, you have to breed a culture of innovation. And silos of self-interest won’t help you accomplish the task. All segments of society – government, industry, higher education – must pull in the same direction if we’re going to get anywhere.

Or, as the STIC observes, “The responsibility is shared: all participants in our STI ecosystem have a role to play in driving enhanced performance and lifting Canada into the ranks of the world’s leading innovative economies. It is not just about investing more, but about investing more strategically and coherently, focusing our resources and efforts, learning from the experience of global STI leaders and improving agility to seize emerging opportunities. That is how Canada will truly be able to ‘run with the best.’”

It’s also how you convince average Canadians, who may not often read the tech sections of their newspapers, that their material well being – their wages and standards of living – depends directly on the quantity and quality of the innovations they enlist in the service of their respective futures.

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May 22 2013
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Culture, Government, Media

Driven by their distractions

The political process as we know it in Canada

The political process as we know it in Canada

Political commentators are, as a rule, enormously fond of the sound of their own voices, especially when handed the opportunity to contextualize a galloping controversy. I should know. I can’t count the number of times I’ve used the word “distraction” to describe some office holder’s goof-up.

But, I’m beginning to think we who observe-cum-scribble for a living are coming perilously close to spraining our backs for all the bending over we do in our attempt to perceive the bigger pictures in public life.

Yesterday, my esteemed colleague Jeffrey Simpson, the Globe and Mail’s national affairs columnist, deployed the word, “distraction” twice in one paragraph. “For a government already adrift at midterm, the Nigel Wright-Mike Duffy affair, coupled with the resignation from caucus of another Conservative senator, Pamela Wallin, represents an unwelcome distraction,” he wrote. “It’s doubtful that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s speech to his caucus on Tuesday – in which he declared himself ‘very upset‘ – will quickly end the distraction.”

In this, he may only have parroted Mr. Duffy, himself, who had characterized his contretemps as a “significant distraction” to his Tory caucus colleagues, before resigning to sit as an Independent.

Still, I’m left wondering: From what, exactly, is all this stuff a distraction? A good government? A sound economy? A functioning Senate? A ribbon-cutting ceremony somewhere near Nowhereville, New Brunswick?

Why can’t we see Senategate for what it is? To wit: A damn good news story that cuts to the heart of democracy in Canada, demanding all the remorseless attention to detail for which the Cosa Nostra of our craft is famous.

I might pose the same question to members of Hog Town’s Ford Nation whenever they cluck disapprovingly at the Toronto Star’s coverage of their man, Mayor Rob, whose talent for landing himself in hot water is downright promethean.

How the burgermeister of Canada’s biggest city manages to survive his days and nights at the cutting edge of contention is one of the great mysteries of the modern age. But survive he does, despite headlines that would reduce most in his position to a quivering pool of gelatin.

“Five days after two media outlets published reports on a video that appears to show him smoking crack cocaine, Mayor Rob Ford again offered no explanation on Tuesday,” thestar.com reported this week. “He did not say whether he has smoked crack while in office. He did not say whether he used an anti-gay slur. Despite an expression of concern from the premier and renewed pleas from council allies, he did not say anything at all.”

Meanwhile, American late-night TV was having a ball at hizzoner’s expense. “Both Jimmy Kimmel and The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart discussed the controversy at the tops of their shows,” thestar.com observed. “Jay Leno also mentioned Ford on Monday’s Tonight Show, joking that if the allegations are true, he’d still be qualified to be the mayor of Washington, D.C.”

In her commentary, Star columnist Heather Mallick noted, “There have been 42 low points in Ford’s mayoralty. . .from sexist and racist slurs, to drunken arguments in public, to a chaotic home life, to repeated court hearings on alleged financial wrongdoing, to, oh dozens more, a relentless sordid drip. I’m worried that unless he resigns, he’s going to punch a baby in the face or run himself over. I’m waiting for spontaneous Ford combustion, right there on the sidewalk.”

None of this, it’s safe to say, is a “distraction” from the business of running a major metropolitan area. In fact, in a palpable sense, it is the business of running a major metropolitan area. At least, it is lately.

The comportment of one’s mayor – or Senator – speaks volumes about the condition of one’s public institutions. It also points a fat finger at the electorate who, either directly or indirectly, play a role in selecting those for high public office.

By suggesting otherwise, well. . .the only thing from which we distract ourselves is the truth of our frequently flawed systems of government.

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May 20 2013
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Culture

Sending out an S.O.S. to the universe

Beware the birdbrains in your backyard

Beware the birdbrains in your backyard

Now that Sarnia-born astronaut Chris Hadfield is, again, just another terrestrial, he might wonder whether he left his orbiting observation deck just a tad prematurely.

Canadians are looking up – way up – these days for proof of intelligent life in the universe, having not found even a shred of it on Earth.

According Chris Rutkowski and Geoff Dittman of Winnipeg’s Ufology Research, almost twice as many people claimed to have seen something they could not explain in the night sky in 2012 than in 2008 (the previous record year).

As for UFO sightings, Mr. Rutkowski told CTV last week, “We thought that they had plateaued or peaked a few years ago, when there were about 1,000 cases reported in Canada. But last year they jumped 100 per cent: 2,000 reports in Canada alone. . .Now whether we’re looking at a physical phenomenon or perhaps a sociological or a psychological phenomenon, the fact is that people are seeing things. . .“The truth is out there, but unfortunately we’re stuck down here.”

We sure are, and “stuck” is the word.

Let us scan the leads of the world’s news, lo these past few days.

“The revelation that Stephen Harper’s top aide gave Senator Mike Duffy more than $90,000 to cover repayment of improper expense claims has dragged the Prime Minister and his office into the controversy over Senate accountability,” the Globe and Mail helpfully informed on Friday. “The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, said Wednesday that her office will review PMO chief of staff Nigel Wright’s decision to bail out Mr. Duffy.”

Meanwhile, ABC News reported last Thursday, “The U.S. justice department has admitted to secretly seizing phone records from the Associated Press in its attempt to track down the source of a leak. It is suspected the raid relates to the AP’s reporting on a foiled Al Qaeda plan to detonate a bomb on a plane heading to the United States last year. The AP says the justice department seized the records of more than 20 home, mobile and office phone lines this year without notice.”

Then, there’s the IRS, whose honcho, the Guardian noted, U.S. President Barack Obama “fired. . .on Wednesday in an effort to bring a speedy end to a scandal over the targeting of Tea Party organisations and other conservative groups for special scrutiny.

Obama, speaking at the White House, described the conduct of the employees at the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati, Ohio, as ‘inexcusable’.

“The president said the Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, had demanded the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS, Steven Miller, in the light of criticism in an inspector general’s report (which) found that ineffective management at the IRS had allowed agents. . .to target conservative groups inappropriately for more than 18 months. Officials had picked out groups with the words Tea Party or Patriots in their titles and subjected their requests for tax-exempt status to extra scrutiny.”

Now, as CBS reported on Thursday, “The White House release of some 100 pages of emails and notes about the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year has failed to satisfy congressional Republicans, who are demanding more information. . .Republicans have accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people about the circumstances of the attack, playing down a terrorist strike that would reflect poorly on President Obama in the heat of a presidential race. Mr. Obama has dismissed charges of a cover-up and suggested on Monday that the criticism was politically motivated.”

Finally, the U.S. Treasury is broke, as is most of continental Europe and a fair number of Canadian provinces. Household debt is at an all-time high as the gap between the rich and the poor inexorably widens.

And this lately in from the lunatic fringe: “Throughout the years it has become a duty of each Flat Earth Society member, to meet the common round earther in the open, avowed, and unyielding rebellion; to declare that his reign of error and confusion is over; and that henceforth, like a falling dynasty, he must shrink and disappear, leaving the throne and the kingdom of science and philosophy to those awakening intellects whose numbers are constantly increasing, and whose march is rapid and irresistible.”

Under the circumstances who in his or her right mind wouldn’t want to make the stars his or her destination?

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May 09 2013
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Culture, Science

The sky’s the limit for Canuck in space

The future is what you make of it. . .Up. . .up. . .in the air

The future is what you make of it. . .Up. . .up. . .in the air

When I grow up, I want to be Chris Hadfield – minus the mustache.

In fact, the first Canadian astronaut to command the International Space Station (he returns to terra firma on Monday) perfectly mirrors my own youthful ambitions, if not actual experiences.

He’s almost exactly my age (we both graduated high school in 1978). He can fly 70 different types of aircraft (I once took the controls of a Cessna for about five seconds). He’s on a first-name basis with Captain Kirk (I once tripped over William Shatner’s carry-on at Pearson Airport). He plays the guitar (so do I. . .sort of).

There, alas, the similarities end.

Where the mere thought of spending months on end sealed up in a metal can hundreds of kilometers above our planetary orb is enough to give me a panic attack, Mr. Hadfield seems to relish his splendid isolation. He even wrote a song about it (with Barenaked Ladies’ frontman Ed Robertson).

“Eighteen thousand miles an hour/Fueled by science and solar power/The oceans racing past/At half a thousand tons/Ninety minutes Moon to Sun/A bullet can’t go half this fast/Floating from my seat/Look out my window/There goes Home (There goes home)/That brilliant ball of blue/Is where I’m from, and also where I’m going to.”

Catchy. Last week, Mr. Hadfield warbled his ditty, “ISS – Is Somebody Singing?” – from space. According to a CBC News report, “students, musicians and other participants from across Canada and as far away as Singapore and Australia sang along. . .The concert (was his) final live link from the space station before he returns to Earth on May 13.”

Indeed, the high-flying voyager has been a busy guy since he docked with his orbiting home away from home on December 21. Deftly using social media to communicate with his terrestrial brethren, he helped the Bank of Canada unveil its new, plastic $5 bill (he noted that the currency illustrates “how we can reach new heights of innovation”).

He also demonstrated that weightlessness, though challenging, need not preclude every day chores, such as brushing teeth, making sandwiches or sopping up spilled water. As National Post columnist Joe O’Connor observed in February, Mr. Hadfield “put on a goofy outfit to celebrate Mardi Gras. . .dropped a puck from the heavens on Hockey Night in Canada, fixed some space station gizmo of great scientific importance while sending out a daily stream of majestic photographs of the Earth below – the Sahara, the Australian Outback, the blinding lights of Beijing  via Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.”

The highlight, perhaps, was his twitter conversation with Canadian-born actor William Shatner (AKA James Tiberius Kirk of Star Trek fame) In January.

Mr. Shatner: “Are you tweeting from space?”

Mr. Hadfield: “Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain. And we’re detecting signs of life on the surface.”

All of which moved Stephen Quick, director of the Ottawa-based Canada Aviation and Space Museum, to tell Mr. O’Connor, “Chris is a rock star, there is no two ways about it. We’ve seen it from the beginning with Chris. We’ve had him in here to do briefings on how to fly a CF-18, and on training for space, and he is as adept at talking to a six-year-old with stars in their eyes as he is talking to the governor-general or a head of state. He tunes into that person. He has this vibrant personality, this twinkle in his eye, and it is almost a mischievous twinkle.”

At a time when interest in science is waning and only the grizzled among us can remember the excitement and wonder the Apollo moon landings inspired so many long decades ago, Mr. Hadfield’s demonstrable competence and enthusiasm renews faith in the efficacy of human endeavor. And his good homour is infectious.

Now that this Mr. Dressup of near space, this Pied Piper of the cosmos, this indisputable Voice of God to countless four-year-olds (including my grandson) prepares to rejoin us on the surface, a thought inevitably occurs.

If Mr. Hadfield ever decides to remove his mustache, certain candidates for high political office in Canada should start watching their backs.

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