Two items: forgotten films and invented greetings. Thanks to my granddaughter (she who visited Paris with us this past summer) there is a new greeting in the family. In fact, our holiday dinner yesterday started with lunch and by request - matzoh ball soup, and by tradition – potato latkes. It is a tradition because they are fried in oil, and it was the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days that underlies a lot of the Chanukah celebration, and is expressed by the eight candelabra Menorah. Evening meal was turkey with cranberry sauce, dressing, pumpkin pie and wine. So much for the amalgamation of Christmas and Chanukah.
Now to the entertainment portion of this epistle The afternoon was passed combing through our son’s prodigious collection (two walls!) of DVDs. Watched one of the most beautiful movies no one ever seems to have heard of. Maybe I missed the fuss over it when it opened nearly ten years ago, if indeed there was any “fuss,” but I had never heard of “Tortilla Soup” before Christmas Day. It is a sweet and startling, sometimes sad, sometimes funny examination of the relationships in a Mexican-American family living in L.A. Three different and delightful daughters, and a superb performance by their father, a master chef played by Hector Elizando. The critics didn’t rave about it when it came out in 2001 and the audiences apparently stayed away. (Not that critical acclaim makes a movie work. Some of every weekend’s top grossing movies get one star panning.)
If you are the father of daughters, you will be delighted.
Almost upstaging the actors is the food presentation. It is a must movie for “foodies.” The dishes are astonishing and the photography is perfect, done by, I am sure, the best food stylists in the business.
What occurred to me more though, was that some movies simply are avoided or ignored. “Tortilla Soup” did not deserve to be. But there are dozens of stories like this. I remember having a conversation with Jeff Daniels about “The Butcher’s Wife.” It was a weird story and co-starred Demi Moore as the clairvoyant daughter of an elderly butcher. I told him I had so enjoyed the movie but asked why did it get so little play? He told me that there was a big management shuffle at Paramount just as the movie was to open and it was “orphaned.” It got no big advertising. No big promotion.
There are other “relationship” movies that seem not to have prospered. By the way, I have no problem with films that are labeled “chick flicks.” Like “Beaches” which was, at least for me, a startling examination of the relationship between women who are best friends. In the film they are Barbara Hershey and Bette Midler. Maybe it did better than I suspected having a “gross” of more than $50 million.
I remember “Where’s Poppa” a very funny, very dark comedy with Ruth Gordon, George Segal, Ron Liebman, and Trish Vandervere (who was then married to George C. Scott.) I laughed so hard I went back two days later and laughed even harder – in anticipation of what was to come. At week’s end it disappeared. Gone. Forgotten.
A few years later I interviewed its author and director, the incomparable Carl Reiner. I asked him why the movie disappeared. He told me it was coming back as a cult movie.
Maybe it did. But it’s another one that if you have never seen is worth visiting. There is a peculiar change in the editing between the theatrical version and the one released on videotape. I presume the first was the studio edit and the other was the director’s edit. The one which I suspect was the director’s edit, had an extra scene that turns the entire story around. It is better ending but the studio honchos must have considered it too daring,
Maybe I should put some of this on Facebook so my “friends” and curious trouble-seekers can tell me what movies they loved that the public ignored. Maybe some of you blog readers will join the quest for more of "the best movies people never saw."
Meanwhile - Happy Christmakah.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
ALL HAIL THE THINKING VOTER - ER - TAXPAYER
Even after so many years away, people still ask me: “Would you go back into Talk Radio?” It is only then that, realizing I have no interest in returning to the scene that made me a household word so many years ago, I wonder. Is it because I am too old? Burned out? Bored? None of the above. It is because, when given a forum to air views, compare opinions and – most of all – perhaps actually learn from what is said – nothing changes. Every time I returned to the mike there were the same callers saying the same angry and empty things. They weren't the same people of course, but you get the point.
I made several returns to radio, mostly because nothing else was happening in my “career” and there were still broadcast executives who thought I would be good for the ratings. What appalled me was that twenty, thirty, forty years after the mind-numbing calls from people who wanted to talk about crosswalks while the world was in turmoil – nothing had changed. The final reminder of futility came today.
I’m at my computer at early morning to check local and international media for news, and editorial opinion. One of my stops is the Toronto Star. Not because I love the Star, but because it is local and expresses a local point of view. (I could say the same about the Sun, but that would be stooped.) This morning I went to the “comment” section to read what Torontonians were saying about Mayor Ford. A column had been written saying that he had already pushed through three of his campaign promises. Those, in my opinion, were a slam dunk, and like the writer of the article, I warned that he was about to come up against some of the really big stuff. (Even though he promised he would stop the "gravy train," he announced that he had staff working to find elements of that gravy train.) What colossal gall! What I found among the hundreds of responses to the article on Rob Ford’s future, was a replay of the same kind of comments I heard more than forty years ago!
Some were good, but most were expressions of distaste for the Toronto Star, and expressions of delight that Ford had “swept” to victory. What was missing, and it chronically was on the radio, was a real sense of “knowing.” Did these commenters have anything in their words but personal bile? Did they actually have any information? Neither of those two questions can be answered positively. The responses were simply vacuous rants against imagined enemies. The commenters were the very people Ford spoke to successfully when he elevated (?) them from voters to taxpayers. The latter word having the required emotional pull.
Let me pause here. In my radio years people would ask: “How do you keep listening to all those stupid people?” I would try to respond with something to redeem the medium, and in fact, there were always callers who had their wits about them, who contributed opinions based on information. But information doesn’t matter as long as you can persuade people that they are unhappy and voting for him would be a poultice for that unhappiness.
I had hoped, I guess, to be a small contributor to raising public awareness. Instead I became the receptor for some awful illiteracy. I suppose I still envy the Steve Paikens of this world who can do a profoundly intellectual job of dealing with current affairs. I did have my own moments when I could communicate at a decent level and make some small change. But I was, and still am today, haunted by the declaration: “That’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it.” The most mindless reading of democratic thought. The notion that whatever opinion you have, even though it is not backed by information, but is supported by prejudice, is a worthy opinion.
Do I want to re-visit it? You tell me.
I made several returns to radio, mostly because nothing else was happening in my “career” and there were still broadcast executives who thought I would be good for the ratings. What appalled me was that twenty, thirty, forty years after the mind-numbing calls from people who wanted to talk about crosswalks while the world was in turmoil – nothing had changed. The final reminder of futility came today.
I’m at my computer at early morning to check local and international media for news, and editorial opinion. One of my stops is the Toronto Star. Not because I love the Star, but because it is local and expresses a local point of view. (I could say the same about the Sun, but that would be stooped.) This morning I went to the “comment” section to read what Torontonians were saying about Mayor Ford. A column had been written saying that he had already pushed through three of his campaign promises. Those, in my opinion, were a slam dunk, and like the writer of the article, I warned that he was about to come up against some of the really big stuff. (Even though he promised he would stop the "gravy train," he announced that he had staff working to find elements of that gravy train.) What colossal gall! What I found among the hundreds of responses to the article on Rob Ford’s future, was a replay of the same kind of comments I heard more than forty years ago!
Some were good, but most were expressions of distaste for the Toronto Star, and expressions of delight that Ford had “swept” to victory. What was missing, and it chronically was on the radio, was a real sense of “knowing.” Did these commenters have anything in their words but personal bile? Did they actually have any information? Neither of those two questions can be answered positively. The responses were simply vacuous rants against imagined enemies. The commenters were the very people Ford spoke to successfully when he elevated (?) them from voters to taxpayers. The latter word having the required emotional pull.
Let me pause here. In my radio years people would ask: “How do you keep listening to all those stupid people?” I would try to respond with something to redeem the medium, and in fact, there were always callers who had their wits about them, who contributed opinions based on information. But information doesn’t matter as long as you can persuade people that they are unhappy and voting for him would be a poultice for that unhappiness.
I had hoped, I guess, to be a small contributor to raising public awareness. Instead I became the receptor for some awful illiteracy. I suppose I still envy the Steve Paikens of this world who can do a profoundly intellectual job of dealing with current affairs. I did have my own moments when I could communicate at a decent level and make some small change. But I was, and still am today, haunted by the declaration: “That’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it.” The most mindless reading of democratic thought. The notion that whatever opinion you have, even though it is not backed by information, but is supported by prejudice, is a worthy opinion.
Do I want to re-visit it? You tell me.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
LOOKING AHEAD - AN INSPECTION
I am tired of being cranky about stuff I know nothing about. I am tired of sounding like every other old, out-of-touch dinosaur. I am fed up with my own stubborn sense of superiority. I am tired enough of it all to get aboard and stop griping.
Explanation: you have read my jeremiads against what a whole generation calls “progress.” You know: texting, IPhone browsing, and the biggest target: Facebook.
Time to really “Look Ahead” Larry. In the last few days my wife and I have discussed getting into some of the stuff we have scorned. Like people who say “I don’t want to dance” really mean “I don’t know how,” I have stayed away from the screens that flash instantly during intermission at a concert or the theatre, or on the subway train. Time I got with it. Time I got myself at least some kind of interactive telephone, maybe even a Blackberry! Time I climbed aboard. For my wife, this will be traumatic. She is so far behind the times she still does not know how to use a computer. That has become a skill as basic to survival as food, drink, and sleep.
I’ve begun. Finally, I am trying to learn how to use Facebook. Never mind that I am being solicited as a “friend” by people I have never heard of. Never mind that there are people who think that life is all about collecting as many friends as possible as if they were going for a record to have themselves installed in the Guinness Book. I’m prepared to stop carping and start playing the game.
I am still a little unclear of how I use the social network. I am concerned that I have retched (just a little) every time I hear “social network.” But I can’t continue to emulate Canute and hold back the tide.
I do have to promise that I will not abandon what is left of literacy. I am not ready to use the abbreviations and letters-for-words that are a staple of social networking. I might even try to abstain from giving all my friends important “bulletins” about what I ate for breakfast. In fact, even as I write this, I see why so many people seem unable to stray away from examining their phone screens for the latest hot news.
The psychologists, who say it is about loneliness, may be right. Is the urge to cuddle up to an electronic device a sign that we have forgotten how to use the telephone or smile at strangers or insulate ourselves from any real human contact?
All this having been said – here I go. I am launching myself into the 21st century.
P.S. By the way, I have heard by phone from some people who say they no longer receive my postings. I hope this is not a general problem because I have no idea how to remedy it. If your name is on my Google list you should be getting the postings. If not, I’m helpless.
Explanation: you have read my jeremiads against what a whole generation calls “progress.” You know: texting, IPhone browsing, and the biggest target: Facebook.
Time to really “Look Ahead” Larry. In the last few days my wife and I have discussed getting into some of the stuff we have scorned. Like people who say “I don’t want to dance” really mean “I don’t know how,” I have stayed away from the screens that flash instantly during intermission at a concert or the theatre, or on the subway train. Time I got with it. Time I got myself at least some kind of interactive telephone, maybe even a Blackberry! Time I climbed aboard. For my wife, this will be traumatic. She is so far behind the times she still does not know how to use a computer. That has become a skill as basic to survival as food, drink, and sleep.
I’ve begun. Finally, I am trying to learn how to use Facebook. Never mind that I am being solicited as a “friend” by people I have never heard of. Never mind that there are people who think that life is all about collecting as many friends as possible as if they were going for a record to have themselves installed in the Guinness Book. I’m prepared to stop carping and start playing the game.
I am still a little unclear of how I use the social network. I am concerned that I have retched (just a little) every time I hear “social network.” But I can’t continue to emulate Canute and hold back the tide.
I do have to promise that I will not abandon what is left of literacy. I am not ready to use the abbreviations and letters-for-words that are a staple of social networking. I might even try to abstain from giving all my friends important “bulletins” about what I ate for breakfast. In fact, even as I write this, I see why so many people seem unable to stray away from examining their phone screens for the latest hot news.
The psychologists, who say it is about loneliness, may be right. Is the urge to cuddle up to an electronic device a sign that we have forgotten how to use the telephone or smile at strangers or insulate ourselves from any real human contact?
All this having been said – here I go. I am launching myself into the 21st century.
P.S. By the way, I have heard by phone from some people who say they no longer receive my postings. I hope this is not a general problem because I have no idea how to remedy it. If your name is on my Google list you should be getting the postings. If not, I’m helpless.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A MID-LIFE CRISIS
I am a regular reader of Mark’s Musing, Mark Kolke’s sometimes-navel-gazing that makes good reading – if you like a lot of introspection. I happen to enjoy it. Most men should because Mark reflects what goes on in the minds of many men whose years advance inexorably. We tend perhaps, as we age, to reflect more. The amount of time you spend gazing inwardly depends on your level of narcissism. Except that there has been a lot of great writing coming from this search for an inner self.
Enough philosophizing.
The “mid-life crisis” has been an object of both scorn and interest. My psychologist friends do not believe there is such a thing. Nothing is provable. There is biological change, but does that mean there is a “male menopause.” I think there is.
In 1972 I was on the news side at CBC. I was doing features. I decided to do one on men who made radical changes in their lives, often in their middle fifties – changes that included all or some of: changing your spouse, changing your job, abandoning your friends, starting a new career – all dramatic changes. I found dozens of men who fit the bill. Then I went looking for research. There seemed to be none. Then I happened on a book called “The Crisis of Middle Age,” written by a plump little woman from New York. (I am helplessly stuck – I can’t remember her name.) She too had been unable to find any body of research. She came to Toronto to be interviewed as part of my series. What resonated most was what she called “middle-escence.” Like adolescence, except it came as a life-changing episode much later in life. Unlike the intense hormonal changes of adolescence, she could not find anything as dramatic in later years. (We do know that aging happens with biological changes but I’m no scientist so I avoid the discussion.) The evidence is anecdotal. The proof is unscientific. The best demonstration of the crisis, and she quoted it, is represented by the dialogue in Act One of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. I read it. It came into sharper focus when during my short return to theatre, I performed (about 250 times) Plaza Suite. If you know the play, Act One is in a suite rented by a woman to surprise her husband on the occasion of their wedding anniversary. What emerges is a troubled man who admits that he is having an affair. I can’t remember the precise dialogue but it went something like: “I returned from the navy. I had everything I wanted. I had a wife and family. I was successful. His wife’s response: “So what’s wrong?” His answer: “I just wanted to do it all over again.”
Eureka! Simon described it perfectly. While the “crisis” may have some biological roots, is defined by restlessness and regret. The good life has happened and now the future lies in wait. You’re not ready. You still feel productive. You want to be productive. You don’t want to let it fade away. That, my friends, is the essence of the mid-life crisis. Restlessness, frustration, a sense of growing irrelevance.
Been there. Done that.
Enough philosophizing.
The “mid-life crisis” has been an object of both scorn and interest. My psychologist friends do not believe there is such a thing. Nothing is provable. There is biological change, but does that mean there is a “male menopause.” I think there is.
In 1972 I was on the news side at CBC. I was doing features. I decided to do one on men who made radical changes in their lives, often in their middle fifties – changes that included all or some of: changing your spouse, changing your job, abandoning your friends, starting a new career – all dramatic changes. I found dozens of men who fit the bill. Then I went looking for research. There seemed to be none. Then I happened on a book called “The Crisis of Middle Age,” written by a plump little woman from New York. (I am helplessly stuck – I can’t remember her name.) She too had been unable to find any body of research. She came to Toronto to be interviewed as part of my series. What resonated most was what she called “middle-escence.” Like adolescence, except it came as a life-changing episode much later in life. Unlike the intense hormonal changes of adolescence, she could not find anything as dramatic in later years. (We do know that aging happens with biological changes but I’m no scientist so I avoid the discussion.) The evidence is anecdotal. The proof is unscientific. The best demonstration of the crisis, and she quoted it, is represented by the dialogue in Act One of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. I read it. It came into sharper focus when during my short return to theatre, I performed (about 250 times) Plaza Suite. If you know the play, Act One is in a suite rented by a woman to surprise her husband on the occasion of their wedding anniversary. What emerges is a troubled man who admits that he is having an affair. I can’t remember the precise dialogue but it went something like: “I returned from the navy. I had everything I wanted. I had a wife and family. I was successful. His wife’s response: “So what’s wrong?” His answer: “I just wanted to do it all over again.”
Eureka! Simon described it perfectly. While the “crisis” may have some biological roots, is defined by restlessness and regret. The good life has happened and now the future lies in wait. You’re not ready. You still feel productive. You want to be productive. You don’t want to let it fade away. That, my friends, is the essence of the mid-life crisis. Restlessness, frustration, a sense of growing irrelevance.
Been there. Done that.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
DON CHERRY - POLITICAL NITWIT - OR STALKING HORSE?
I believe that the imbecile remarks made by Don Cherry were not just the famous bigmouth babbling. I believe he was either sent, or like the accidental tourist, just happened to be in the right place at the right time, so he could use language Rob Ford would not use. Ford thinks exactly like Cherry. I would not be surprised to find the guy installed as part of Ford’s inner circle. I hesitate to call it a “think tank.”
His comment about “Socialist bicycle riders” is bang-on Rob Ford. Ford wants to close bike lanes and end the “war on the car.” His “left-wing media” could have been spoken by our mayor who was not a media favourite (with the possible exception of the Sun.) Cherry spoke for Ford thumbing his nose at all the wise-guy (excuse me – pinko) columnists. Even as the criticism continues with writers like John Doyle, Ford is still the winner.
Cherry is the surrogate, the stalking horse, the guy they send to say what they pretend to be too polite to say. Even worse, the new right-wing council seems to laugh it all off, that “what you see is what you get,” when it comes to Cherry. That’s patent nonsense. Ford didn’t have to have Cherry endow him with the chain of office. He didn’t have to have him front and centre. He had to look “surprised” when Cherry anointed him as the best mayor the city has ever had.
What has happened here is that politics have hit a new low, unless you voted for Ford’s quick and easy platitudes about taxpayers and gravy trains, and other bumper sticker slogans.
Nothing, we all hope, will change. Democracy will return. The new mayor does not have a bully pulpit. He has one vote. The only “edge” he has is the appointment of an executive committee. Let him go on all he likes about there never having been a vote on Transit City.
The man lives in a world that we all thought came to a merciful death years ago with Mel Lastman’s comment about being put in a pot of boiling water in Africa. We have just had eight years of a mayor, who, even if you didn’t like him, is a well-educated, articulate man. But it is also possible that more people wanted a guy who was just like them and just like Din Cherry.
It appears to me that, even though Premier McGuinty said earlier that “the people have spoken” he appears to be lukewarm on the idea of letting Ford run amok with contracts and obligations.
There are still cities building subways. Madrid, the last time I looked, still planned an annual subway expansion. How it will do with Spain heading toward economic chaos we’ll soon find out.
Meanwhile, the home of the best subway system in the world, Paris, is building more and more light rail above ground routes in the city. Even they know something about the future. And no one that I know of has accused the French of declaring war on the car.
I still have one question for our mayor: if the streets are made extra friendly to commuters in cars, where, when they get downtown, are they going to park?
Don’t bother him with details.
His comment about “Socialist bicycle riders” is bang-on Rob Ford. Ford wants to close bike lanes and end the “war on the car.” His “left-wing media” could have been spoken by our mayor who was not a media favourite (with the possible exception of the Sun.) Cherry spoke for Ford thumbing his nose at all the wise-guy (excuse me – pinko) columnists. Even as the criticism continues with writers like John Doyle, Ford is still the winner.
Cherry is the surrogate, the stalking horse, the guy they send to say what they pretend to be too polite to say. Even worse, the new right-wing council seems to laugh it all off, that “what you see is what you get,” when it comes to Cherry. That’s patent nonsense. Ford didn’t have to have Cherry endow him with the chain of office. He didn’t have to have him front and centre. He had to look “surprised” when Cherry anointed him as the best mayor the city has ever had.
What has happened here is that politics have hit a new low, unless you voted for Ford’s quick and easy platitudes about taxpayers and gravy trains, and other bumper sticker slogans.
Nothing, we all hope, will change. Democracy will return. The new mayor does not have a bully pulpit. He has one vote. The only “edge” he has is the appointment of an executive committee. Let him go on all he likes about there never having been a vote on Transit City.
The man lives in a world that we all thought came to a merciful death years ago with Mel Lastman’s comment about being put in a pot of boiling water in Africa. We have just had eight years of a mayor, who, even if you didn’t like him, is a well-educated, articulate man. But it is also possible that more people wanted a guy who was just like them and just like Din Cherry.
It appears to me that, even though Premier McGuinty said earlier that “the people have spoken” he appears to be lukewarm on the idea of letting Ford run amok with contracts and obligations.
There are still cities building subways. Madrid, the last time I looked, still planned an annual subway expansion. How it will do with Spain heading toward economic chaos we’ll soon find out.
Meanwhile, the home of the best subway system in the world, Paris, is building more and more light rail above ground routes in the city. Even they know something about the future. And no one that I know of has accused the French of declaring war on the car.
I still have one question for our mayor: if the streets are made extra friendly to commuters in cars, where, when they get downtown, are they going to park?
Don’t bother him with details.
Monday, December 6, 2010
CONFESSIONS OF A WASTREL
I am a lifelong critic of lotteries. They are a terrible way to raise money. They have been called “a tax on the stupid.” And I now number among them. I am, unabashedly, but not without some shame, a “player.” Oh I’m much too grand to stand in line a supermarket service desk to get a ticket because the lottery prize has just risen to 20 million or something. Chances are in the multi-millions to one. I know. I know. I am covered with shame. I have been bitten.
But I am not much too grand to indulge in the deluxe, gold-plated lotteries run by the likes of the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The prices are higher. The chances (and fool that I am I believe) are better, the winnings are huge.
In spite of all the rubbish I have heard like:”I know the odds are against me, but someone has to win. It could be me.” Or: (this is the one I love) for a dollar or two I can have a dream.” Let me hasten to add, in my rightousness, I do not gamble. It is many years since I was patsy to Paul Kligman (the late Canadian actor) during rest periods at recording of radio shows at CBC. We’d go to the piano top and play gin rummy. He made expenses. But I maintain the stalwart pose that I am not a gambling man. I think it is crude and vulgar. I don’t like casinos or horse races. I have never been to a horse race but I confess to having been in a casino a few times.
But I am infected. Not only did I buy tickets (not the first time) for the Princess Margaret and Sick Kids lotteries, but I am doing all the fantasizing I have always been so critical of.
I am actually planning what I will do with a million dollars. My wife and I have real have arguments. I want to put it away (except for one small purchase) and she wants to distribute a lot of it among family members. We actually argue!! I have already been given permission to buy a 7 foot Fazzioli grand piano, which will just fit in the window of the living room in our apartment. I am actually hearing the first wonderful sounds from this masterpiece of a musical instrument.
Am I hooked? Or have I just given in to the urge that millions have, to have something exciting to look forward to, even though those hopes will be dashed the day the6y make the draws.
I can see it now. Me and Fazzioli, the sounds ringing through the building, Excited neighbours knocking at my door.
I’m infected. Stay clear. Unclean, Unclean.
But I am not much too grand to indulge in the deluxe, gold-plated lotteries run by the likes of the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The prices are higher. The chances (and fool that I am I believe) are better, the winnings are huge.
In spite of all the rubbish I have heard like:”I know the odds are against me, but someone has to win. It could be me.” Or: (this is the one I love) for a dollar or two I can have a dream.” Let me hasten to add, in my rightousness, I do not gamble. It is many years since I was patsy to Paul Kligman (the late Canadian actor) during rest periods at recording of radio shows at CBC. We’d go to the piano top and play gin rummy. He made expenses. But I maintain the stalwart pose that I am not a gambling man. I think it is crude and vulgar. I don’t like casinos or horse races. I have never been to a horse race but I confess to having been in a casino a few times.
But I am infected. Not only did I buy tickets (not the first time) for the Princess Margaret and Sick Kids lotteries, but I am doing all the fantasizing I have always been so critical of.
I am actually planning what I will do with a million dollars. My wife and I have real have arguments. I want to put it away (except for one small purchase) and she wants to distribute a lot of it among family members. We actually argue!! I have already been given permission to buy a 7 foot Fazzioli grand piano, which will just fit in the window of the living room in our apartment. I am actually hearing the first wonderful sounds from this masterpiece of a musical instrument.
Am I hooked? Or have I just given in to the urge that millions have, to have something exciting to look forward to, even though those hopes will be dashed the day the6y make the draws.
I can see it now. Me and Fazzioli, the sounds ringing through the building, Excited neighbours knocking at my door.
I’m infected. Stay clear. Unclean, Unclean.
LOOKING AHEAD - THE VIEW IS BLEAK
Economic orthodoxy will be the death of us yet. I watched, with waning interest, the “interview” with Ben Bernanke on “60 Minutes.” As the interview droned on I felt less and less secure. In the Times this morning this quote: Mr. Bernanke also said that the Fed was prepared to buy even more than $600 billion in Treasury bonds over the next eight months, if necessary, to increase economic growth.”
The key words here are: “increase economic growth.” The Fed, Bernanke claims, is not printing money but spending reserves. (If you’ve come this far, try to stay with me while I blunder through the logic of his statement.)
Buying treasury bills puts pressure on long term interest rates. That means that corporations or banks looking to expand using long term debt will be burdened with lower interest rates. But wait. Don’t we already have the image of major companies fattening their balance sheets by borrowing at rock-bottom rates to decrease their existing debt? The bottom line certainly does look better. But can someone please explain to me why that will increase economic activity. The major corporations and ”investors” (speculators) are raking in millions as the stock market continues to boom and unemployment rates go up and despair rises and the Republicans want the rich to get even richer. I give up!
Applying orthodox economic principles is not working. The fight to keep the deficit low is meaningless. The deficit is a paper tiger. Once again, I believe that only government intervention to put people to work will change the present gloomy outlook. America cannot sit and wait for corporations to start hiring when people are not spending and companies are not going to increase production in a falling market. I don’t blame them. If I ran a corporation I would leave altruism at the door, or out in the hall, or as far away as possible.
There is an ideological stand-off, made worse by the recalcitrant Republicans and the woefully weak President. There is so much to be done in America. (And if it is done in America it will reflect on Canada.) There is so much infrastructure that needs updating. There are public works projects crying for help. Do we believe that major corporations and banks are going to put up the money for these projects? They won’t. They shouldn’t. And with taxes staying low, increased government revenues aren't there to do it either.
Stuck. They are stuck between the rock of orthodox market-place economics and the hard place of falling employment and consumer demand. They’re waiting. For what? The tooth fairy?
The key words here are: “increase economic growth.” The Fed, Bernanke claims, is not printing money but spending reserves. (If you’ve come this far, try to stay with me while I blunder through the logic of his statement.)
Buying treasury bills puts pressure on long term interest rates. That means that corporations or banks looking to expand using long term debt will be burdened with lower interest rates. But wait. Don’t we already have the image of major companies fattening their balance sheets by borrowing at rock-bottom rates to decrease their existing debt? The bottom line certainly does look better. But can someone please explain to me why that will increase economic activity. The major corporations and ”investors” (speculators) are raking in millions as the stock market continues to boom and unemployment rates go up and despair rises and the Republicans want the rich to get even richer. I give up!
Applying orthodox economic principles is not working. The fight to keep the deficit low is meaningless. The deficit is a paper tiger. Once again, I believe that only government intervention to put people to work will change the present gloomy outlook. America cannot sit and wait for corporations to start hiring when people are not spending and companies are not going to increase production in a falling market. I don’t blame them. If I ran a corporation I would leave altruism at the door, or out in the hall, or as far away as possible.
There is an ideological stand-off, made worse by the recalcitrant Republicans and the woefully weak President. There is so much to be done in America. (And if it is done in America it will reflect on Canada.) There is so much infrastructure that needs updating. There are public works projects crying for help. Do we believe that major corporations and banks are going to put up the money for these projects? They won’t. They shouldn’t. And with taxes staying low, increased government revenues aren't there to do it either.
Stuck. They are stuck between the rock of orthodox market-place economics and the hard place of falling employment and consumer demand. They’re waiting. For what? The tooth fairy?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
REMINISCING???
In “Looking Ahead” I don’t reminisce. It is an awful trap. It is seductive and wasteful, sometimes self-gratifying, sometimes self-pitying. You decide.
The 40th anniversary of my ignominious departure from CHUM radio passed a few days ago. I didn’t hear from anyone! Not a soul called to remember the day when the president of CHUM Limited, Allan Waters went on the air to tell the audience that Larry Solway would not be returning. He even said: “If I had been here I would have gone downstairs and taken him off the air.” There had been a small, obviously organized barrage of calls protesting my explicit description of orgasm, a description cribbed directly from the then famous “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex” by Doctor David Rubin.
I stayed around just long enough to watch how things came out. I turned down Chuck Templeton who asked me if I’d like to fill in for Pierre Berton in his crosstalk show on CKEY. I said “The body isn’t even cold in the grave Chuck.” They wanted me because all the publicity had made me a “hot” property. Meanwhile, back at the radio station the switchboard was jammed with angry listeners. There were so many calls that morning, and for several hours after the announcement, that the entire 92- exchange (the old WAlnut) exchange crashed. Anyone with a phone number beginning with 9 was cut off. Businesses, doctor’s offices, restaurants, all were getting calls ranting about my vacating my 10 a.m. spot. I was no more. I went out in a blaze of something – it sure wasn’t glory. But management (of which I was part) remained unmoved. I was gone and would not be returning.
The furor died down of course. For six months Waters lived up to his on-air promise that the spot would not be occupied again by a phone-in show. Then perhaps he thought he’d left a vacuum and that Solway might show up at another station. When I heard Dick Smythe (who hated doing a talk show) come on the air to take phone calls, I wanted to call and tell him not to worry, I wasn’t going back into the Talk Radio business.
A few interesting things happened. I got tired of answering phone calls so the two of us headed south. When I returned in winter I drove up to Ottawa to visit the CRTC. Management had been worried that their license would be lifted because I had, in their view, overstepped the bounds of decency. Harry Boyle, then vice chair of the CRTC greeted me at his office door: “What the hell happened Larry,” he boomed. “The calls here were fifty to one in your favour. we weren’t even thinking of lifting the license.”
(Sidelight: many years later, with my boat moored in the Thousand Islands, I did a regular gig on the CHUM-owned station in Kingston. The company then bought the station in Brockville. I was invited to attend the “festivities” at the transmitter tower site. Marge Waters, the beautiful wife of the president said to me: “You’re not going to talk dirty here are you Larry.” I was how she remembered it.)
For those who remember the series, all about sexual dysfunction (years before Viagra) I at no time used any language that could be remotely labeled as “talking dirty.” Perhaps she thought the word masturbation was a little too heavy for her fragile sensibilities.
I was never bitter. Things happen. What is – is. The only sadness I felt was watching that wonderful, inventive, ground-breaking radio station turn into a clone of a dozen other stations by a succession of button-pushing consultants and incompetent staff. (After Allan died there was predictably, an unseemly rush to sell the station, take the millions, relax and buy expensive cars. They did. Sadly, there is virtually no station there anymore. Just my own pioneering (begun when I was vice-president programming) station - CHUM FM. It survives and prospers.
I guess I’ve written this piece of self-indulgence because the past has gone and the future seems to have passed me by. Not just with text messaging, FaceBook and Twitter, but with the new technology that allows businessmen to run brain-dead, hands-free radio stations with about as much imagination as a turnip-peeling competition.
I got on with my life. TV News beckoned. I went. Documentaries followed – I wrote and hosted them. There was “This is the Law,” "Juliette and Friends," my own TV interview show. In the late 70s I returned to the stage, which had been my childhood love.
By the way, I you were not around for the furor of November 1970 it's all in my book “The Day I Invented Sex,” Long out of print there are copies available on Amazon.
Speaking of “Long out of print….”
The 40th anniversary of my ignominious departure from CHUM radio passed a few days ago. I didn’t hear from anyone! Not a soul called to remember the day when the president of CHUM Limited, Allan Waters went on the air to tell the audience that Larry Solway would not be returning. He even said: “If I had been here I would have gone downstairs and taken him off the air.” There had been a small, obviously organized barrage of calls protesting my explicit description of orgasm, a description cribbed directly from the then famous “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex” by Doctor David Rubin.
I stayed around just long enough to watch how things came out. I turned down Chuck Templeton who asked me if I’d like to fill in for Pierre Berton in his crosstalk show on CKEY. I said “The body isn’t even cold in the grave Chuck.” They wanted me because all the publicity had made me a “hot” property. Meanwhile, back at the radio station the switchboard was jammed with angry listeners. There were so many calls that morning, and for several hours after the announcement, that the entire 92- exchange (the old WAlnut) exchange crashed. Anyone with a phone number beginning with 9 was cut off. Businesses, doctor’s offices, restaurants, all were getting calls ranting about my vacating my 10 a.m. spot. I was no more. I went out in a blaze of something – it sure wasn’t glory. But management (of which I was part) remained unmoved. I was gone and would not be returning.
The furor died down of course. For six months Waters lived up to his on-air promise that the spot would not be occupied again by a phone-in show. Then perhaps he thought he’d left a vacuum and that Solway might show up at another station. When I heard Dick Smythe (who hated doing a talk show) come on the air to take phone calls, I wanted to call and tell him not to worry, I wasn’t going back into the Talk Radio business.
A few interesting things happened. I got tired of answering phone calls so the two of us headed south. When I returned in winter I drove up to Ottawa to visit the CRTC. Management had been worried that their license would be lifted because I had, in their view, overstepped the bounds of decency. Harry Boyle, then vice chair of the CRTC greeted me at his office door: “What the hell happened Larry,” he boomed. “The calls here were fifty to one in your favour. we weren’t even thinking of lifting the license.”
(Sidelight: many years later, with my boat moored in the Thousand Islands, I did a regular gig on the CHUM-owned station in Kingston. The company then bought the station in Brockville. I was invited to attend the “festivities” at the transmitter tower site. Marge Waters, the beautiful wife of the president said to me: “You’re not going to talk dirty here are you Larry.” I was how she remembered it.)
For those who remember the series, all about sexual dysfunction (years before Viagra) I at no time used any language that could be remotely labeled as “talking dirty.” Perhaps she thought the word masturbation was a little too heavy for her fragile sensibilities.
I was never bitter. Things happen. What is – is. The only sadness I felt was watching that wonderful, inventive, ground-breaking radio station turn into a clone of a dozen other stations by a succession of button-pushing consultants and incompetent staff. (After Allan died there was predictably, an unseemly rush to sell the station, take the millions, relax and buy expensive cars. They did. Sadly, there is virtually no station there anymore. Just my own pioneering (begun when I was vice-president programming) station - CHUM FM. It survives and prospers.
I guess I’ve written this piece of self-indulgence because the past has gone and the future seems to have passed me by. Not just with text messaging, FaceBook and Twitter, but with the new technology that allows businessmen to run brain-dead, hands-free radio stations with about as much imagination as a turnip-peeling competition.
I got on with my life. TV News beckoned. I went. Documentaries followed – I wrote and hosted them. There was “This is the Law,” "Juliette and Friends," my own TV interview show. In the late 70s I returned to the stage, which had been my childhood love.
By the way, I you were not around for the furor of November 1970 it's all in my book “The Day I Invented Sex,” Long out of print there are copies available on Amazon.
Speaking of “Long out of print….”
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
APOLOGIES
My apologies to you and to police chief Bill Blair.Where the name Boyd came from I have no idea. I regret the mistake.
REVISITING DIALECTICAL MATERIALSM
“I have done nothing wrong so I have nothing to hide.” I shudder when I heard a man on TV say it. It was in response to the purchase of surveillance cameras in troublesome areas of the city to keep an eye on citizens’ behaviour and misbehaviour. My civil libertarian instincts outweigh my sense of pragmatism when I hear a citizen proclaim willingness to be watched. I am always prompted to ask: “Does that include tapping your phones? Opening your mail?” Nothing to hide and nothing to fear. Awful stuff.
Dialectical Materialism was at the heart of Marxist theory. Translated into action it would come to mean: “The end justifies the means,” or sometimes “The greatest good for the greatest number.” It was, in a way, the ultimate pragmatism. It was also an idea under which dictators could rule and people could be deprived of their rights. It was the essence of revolution. It still is.
Pardon me for my undergraduate zeal and pursuit of the reason why we will accept cameras on every street corner. That may not by what Police Chief Blair wants for Toronto, but he is trying to get the surveillance systems used for the G20 to use for police surveillance of many of our troubled streets.
It’s old news by now, replaced, as news always is, by the avalanche of events that we are deluged by on a daily basis. The furor seems to have died down, except perhaps in the two opposing camps: the civil libertarians who believed that our privacy is being violated, and the absolutists who believe that we should sacrifice ourselves in the interests of public safety. In other words: the end justifies the means. Or does it?
I happen to be enough of a pragmatist to believe that when the greater good is at stake, we willingly surrender our precious privacy. But the critics will say, and I don’t disagree, that it is a larger issue than the surrender of rights for the greater good: it is a question of the majority versus individual rights. John Stuart Mill was explicit in his work “The Tyranny of The Majority.” We must, at all costs, safeguard the rights of every citizen. The question has to be: at what point does the common good outweigh the rights of the individual? The debate has gone on for years. No one can be right. But it is not a case of ”right” or “wrong,” It is really case of what works in what we have learned to call a “civil society.” In Canada we recognize the group. We do not, like the Americans, enshrine the individual rights at the cost of social good. Working as a society, not a collection of individuals, there are principles of the group that often transcend the rights of the individual. In making a contract to live in a society, there are conditions.
I examine my defense of individual rights and I am prepared to take the step that seems to abrogate those r9ights. Because it is not again a question of right or wrong,. But one of whether a certain kind of behaviour or reaction is appropriate. Good and bad is a dualism. Life is not that simple. I regret that there are among us so many people who would deprive us of property or life and limb, that we must protect ourselves with those cameras. But take care. We must not open the door to a total loss of personal freedom.
The choice is tough.
Dialectical Materialism was at the heart of Marxist theory. Translated into action it would come to mean: “The end justifies the means,” or sometimes “The greatest good for the greatest number.” It was, in a way, the ultimate pragmatism. It was also an idea under which dictators could rule and people could be deprived of their rights. It was the essence of revolution. It still is.
Pardon me for my undergraduate zeal and pursuit of the reason why we will accept cameras on every street corner. That may not by what Police Chief Blair wants for Toronto, but he is trying to get the surveillance systems used for the G20 to use for police surveillance of many of our troubled streets.
It’s old news by now, replaced, as news always is, by the avalanche of events that we are deluged by on a daily basis. The furor seems to have died down, except perhaps in the two opposing camps: the civil libertarians who believed that our privacy is being violated, and the absolutists who believe that we should sacrifice ourselves in the interests of public safety. In other words: the end justifies the means. Or does it?
I happen to be enough of a pragmatist to believe that when the greater good is at stake, we willingly surrender our precious privacy. But the critics will say, and I don’t disagree, that it is a larger issue than the surrender of rights for the greater good: it is a question of the majority versus individual rights. John Stuart Mill was explicit in his work “The Tyranny of The Majority.” We must, at all costs, safeguard the rights of every citizen. The question has to be: at what point does the common good outweigh the rights of the individual? The debate has gone on for years. No one can be right. But it is not a case of ”right” or “wrong,” It is really case of what works in what we have learned to call a “civil society.” In Canada we recognize the group. We do not, like the Americans, enshrine the individual rights at the cost of social good. Working as a society, not a collection of individuals, there are principles of the group that often transcend the rights of the individual. In making a contract to live in a society, there are conditions.
I examine my defense of individual rights and I am prepared to take the step that seems to abrogate those r9ights. Because it is not again a question of right or wrong,. But one of whether a certain kind of behaviour or reaction is appropriate. Good and bad is a dualism. Life is not that simple. I regret that there are among us so many people who would deprive us of property or life and limb, that we must protect ourselves with those cameras. But take care. We must not open the door to a total loss of personal freedom.
The choice is tough.
Friday, November 26, 2010
GETTING IT RIGHT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE
Craig Claiborne, The greatest of all food writers, brought food criticism to a high point in his renowned New York Times column. His cookbooks were and still are masterpieces. Claiborne once said: "I despair of getting Americans to pronounce Vichysoisse properly.” He said that they though calling it “Vichy-swah” sounded more French. In fact – it is pronounced like it looks: Vichy-swaz. Ironically it is not French at all. It was an American concoction, based I suppose on the original leek and potato soup. But the point is: pronunciation didn’t matter. What Claiborne thought didn’t matter.
It’s a fact of life. My wife keeps telling me to “get over it.” One of my favourites is ”bruschetta.” The Italian pronunciation is brus-ketta, not as is our custom – brew-Shetta. Visiting in Austin Texas with my kids I asked the proprietor of one of that city’s great restaurants about the pronunciation. I had just been served by a wait-person who said, of course – brew-shetta. When I asked him how it should be pronounced he got it right. He also admitted that the common pronunciation, even if it was wrong, was in common use.
When I think about “Looking Ahead” I have to be careful not to groan over today's language. It’s kind of old-fashioned. You have to sound like “today”
so you mispronounce like everyone else does.
So just today I am lying on my bed watching Discovery channel. There is a wonderful documentary about the end of the age of the dinosaur. It is all about the cataclysmic and earth-changing explosion when a huge meteor stuck the earth in the Gulf of Mexico. The narrator, deep-voiced, sonorous, plenty of scientific gravitas said “it was the coup de grace.” He referred to the collision of the asteroid. He pronounced it ‘coo-de-graw.” He’s not alone. It’s a common mispronunciation, defended, in at least one case I know of, by someone who should know better. People get confused. Pate de foie gras is pronounced “graw.” Grace is pronounced “grass.” The phrase is “coo-de-grass.”
It simply doesn’t matter anymore. When a CBC news person talking about the recent horrible chemical spill in Hungary he referred to the leaking of toxic chemicals into nearby rivers and – are you ready – even the Danube. But he pronounced it “Da-noob” with the emphasis on the second syllable.
So does it matter? Can we look ahead to language distortions that pretend to be the evolution of language? Do we accuse the public of being completely “dumbed down?”
Maybe. But maybe it just doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter like young men not removing their peaked caps when they are in a restaurant, or staying seated on a crowded street car while a pregnant woman stands holding desperately on to a handhold. I was brought up in a world of grace. Part of it was that even if it didn’t really matter, it was good to treat language with some respect.
But maybe “getting it right” doesn’t matter any more.
It’s a fact of life. My wife keeps telling me to “get over it.” One of my favourites is ”bruschetta.” The Italian pronunciation is brus-ketta, not as is our custom – brew-Shetta. Visiting in Austin Texas with my kids I asked the proprietor of one of that city’s great restaurants about the pronunciation. I had just been served by a wait-person who said, of course – brew-shetta. When I asked him how it should be pronounced he got it right. He also admitted that the common pronunciation, even if it was wrong, was in common use.
When I think about “Looking Ahead” I have to be careful not to groan over today's language. It’s kind of old-fashioned. You have to sound like “today”
so you mispronounce like everyone else does.
So just today I am lying on my bed watching Discovery channel. There is a wonderful documentary about the end of the age of the dinosaur. It is all about the cataclysmic and earth-changing explosion when a huge meteor stuck the earth in the Gulf of Mexico. The narrator, deep-voiced, sonorous, plenty of scientific gravitas said “it was the coup de grace.” He referred to the collision of the asteroid. He pronounced it ‘coo-de-graw.” He’s not alone. It’s a common mispronunciation, defended, in at least one case I know of, by someone who should know better. People get confused. Pate de foie gras is pronounced “graw.” Grace is pronounced “grass.” The phrase is “coo-de-grass.”
It simply doesn’t matter anymore. When a CBC news person talking about the recent horrible chemical spill in Hungary he referred to the leaking of toxic chemicals into nearby rivers and – are you ready – even the Danube. But he pronounced it “Da-noob” with the emphasis on the second syllable.
So does it matter? Can we look ahead to language distortions that pretend to be the evolution of language? Do we accuse the public of being completely “dumbed down?”
Maybe. But maybe it just doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter like young men not removing their peaked caps when they are in a restaurant, or staying seated on a crowded street car while a pregnant woman stands holding desperately on to a handhold. I was brought up in a world of grace. Part of it was that even if it didn’t really matter, it was good to treat language with some respect.
But maybe “getting it right” doesn’t matter any more.
DEMOCRACY IN ACTION?
This is one of several items that I have had to push to the back burner for personal health reasons, but even weeks after the event, the awful reality of it is pervasive. The issue has to do with the acquittal, on all but one charge, of a “suspected" terrorist. The word is in quotes because the public has decided that he is guilty and that his trial was just a formality. Democracy prevailed. The people who believe they have the best and fairest justice system in the world has been stunned by the reality: he is, by legal definition innocent until proved guilty. The burden of proof is not on the defendant
The Republicans are up in arms. Obama has broken out in a cold sweat. The American Justice system has “failed.” Yes failed – all because it did not render the verdict that would have been the only fair verdict: guilty on all counts. The Republicans of course, are in a tizzy because they warned Obama that civilian courts wouldn’t do what the military courts at Guantanamo would do: send the bastard to the chair! The response reminds me of hearing a policeman declare: “We seldom arrest anyone who is not guilty.” Presumption of innocence is merely an idea, to be set aside when it is obvious that the defendant is guilty – a decision made not by the classic blindfolded angel of justice, but by the all-knowing public. We shriek for blood with no less fervour than the fans at a bullfight.
Everyone knew this guy was guilty as hell, He killed Americans. Luckily for the Obama administration, they were able to sentence him to twenty years for the only charge they could grab him on: conspiracy. I’ll be damned if I can see the American justice in that. He was guilty. The military court would not have been squeamish about convicting him.
Of course he may be guilty. The verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice. It’s like the fighter’s manager declaring, after his boy was KOed: “We wuz robbed!”
The Washington Post in an article titled “Close call for Obama” writes this: “Republican lawmakers said the verdict should force the administration to abandon the civilian trials."I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."
The lynch mob mentality is not dead. We want “justice” which in so many cases adds up to: “String ‘em up and to hell with formalities.”
I despair. If you believe in the system you cannot believe only in the part that assures the guilty are punished, but that a democracy, if it is any kind of democracy, cannot indulge in “show trials.” You know – where the candidate for execution is brought before a judge who has decided the case in advance.
There is one final sour note. It is one played often on TV shows where somehow the law never seems to be wrong. The examining police officer “knows” the suspect is guilty because he starts “lawyering up.” That’s the expression. It is disdainful of any attempt to have the suspect’s rights protected by law and legal counsel.
We either believe that justice is blind, or we return to the Star Chamber approach where the innocent is always guilty because the king wants him to be guilty.
I thought that was all gone. Sadly it is not.
The Republicans are up in arms. Obama has broken out in a cold sweat. The American Justice system has “failed.” Yes failed – all because it did not render the verdict that would have been the only fair verdict: guilty on all counts. The Republicans of course, are in a tizzy because they warned Obama that civilian courts wouldn’t do what the military courts at Guantanamo would do: send the bastard to the chair! The response reminds me of hearing a policeman declare: “We seldom arrest anyone who is not guilty.” Presumption of innocence is merely an idea, to be set aside when it is obvious that the defendant is guilty – a decision made not by the classic blindfolded angel of justice, but by the all-knowing public. We shriek for blood with no less fervour than the fans at a bullfight.
Everyone knew this guy was guilty as hell, He killed Americans. Luckily for the Obama administration, they were able to sentence him to twenty years for the only charge they could grab him on: conspiracy. I’ll be damned if I can see the American justice in that. He was guilty. The military court would not have been squeamish about convicting him.
Of course he may be guilty. The verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice. It’s like the fighter’s manager declaring, after his boy was KOed: “We wuz robbed!”
The Washington Post in an article titled “Close call for Obama” writes this: “Republican lawmakers said the verdict should force the administration to abandon the civilian trials."I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan's federal civilian court," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts."
The lynch mob mentality is not dead. We want “justice” which in so many cases adds up to: “String ‘em up and to hell with formalities.”
I despair. If you believe in the system you cannot believe only in the part that assures the guilty are punished, but that a democracy, if it is any kind of democracy, cannot indulge in “show trials.” You know – where the candidate for execution is brought before a judge who has decided the case in advance.
There is one final sour note. It is one played often on TV shows where somehow the law never seems to be wrong. The examining police officer “knows” the suspect is guilty because he starts “lawyering up.” That’s the expression. It is disdainful of any attempt to have the suspect’s rights protected by law and legal counsel.
We either believe that justice is blind, or we return to the Star Chamber approach where the innocent is always guilty because the king wants him to be guilty.
I thought that was all gone. Sadly it is not.
Friday, November 19, 2010
AND THE POLICE CAN DO NOTHING???
A column by David Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times begins with the warning: “if you get call or an e-mail from someone who claims to be a close friend or a loved one in trouble it often causes people to ignore their natural suspicions.” He documents some horror stories that have resulted in money being sent to a scammer. I am suddenly aware of this because someone in my family was nearly the victim.
The Lazarus article says that his own mother was “used.” An Email from her to him said she had been mugged and robbed in London and needed $1800 to pay her hotel bill. He was able to contact her and discover that it never happened. He documents other stories of people who were not so lucky and sent the money to a relative stranded in a foreign country.
My relative nearly got stung. A cousin of hers received an urgent Email saying she was stranded in London and needed money. The cousin had the good sense to check and of course, the story was bogus. In fact, the absurdity was the she was not in London.
What I cannot understand is that we seem to be powerless to apprehend the scammer. In my relative’s case, the Email gave an address to forward the money to. It would seem to me that it would not be difficult to trace the sender and close down the fraud. Not so apparently. She made a call to her Email service provider, a large and reputable company, and the person she spoke to could only advise her to change her password. Not a word about informing the authorities, not a word about getting to the root of the problem. Makes me wonder how good our hi-tech people really are.
My relative’s email address was compromised. Someone hacked into her list of contacts and sent S.O.S. emails to all of them. She is flabbergasted at the apparent inability (or unwillingness?) of the service provider to attack the problem with more than a “change your password” solution.
We have all received email scams. We have all been winners of huge amounts of money along with a request about our own banking so the money could be forwarded. Or the “I have inherited a large sum of money but…” and you are supposed to act as a kind of agent to help the person get at the money, for which you will be rewarded. But first….
Hackers are everywhere. Some are just playful whiz kids who like the idea of upsetting a major corporation. Other of course, are in it for profit. I wonder what the statistics are. If you are the scammer and you send out ten thousand emails and get half of one percent return – you’re way ahead.
Are the police on top of this? Why do I continue to read and hear about internet fraud?
The Lazarus article says that his own mother was “used.” An Email from her to him said she had been mugged and robbed in London and needed $1800 to pay her hotel bill. He was able to contact her and discover that it never happened. He documents other stories of people who were not so lucky and sent the money to a relative stranded in a foreign country.
My relative nearly got stung. A cousin of hers received an urgent Email saying she was stranded in London and needed money. The cousin had the good sense to check and of course, the story was bogus. In fact, the absurdity was the she was not in London.
What I cannot understand is that we seem to be powerless to apprehend the scammer. In my relative’s case, the Email gave an address to forward the money to. It would seem to me that it would not be difficult to trace the sender and close down the fraud. Not so apparently. She made a call to her Email service provider, a large and reputable company, and the person she spoke to could only advise her to change her password. Not a word about informing the authorities, not a word about getting to the root of the problem. Makes me wonder how good our hi-tech people really are.
My relative’s email address was compromised. Someone hacked into her list of contacts and sent S.O.S. emails to all of them. She is flabbergasted at the apparent inability (or unwillingness?) of the service provider to attack the problem with more than a “change your password” solution.
We have all received email scams. We have all been winners of huge amounts of money along with a request about our own banking so the money could be forwarded. Or the “I have inherited a large sum of money but…” and you are supposed to act as a kind of agent to help the person get at the money, for which you will be rewarded. But first….
Hackers are everywhere. Some are just playful whiz kids who like the idea of upsetting a major corporation. Other of course, are in it for profit. I wonder what the statistics are. If you are the scammer and you send out ten thousand emails and get half of one percent return – you’re way ahead.
Are the police on top of this? Why do I continue to read and hear about internet fraud?
HUMAN TRAFFICKING OR RESCUING THE FUTURE?
I recommend that you log on to the New York Times and watch the video about baseball “academies” in the Dominican Republic. You will ask yourself, as I have, are these for the benefit of greedy Americans trafficking in human beings, or are they benevolent investors looking to improve the lot of young boys in a backward economy? (It is the kind of story I am sure will end up on Sixty Minutes.)
I would ask you to watch and judge for yourself. For me, I felt a kind of clammy discomfort watching the process. In the beginning we learn that investment in a baseball academy is just that: an investment. Like any investment you expect a return. It seems that you get it, but at what cost? How many young kids from the Dominican will end up like the remarkable closer for the Texas Rangers, Neftali Feliz. How many others will endure a few months perhaps a season, of what we see as substandard living conditions, on the possible chance of success in America’s national game? (It is clear that even though the living conditions are far from perfect, they are far ahead, for many of the kids, of what they were living in at home.)
In Toronto, we used to be a haven for youngsters from the Dominican. We had superb scouting there, and every kid wanted to play for the Blue Jays. And they did, giving us great shortstops from San Pedro de Macaris – Tony Fernandez among them, and sluggers like George Bell. We got guys like Junior Felix whose manager seems to have lied about his age to make him look like a juvenile prodigy when in fact he was a seasoned pro. But that’s not the issue.
The Dominican today is what the inner city ghettos were, and in many ways, continue to be. Historically all the great boxers seemed to come from underprivileged classes, whichever the current group happened to be. When the Irish were at the economic bottom we had Irish fighters. When the black kids strove to escape their misery, the highway to success was through the local gym. The inner cities bred basketball players, and if you remember the movie “Hoop Dreams” you get an idea of how intense the craving was, and how the odds were stacked against you. The same could be said of the kids who want to be Rap stars. They have idols. Those idols are rich and famous.
In the Dominican the idols were the famous little pitching terror Pedro Martinez a Cy Young award winner with the Montreal Expos, The New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox, plus a great parade of shortstops. The youngsters have idols and they see future success in baseball. It is that imperative that the exploiters look for. They need hungry kids and they’ll pay to get them.
When asked about education, the Dominican who seems to be one of the major players in managing the academies admits that most of these boys can neither read nor write. The entrepreneurs who pay for the academies want only a percentage of the hopeful star’s signing bonus. They make words about including education in their programs; I’m not holding my breath.
Professional sports is a hungry monster that feeds on ambitious young men. Sometimes they come from colleges, where even there, the hopeful talent has been recruited by athletic headhunters. Whatever the end result, the great majority will fall by the wayside, returning to their poor life after the little bit of baseball they enjoyed, the word is still “trafficking.”
By the way, the Dominican government does not have any rules to control these academies. It is a capitalist’s dream: profits without interference and conditions without regulation.
Watch the piece. Decide for yourself.
I would ask you to watch and judge for yourself. For me, I felt a kind of clammy discomfort watching the process. In the beginning we learn that investment in a baseball academy is just that: an investment. Like any investment you expect a return. It seems that you get it, but at what cost? How many young kids from the Dominican will end up like the remarkable closer for the Texas Rangers, Neftali Feliz. How many others will endure a few months perhaps a season, of what we see as substandard living conditions, on the possible chance of success in America’s national game? (It is clear that even though the living conditions are far from perfect, they are far ahead, for many of the kids, of what they were living in at home.)
In Toronto, we used to be a haven for youngsters from the Dominican. We had superb scouting there, and every kid wanted to play for the Blue Jays. And they did, giving us great shortstops from San Pedro de Macaris – Tony Fernandez among them, and sluggers like George Bell. We got guys like Junior Felix whose manager seems to have lied about his age to make him look like a juvenile prodigy when in fact he was a seasoned pro. But that’s not the issue.
The Dominican today is what the inner city ghettos were, and in many ways, continue to be. Historically all the great boxers seemed to come from underprivileged classes, whichever the current group happened to be. When the Irish were at the economic bottom we had Irish fighters. When the black kids strove to escape their misery, the highway to success was through the local gym. The inner cities bred basketball players, and if you remember the movie “Hoop Dreams” you get an idea of how intense the craving was, and how the odds were stacked against you. The same could be said of the kids who want to be Rap stars. They have idols. Those idols are rich and famous.
In the Dominican the idols were the famous little pitching terror Pedro Martinez a Cy Young award winner with the Montreal Expos, The New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox, plus a great parade of shortstops. The youngsters have idols and they see future success in baseball. It is that imperative that the exploiters look for. They need hungry kids and they’ll pay to get them.
When asked about education, the Dominican who seems to be one of the major players in managing the academies admits that most of these boys can neither read nor write. The entrepreneurs who pay for the academies want only a percentage of the hopeful star’s signing bonus. They make words about including education in their programs; I’m not holding my breath.
Professional sports is a hungry monster that feeds on ambitious young men. Sometimes they come from colleges, where even there, the hopeful talent has been recruited by athletic headhunters. Whatever the end result, the great majority will fall by the wayside, returning to their poor life after the little bit of baseball they enjoyed, the word is still “trafficking.”
By the way, the Dominican government does not have any rules to control these academies. It is a capitalist’s dream: profits without interference and conditions without regulation.
Watch the piece. Decide for yourself.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Gimme a Gee!!
I promise to show you why deficits "work." First though a thought: I think you can reduce international politics to a kind of competitive sport. The title suggests the cry of the cheerleader. Gimme a “G," Let’s hear it for the Gee-Seven!
The last meeting is best remembered for the near-riots, vandalism, and police brutishness. But it should be remembered for the repetition of the most orthodox of economic orthodoxy: “Fight the deficits!” Yeah team.
Aside from disenchantment with the Obama failure to make jobs appear out of thin air, or the pathetic rambling of the politically Neanderthal Tea Party – there were people of good faith who honestly believed that deficit fighting was number one on the must-do list. It swept the Republicans back into control of The House. Pious comments about saddling our grandchildren with our debts; about digging a hole and it being time to stop digging. In Canada, we believe almost as devoutly in deficit reduction. Remember Paul Martin’s time as Finance Minister when we were all told to pull in our belts and defeat the deficit. It is one of those “truths” that only the Left seems to object to. In fact, if I proceed now to dignify deficits I will be accused of being a knee-jerk Lefty. Here goes.
I am not an economist although I have some definite ideas about commerce and trade and banking and borrowing. I hope I can explain to all the rest of us layman, myself included, the simple reason why deficits are not the thief hiding under the bed.
Any advocate for the “Dismal Science” could put together figures and graphs and pie charts that would justify deficits. Contrarily the same people are flexible enough to show figures that justify the fight against deficits. I have one simple word: multiplier. It’s a word we use to describe the cascade of events that follows an initial move.
If a government decides that jobs are more important than deficits; if it decides that private business is not hiring; if it decides that it can spend money that will benefit the community at large: then deficits make sense.
I shall try to create a hypothetical model. The government decides it will spend – say – 50 billion dollars to build something that will benefit many people: say a series of well-managed small airports or a new transcontinental high speed rail line. One of the reasons governments can do it but private business can not, is that the government can afford to spend money without hope of corporate profit. Not quite. The real “ profit” will be for the thousands of people who will be put to work.
How does the “multiplier” work? Simple. First the salaries that are paid by the subsidy create wages that are taxable. So the government gets back some of its investment. But there are many other multipliers. For railroads there are thousands of miles of steel rails to be fabricated. Work for steel mills that will then have to hire labour which will in turn generate two kinds of tax revenues: salaries of the workers and profits of the steel company. There will be cement companies. There will be companies that make rolling stock. Every one of those will start hiring and again the double tax benefit occurs. Of course there is the most important multiplier of all: the newly hired workers will be able to start spending money again. Bingo – retailers, car dealerships, restaurants, everyone suddenly has a bigger customer base. The government is not “wasting” it is “investing.”
By the way, the supply-side denizens believe that tax relief will be the great multiplier. Maybe it is and maybe it proves my point: increased tax relief causes deeper deficits, but the money will trickle down into the economy. That theory has been disgraced, but don’t tell it to John Boehmer, Mitch McConnell, or even Jim Flaherty.
The last meeting is best remembered for the near-riots, vandalism, and police brutishness. But it should be remembered for the repetition of the most orthodox of economic orthodoxy: “Fight the deficits!” Yeah team.
Aside from disenchantment with the Obama failure to make jobs appear out of thin air, or the pathetic rambling of the politically Neanderthal Tea Party – there were people of good faith who honestly believed that deficit fighting was number one on the must-do list. It swept the Republicans back into control of The House. Pious comments about saddling our grandchildren with our debts; about digging a hole and it being time to stop digging. In Canada, we believe almost as devoutly in deficit reduction. Remember Paul Martin’s time as Finance Minister when we were all told to pull in our belts and defeat the deficit. It is one of those “truths” that only the Left seems to object to. In fact, if I proceed now to dignify deficits I will be accused of being a knee-jerk Lefty. Here goes.
I am not an economist although I have some definite ideas about commerce and trade and banking and borrowing. I hope I can explain to all the rest of us layman, myself included, the simple reason why deficits are not the thief hiding under the bed.
Any advocate for the “Dismal Science” could put together figures and graphs and pie charts that would justify deficits. Contrarily the same people are flexible enough to show figures that justify the fight against deficits. I have one simple word: multiplier. It’s a word we use to describe the cascade of events that follows an initial move.
If a government decides that jobs are more important than deficits; if it decides that private business is not hiring; if it decides that it can spend money that will benefit the community at large: then deficits make sense.
I shall try to create a hypothetical model. The government decides it will spend – say – 50 billion dollars to build something that will benefit many people: say a series of well-managed small airports or a new transcontinental high speed rail line. One of the reasons governments can do it but private business can not, is that the government can afford to spend money without hope of corporate profit. Not quite. The real “ profit” will be for the thousands of people who will be put to work.
How does the “multiplier” work? Simple. First the salaries that are paid by the subsidy create wages that are taxable. So the government gets back some of its investment. But there are many other multipliers. For railroads there are thousands of miles of steel rails to be fabricated. Work for steel mills that will then have to hire labour which will in turn generate two kinds of tax revenues: salaries of the workers and profits of the steel company. There will be cement companies. There will be companies that make rolling stock. Every one of those will start hiring and again the double tax benefit occurs. Of course there is the most important multiplier of all: the newly hired workers will be able to start spending money again. Bingo – retailers, car dealerships, restaurants, everyone suddenly has a bigger customer base. The government is not “wasting” it is “investing.”
By the way, the supply-side denizens believe that tax relief will be the great multiplier. Maybe it is and maybe it proves my point: increased tax relief causes deeper deficits, but the money will trickle down into the economy. That theory has been disgraced, but don’t tell it to John Boehmer, Mitch McConnell, or even Jim Flaherty.
Friday, November 5, 2010
THE IMPORTANCE OF "LOOKING AHEAD."
When you reach into your 80s there is often a kind of physical and emotional curtain drawn over your life. Perhaps the most important words of advice (however gratuitous they may seem to be) to others reaching deeply into “golden” years: you want to wake up one morning feeling fit, spry and thirty-five years old again. Forget it!
I am prompted to write this piece because of this from “Mark’s Musings”: "You cannot bring value to your partnership in life if you are not, first, and always, be whole, vital and alive yourself. Be strong. Be true, to yourself. Be those things for yourself, but also for your partner.”
Shirley and I are both in chronic discomfort verging on real pain. A couple of nights ago, lying in bed together, indulging in our usual reflective pillow talk and review of the day’s events I said: “You know, we are both at an age when there will be more physical things go wrong. There will be more pain and less vigour. But we can’t put our lives “on hold” waiting for the doctor to prescribe something that will make it all go away. If we don’t get on with our lives, we’ll simply moulder away quietly groaning about our aches and pains.” (I find myself thinking about Stockholm next summer.)
I know, it sounds like a kind of obvious homily. Nothing is more evident in the state of aging that the overt symptoms of it. Our lives are temporarily on hold. She is waiting for a minor heart procedure which she must have before they will replace her totally worn-out hip. I am waiting to hear, if I ever do, about a persistent lower body pain that I’ve been dealing with for the better part of a year. Enough! I am not a fan of exchanging maladies, aches, pains and operations, one of the staples of conversation among people of a certain age group. There is still too much to do.
Do we sit quietly and wait for the pains to be remedied? Certainly not. It is far too easy to wallow. It is a characteristic of aging – for some people. We are planning ahead. Once they get a handle on my pain (and if they don’t I’ll have to carry on anyway) and Shirley gets a date for her hip replacement, we can plan to take a trip to Austin. We don’t go there only to be comforted by our grandchildren, who have their own lives to contend with, we go to experience the milder weather, the great barbecue, the superb galleries and the music. There is more music in Austin, Texas than any other place in America. Jazz, country, classical – you get it all. And in between there can be a visit to a wonderful art glass maker.
Meanwhile. I keep writing. At the urging of my French friend Henri, I sent off a sample of “Letters from Paris” to Le Monde to see if they would like to publish. No word yet. I’ll send them next to “Le Figaro,” and if not there – we’ll see.
I continue to believe that I can be a better pianist. My teacher agrees. He actually has me doing a series of exercises (for the music students who understand I mean Biehl and Hanon) to improve my “chops.” I have no illusions that I can become a virtuoso. But just getting all the exquisite chords for Victor Young’s “Stella by Starlight” is a bounty.
Thanks to Mark Kolke for reminding me. Thanks to whoever cheers us on and wishes us well – because there are still many tomorrows.
I am prompted to write this piece because of this from “Mark’s Musings”: "You cannot bring value to your partnership in life if you are not, first, and always, be whole, vital and alive yourself. Be strong. Be true, to yourself. Be those things for yourself, but also for your partner.”
Shirley and I are both in chronic discomfort verging on real pain. A couple of nights ago, lying in bed together, indulging in our usual reflective pillow talk and review of the day’s events I said: “You know, we are both at an age when there will be more physical things go wrong. There will be more pain and less vigour. But we can’t put our lives “on hold” waiting for the doctor to prescribe something that will make it all go away. If we don’t get on with our lives, we’ll simply moulder away quietly groaning about our aches and pains.” (I find myself thinking about Stockholm next summer.)
I know, it sounds like a kind of obvious homily. Nothing is more evident in the state of aging that the overt symptoms of it. Our lives are temporarily on hold. She is waiting for a minor heart procedure which she must have before they will replace her totally worn-out hip. I am waiting to hear, if I ever do, about a persistent lower body pain that I’ve been dealing with for the better part of a year. Enough! I am not a fan of exchanging maladies, aches, pains and operations, one of the staples of conversation among people of a certain age group. There is still too much to do.
Do we sit quietly and wait for the pains to be remedied? Certainly not. It is far too easy to wallow. It is a characteristic of aging – for some people. We are planning ahead. Once they get a handle on my pain (and if they don’t I’ll have to carry on anyway) and Shirley gets a date for her hip replacement, we can plan to take a trip to Austin. We don’t go there only to be comforted by our grandchildren, who have their own lives to contend with, we go to experience the milder weather, the great barbecue, the superb galleries and the music. There is more music in Austin, Texas than any other place in America. Jazz, country, classical – you get it all. And in between there can be a visit to a wonderful art glass maker.
Meanwhile. I keep writing. At the urging of my French friend Henri, I sent off a sample of “Letters from Paris” to Le Monde to see if they would like to publish. No word yet. I’ll send them next to “Le Figaro,” and if not there – we’ll see.
I continue to believe that I can be a better pianist. My teacher agrees. He actually has me doing a series of exercises (for the music students who understand I mean Biehl and Hanon) to improve my “chops.” I have no illusions that I can become a virtuoso. But just getting all the exquisite chords for Victor Young’s “Stella by Starlight” is a bounty.
Thanks to Mark Kolke for reminding me. Thanks to whoever cheers us on and wishes us well – because there are still many tomorrows.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A WORLD OF POLITICAL CONTRADICTIONS
George Bush said something like” Get over it. We won the election.” It was his response to the anger from the Democratic opposition to his policies. He made it clear that the issues had been resolved “by the American people” and that the Dems could just shut up until the next election. It is salient to my comment that we remember that comment.
Fast forward to yesterday and the avalanche of self-congratulating press conferences by the resurgent Republicans. House speaker-in-waiting John Boehner making it clear that “the people of America have spoken. We are only responding to their wishes." They want: and this is the clever Boehner speaking, to create jobs and to cut costs. This was the most reasonable, however inane and contradictory, comment. Others are much more direct (and foolish) the Obama-Care program has to be rescinded. We have to continue with the Bush tax cuts even if it means many billions to the top 2% of the people.
But the irony is that from the minute Obama was inaugurated, the Republicans behaved as if they did not believe that “the American people had spoken.” Loudly and clearly the voters were in favour of the Health Care plan, especially in favour of Single Pay. They wanted curbs put on the banking monopoly. They wanted money spent to create jobs and save the country from Depression. Why on earth, I ask, does the “people’s will” expressed in the return of the Republicans resonate any more than the people’s will to elect Obama and pack both the Senate and House with Democrats? I see no difference.
But in the old and wacky way that politics U.S.-style seem to work, it depends on whose ox is being gored. At the heart of the problem, to my everlasting regret, is the President’s fruitless pursuit of bi-partisan harmony. In the months he spent trying to get the Republicans in line he squandered the political capital he had earned during the election. He threw away his chance to make a real difference.
Therein also lies a dilemma and a contradiction. The American people voted for change, but the Republicans were politically smart enough to realize that Americans are not so secure that they really crave change. They are, in a way, like the frightened horse that will flee by going back into the burning barn. The power of billions spent, especially by third parties where no one who knew who the donors were, convincing America that the Democrats had gone too. That tactic hit at the centre of their fear: there was going to be too much change. What would their lives be like under a whole new set of value? However tough things were, it was better the devil you know.…etc.
I think the Republicans understood. I think the Democrats failed to exercise the power the voters gave them. They deserted the truly liberal voters, the young, the ethnically disparate, the sexually compromised, the millions who had no health care and the millions who were insured but not really, the millions who lost and ares till losing their homes. Voters could, intellectually at least, accept a transformative president. But could they accept someone who wanted to turn their reality upside down. Government sponsored health care good for you?? Controls on the banks?
One of my favourite statements is the one made so often by the true free-market advocates in the U.S. and in Canada: government does not create jobs, business does. Those precise words have been uttered, not only by the Tea Party nitwits, but by Republicans who should, and I suspect do, know better.
Deficits in the service of job creation are no less valid than tax cuts in the same cause. The sad fact is that tax cuts simply allow those who have enough already to squirrel more away, and for companies who are too cautious to expand, to simply use the easy money to pay down their debt.
In short, America is held captive by an ideology that is not just the orthodox market economy, but psychologically the burning barn - which is better than nothing.
Fast forward to yesterday and the avalanche of self-congratulating press conferences by the resurgent Republicans. House speaker-in-waiting John Boehner making it clear that “the people of America have spoken. We are only responding to their wishes." They want: and this is the clever Boehner speaking, to create jobs and to cut costs. This was the most reasonable, however inane and contradictory, comment. Others are much more direct (and foolish) the Obama-Care program has to be rescinded. We have to continue with the Bush tax cuts even if it means many billions to the top 2% of the people.
But the irony is that from the minute Obama was inaugurated, the Republicans behaved as if they did not believe that “the American people had spoken.” Loudly and clearly the voters were in favour of the Health Care plan, especially in favour of Single Pay. They wanted curbs put on the banking monopoly. They wanted money spent to create jobs and save the country from Depression. Why on earth, I ask, does the “people’s will” expressed in the return of the Republicans resonate any more than the people’s will to elect Obama and pack both the Senate and House with Democrats? I see no difference.
But in the old and wacky way that politics U.S.-style seem to work, it depends on whose ox is being gored. At the heart of the problem, to my everlasting regret, is the President’s fruitless pursuit of bi-partisan harmony. In the months he spent trying to get the Republicans in line he squandered the political capital he had earned during the election. He threw away his chance to make a real difference.
Therein also lies a dilemma and a contradiction. The American people voted for change, but the Republicans were politically smart enough to realize that Americans are not so secure that they really crave change. They are, in a way, like the frightened horse that will flee by going back into the burning barn. The power of billions spent, especially by third parties where no one who knew who the donors were, convincing America that the Democrats had gone too. That tactic hit at the centre of their fear: there was going to be too much change. What would their lives be like under a whole new set of value? However tough things were, it was better the devil you know.…etc.
I think the Republicans understood. I think the Democrats failed to exercise the power the voters gave them. They deserted the truly liberal voters, the young, the ethnically disparate, the sexually compromised, the millions who had no health care and the millions who were insured but not really, the millions who lost and ares till losing their homes. Voters could, intellectually at least, accept a transformative president. But could they accept someone who wanted to turn their reality upside down. Government sponsored health care good for you?? Controls on the banks?
One of my favourite statements is the one made so often by the true free-market advocates in the U.S. and in Canada: government does not create jobs, business does. Those precise words have been uttered, not only by the Tea Party nitwits, but by Republicans who should, and I suspect do, know better.
Deficits in the service of job creation are no less valid than tax cuts in the same cause. The sad fact is that tax cuts simply allow those who have enough already to squirrel more away, and for companies who are too cautious to expand, to simply use the easy money to pay down their debt.
In short, America is held captive by an ideology that is not just the orthodox market economy, but psychologically the burning barn - which is better than nothing.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
THE GREAT DIVIDE
What is really behind the flood of support for conservative ideas from the suburbs? It is all about disenfranchisement. It’s as simple as that. It is when the old Toronto suburbs vote for Rob Ford and his “Fairness for Taxpayers,” and when the Tea Party and fellow travelers vote against big government and spending. It’s all about the fear of being disenfranchised, pushed aside by more powerful players..
So we continue to agonize over the voting split between the “old city” and the “former suburbs. Their vote is what elects the demagogues, who promise comfort and “respect.”
But the election of Ford, just as the elections of all those Republicans is just a by-product of the persistent rift that exists in cities between the chic, the elite, the Chablis-sipping quiche eaters and the down-home-good-guys who eat burgers at a shopping mall. The people that Sarah Plain called “Joe Six-Pack.” I’m oversimplifying of course, but I am looking for a way to characterize the political and social rift that has been around for generations.
The shape of the rift is almost historic. In Canada it is obviously between the “two solitudes” – each with its own distinct identity and aspirations. In the U.S. even more marked. The South still detests the North and expresses it in the social and political schism that has existed since post-Civil War Reconstruction. It is exemplified in the American west and their suspicions of the eastern elite and the Wall Street tycoons. Everyone suspects The ones they think are the “haves” or worse, the ones who want to take things over.
Why does sloganeering about taxes and greedy “big” government resonate in the burbs?
The Tories always do better in outlying areas and parts of the country that feel neglected. It is not that they are really neglected. It just feels that way, especially since all the money and influence seems to be located in the centres of power – the big cities. Never mind that there is enormous political and financial power outside the big cities. It is the perception that makes dangerous politics.
Back to what happened in Toronto. The city core voted one way, the former suburbs votes the other way. The message that you have “Respect For Taxpayers” hits home because those beleaguered taxpayers in the suburbs believe they are being taxed to feed the appetites, political, artistic, and powerful, of the big city moguls. The poor benighted suburbanites pay all those taxes so the city can have its privileges. They pay taxes to keep welfare bums and subsidized housing properly fed. They pay taxes for frills like symphony orchestras and theatre and multi culturalism and everything else that smacks of “nannyism.” The suburbs are where the “real” people are. Look how far Sarah Palin went with her “real” Americans, the ones who live in small towns.
The suburbanites feel they don’t have the power so they vote for the guy who says he will give it to them. There is never any acceptance of some of the facts: the people in the suburbs could not exist without the careers they can have in the big city. The suburbanite is furious because, on account of the inner city elite, they have to spend so much time in traffic gridlock just trying to get into town to make an honest living.
Toronto has never recovered from the effect of the “shotgun marriage” the Mike Harris government used to make one big city. Before that time it may have been no better - certainly far less efficient, with five suburban governments, a city government, and a Metro government. But the people of our former suburbs feel disenfranchised. No one seems to be listening to what they want. The squeaky wheel that (or it seems to them) gets the oil is the inner city, where the big shots live side by side with the chronic poor.
There is seldom any recognition that the engine that drives the city is the strength of its major institutions: the banks, the financial institutions, the planners, the creators of urban success, the magnet for touism. In Toronto, and I daresay in most cities where the centre has not been “hollowed out” the bulk of the tax revenues come from the inner city – from businesses and residents. And when the suburbs want to go to a symphony concert or attend a big city dramatic product, or go to see big league sports – they have to come to the place they love to hate – the city.
The city draws its strength from the downtown organizations – the hotels, the subways, the department stores, and the kind of life that Mississauga can only dream of.
But I don’t want to start a city/suburb war. I just want some reality and a little common sense so that when someone claims to be “caring about you” they usually care only about getting elected.
So we continue to agonize over the voting split between the “old city” and the “former suburbs. Their vote is what elects the demagogues, who promise comfort and “respect.”
But the election of Ford, just as the elections of all those Republicans is just a by-product of the persistent rift that exists in cities between the chic, the elite, the Chablis-sipping quiche eaters and the down-home-good-guys who eat burgers at a shopping mall. The people that Sarah Plain called “Joe Six-Pack.” I’m oversimplifying of course, but I am looking for a way to characterize the political and social rift that has been around for generations.
The shape of the rift is almost historic. In Canada it is obviously between the “two solitudes” – each with its own distinct identity and aspirations. In the U.S. even more marked. The South still detests the North and expresses it in the social and political schism that has existed since post-Civil War Reconstruction. It is exemplified in the American west and their suspicions of the eastern elite and the Wall Street tycoons. Everyone suspects The ones they think are the “haves” or worse, the ones who want to take things over.
Why does sloganeering about taxes and greedy “big” government resonate in the burbs?
The Tories always do better in outlying areas and parts of the country that feel neglected. It is not that they are really neglected. It just feels that way, especially since all the money and influence seems to be located in the centres of power – the big cities. Never mind that there is enormous political and financial power outside the big cities. It is the perception that makes dangerous politics.
Back to what happened in Toronto. The city core voted one way, the former suburbs votes the other way. The message that you have “Respect For Taxpayers” hits home because those beleaguered taxpayers in the suburbs believe they are being taxed to feed the appetites, political, artistic, and powerful, of the big city moguls. The poor benighted suburbanites pay all those taxes so the city can have its privileges. They pay taxes to keep welfare bums and subsidized housing properly fed. They pay taxes for frills like symphony orchestras and theatre and multi culturalism and everything else that smacks of “nannyism.” The suburbs are where the “real” people are. Look how far Sarah Palin went with her “real” Americans, the ones who live in small towns.
The suburbanites feel they don’t have the power so they vote for the guy who says he will give it to them. There is never any acceptance of some of the facts: the people in the suburbs could not exist without the careers they can have in the big city. The suburbanite is furious because, on account of the inner city elite, they have to spend so much time in traffic gridlock just trying to get into town to make an honest living.
Toronto has never recovered from the effect of the “shotgun marriage” the Mike Harris government used to make one big city. Before that time it may have been no better - certainly far less efficient, with five suburban governments, a city government, and a Metro government. But the people of our former suburbs feel disenfranchised. No one seems to be listening to what they want. The squeaky wheel that (or it seems to them) gets the oil is the inner city, where the big shots live side by side with the chronic poor.
There is seldom any recognition that the engine that drives the city is the strength of its major institutions: the banks, the financial institutions, the planners, the creators of urban success, the magnet for touism. In Toronto, and I daresay in most cities where the centre has not been “hollowed out” the bulk of the tax revenues come from the inner city – from businesses and residents. And when the suburbs want to go to a symphony concert or attend a big city dramatic product, or go to see big league sports – they have to come to the place they love to hate – the city.
The city draws its strength from the downtown organizations – the hotels, the subways, the department stores, and the kind of life that Mississauga can only dream of.
But I don’t want to start a city/suburb war. I just want some reality and a little common sense so that when someone claims to be “caring about you” they usually care only about getting elected.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
WE'RE ANOTHER WORLD - RIGHT NEXT DOOR.
Why does this country languish behind so badly in tourism? We have a current travel deficit of over $12 billion, nearly ten times what it was just eight years ago. Is it because we are forever perceived as very polite and very dull? Is it because we are perceived as the frozen north under ice ten months of the year? Is it because we think hockey is the most important sport? Is it because it is expensive and not worth the price?
All of the above.
Maybe it’s time we stopped apologizing. Maybe it’s time Canadians stopped feeling left out. Maybe it’s time we took hold of our tourism business and stopped living in a world of beautiful mountains; of a world that perceived us as beautiful Vancouver and foreign slightly exotic Quebec City. I believe our tourism promoters have done a bad job. Not a bad job of publicizing the country and its virtues scenic, creative, and artistic, but because they have not persuaded Canadian attractions to put themselves on sale.
A recent article about our sagging tourism began with the all-too-familiar plaint:
“Despite a post-Olympic surge of overseas visitors, Canada is still lagging as a tourist attraction.” I could sum it all up with: “Visiting Canada just isn’t sexy.” “Visiting Canada doesn’t make your blood run hot and your psyche explode.” No matter how hard we try we simply have not become a destination. And I blame our own people as much as anyone.
Explanation. I am a home exchanger. Through as company called” Home Link” I advertise my Toronto home asking people from other countries to exchange with me. I am almost a one-man band trumpeting the virtues of the country and of my city. I solicit exchanges. People who live in New York or Paris don’t have to. They just list their home and the offers pour in. We will never rival Paris which is hands-down the world’s most popular tourist destination, More than two billion visitors a year! Why? Certainly not because Paris is a bargain? Certainly not because all the French are smilingly welcoming. But even Paris suffers from the classic tourism problem: there are too many short-stay visitors. They “do” the city in two days, rushing from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe taking pictures and then getting back on the bus. They don’t really “visit.” I have been to Venice three times. Each times I stayed for at least two weeks. What is the biggest problem Venice has? Most of the visitors are day-trippers. Thousands arrive by bus, visit St, Mark’s, feed the pigeons, throw trash in the lagoon, and get back on the bus. The other classic day-trippers come off a cruise ship that will disgorge several thousand ravening picture-takers who spend the day rushing from sight to sight.
Therein I think, lies the biggest problem with tourism: the absence of the long stay. Of course, the other kind of tourism, the R&R lying on a beach enjoying a one week package that includes palm trees, rum drinks, and snorkeling – but not much more – dominates so much of tourism. The “package” where you get it all: air fare, hotel, meals, and protection from having to mingle with the local population, that’s a huge winner.
So here I go again: blaming the tourists for tourism. It’s totally unproductive. What works best is boosterism – our own belief that where we live its worth visiting. (A sober reflection: when I tell people I am exchanging with – say – someone in Paris – they comment with a sneer” Who wants to visit Toronto?”) Believe me, the visitors I have persuaded to exchange with me have loved the city, the nearby attractions and the people. I walk them to the awesome Calatrava atrium in Brookfield centre. I walk them to the magnificence of the Frank Gehry designed Art Gallery of Ontario. One California visitor was awestruck. She said: “Art lovers in other places like New York and L.A. should discover the wonderful Canadian art. It’s too well-kept a secret.”
Another visitor from Mexico, exulted in a trip to nearby St. Jacob’s where art and artisans are everywhere.
I become exhausted being a booster. Somehow our tourism people are not breathlessly exuberant enough. And we have never, that I know of, every created a Canada “package.”
I can’t stop winter-weary Canadians from hitting the palm-fringed beaches. They will always flee the winter. But sometimes. what we consider a liability visitors might consider a virtue. If only we’d stop and think about it.
All of the above.
Maybe it’s time we stopped apologizing. Maybe it’s time Canadians stopped feeling left out. Maybe it’s time we took hold of our tourism business and stopped living in a world of beautiful mountains; of a world that perceived us as beautiful Vancouver and foreign slightly exotic Quebec City. I believe our tourism promoters have done a bad job. Not a bad job of publicizing the country and its virtues scenic, creative, and artistic, but because they have not persuaded Canadian attractions to put themselves on sale.
A recent article about our sagging tourism began with the all-too-familiar plaint:
“Despite a post-Olympic surge of overseas visitors, Canada is still lagging as a tourist attraction.” I could sum it all up with: “Visiting Canada just isn’t sexy.” “Visiting Canada doesn’t make your blood run hot and your psyche explode.” No matter how hard we try we simply have not become a destination. And I blame our own people as much as anyone.
Explanation. I am a home exchanger. Through as company called” Home Link” I advertise my Toronto home asking people from other countries to exchange with me. I am almost a one-man band trumpeting the virtues of the country and of my city. I solicit exchanges. People who live in New York or Paris don’t have to. They just list their home and the offers pour in. We will never rival Paris which is hands-down the world’s most popular tourist destination, More than two billion visitors a year! Why? Certainly not because Paris is a bargain? Certainly not because all the French are smilingly welcoming. But even Paris suffers from the classic tourism problem: there are too many short-stay visitors. They “do” the city in two days, rushing from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe taking pictures and then getting back on the bus. They don’t really “visit.” I have been to Venice three times. Each times I stayed for at least two weeks. What is the biggest problem Venice has? Most of the visitors are day-trippers. Thousands arrive by bus, visit St, Mark’s, feed the pigeons, throw trash in the lagoon, and get back on the bus. The other classic day-trippers come off a cruise ship that will disgorge several thousand ravening picture-takers who spend the day rushing from sight to sight.
Therein I think, lies the biggest problem with tourism: the absence of the long stay. Of course, the other kind of tourism, the R&R lying on a beach enjoying a one week package that includes palm trees, rum drinks, and snorkeling – but not much more – dominates so much of tourism. The “package” where you get it all: air fare, hotel, meals, and protection from having to mingle with the local population, that’s a huge winner.
So here I go again: blaming the tourists for tourism. It’s totally unproductive. What works best is boosterism – our own belief that where we live its worth visiting. (A sober reflection: when I tell people I am exchanging with – say – someone in Paris – they comment with a sneer” Who wants to visit Toronto?”) Believe me, the visitors I have persuaded to exchange with me have loved the city, the nearby attractions and the people. I walk them to the awesome Calatrava atrium in Brookfield centre. I walk them to the magnificence of the Frank Gehry designed Art Gallery of Ontario. One California visitor was awestruck. She said: “Art lovers in other places like New York and L.A. should discover the wonderful Canadian art. It’s too well-kept a secret.”
Another visitor from Mexico, exulted in a trip to nearby St. Jacob’s where art and artisans are everywhere.
I become exhausted being a booster. Somehow our tourism people are not breathlessly exuberant enough. And we have never, that I know of, every created a Canada “package.”
I can’t stop winter-weary Canadians from hitting the palm-fringed beaches. They will always flee the winter. But sometimes. what we consider a liability visitors might consider a virtue. If only we’d stop and think about it.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
HE CAN;T BE SERIOUS!
This is a panic-postscript to today's blog.
I opened with a comment about the plan to rip up the streetcar routes and replace them with buses, a plan that would include billions to build more subways.
I am incensed at what I just heard on TV News. Mayor-elect Ford seems to be waffling (if you believe his brother) over his plans to replace streetcars. Ford himself, with that cocky grin he always shows, says he is going to talk to the Premier!
Worst yet - if I understood correctly - did Mr. McGuinty actually say that in the matter of the transit system for Toronto that "the people have spoken!?
Do I hear our Premier saying that he's open to the inane Ford plan to build expensive subways, to repudiate the deal already made for a whole revised transit system, and to embark on a prohibitively expensive subway program?
If I am hearing right - what do we have to do to stop the madness?
I can believe that people fell for bis "Respect for Taxpayers" slogan, but how many really voted to uproot the streetcar system and replace it with buses? Noisy, polluting buses? Buses that carry a fraction of the passenger load of streetcars?
Have we fallen into some kind of fairy-tale hole? Can I expect the March Hare and the Mad Hatter to show up.
We can't let this happen.
I opened with a comment about the plan to rip up the streetcar routes and replace them with buses, a plan that would include billions to build more subways.
I am incensed at what I just heard on TV News. Mayor-elect Ford seems to be waffling (if you believe his brother) over his plans to replace streetcars. Ford himself, with that cocky grin he always shows, says he is going to talk to the Premier!
Worst yet - if I understood correctly - did Mr. McGuinty actually say that in the matter of the transit system for Toronto that "the people have spoken!?
Do I hear our Premier saying that he's open to the inane Ford plan to build expensive subways, to repudiate the deal already made for a whole revised transit system, and to embark on a prohibitively expensive subway program?
If I am hearing right - what do we have to do to stop the madness?
I can believe that people fell for bis "Respect for Taxpayers" slogan, but how many really voted to uproot the streetcar system and replace it with buses? Noisy, polluting buses? Buses that carry a fraction of the passenger load of streetcars?
Have we fallen into some kind of fairy-tale hole? Can I expect the March Hare and the Mad Hatter to show up.
We can't let this happen.
WELCOME TO WHERE THE CAR IS KING
The bad thing about sour grapes is that they not only taste bad but they cast you as a sore loser. That’s me all over. If Toronto wants Mayor Ford, as Phil Givens used to say: “People don’t get what they want, they get what’s coming to them.” I’m prepared to wait and see.
I can’t believer though, in spite of my insistence that I resign myself to reality, that the “issues” Rob Ford paraded were so compelling that more people voted for him than the other two guys combined. I still don’t believe there are enough angry car drivers in Toronto who believe tit would be a good idea to tear up streetcar tracks and replace the street cars with buses. That’s a complete non-starter. First of all, congestion doesn’t happen because the roads are too restricted. It happens because there are too many cars. Parkinson’s Law says that “use expands to fit the space available.” Roads made wider or more accessible almost immediately become clogged as they attract more cars. I’m not making that up. It’s a statistical fact.
The idea may have resonated with grid-locked car slaves, but we are too far along, including funding from two other levels of government, with our new transportation plans, to reverse it.
(I am also puzzled by two conflicting “facts:” that people are angry at City Hall, but that, according to surveys, if David Miller had run again, he would have won. Perhaps the reality is that Ford is not that good, but the other guys are even worse.)
Perhaps the larger issue was the inspired slogan (hark! – do I hear Mike Harris redux?) “Fairness for Taxpayers.”. People who pay taxes always complain that they pay too much. I have yet to have it proved that our taxation has directly led anyone into bankruptcy. To use issues like a $14,000 farewell party for Kyle Rae as evidence of “waste” is pure rubbish. It is a small amount, less than most people spend on a wedding. Kyle deserved a decent send-off and parsimonious nonsense just doesn’t make sense. But that’s Rob. And nearly 50 percent of the people who voted (nearly half stayed home) love him. Like they loved Mel Lastman.
Taxpayers in Toronto get value for their money. Toronto is one of the most vibrant cities on the continent because we invest in ourselves. I simply don’t know what he’s talking about.
We are so tax-averse that, at every opportunity, many of us will break the law. When was the last time some businessman said: “pay me in cash and I won’t charge you HST? The government is cheated out of billions every year but otherwise law-abiding “folks” who protest taxation by being scofflaws. Maybe Rob Ford, who loves law and order should set up a department of “finks” who would lure contractors and others into offering a no-tax cash deals and then clap the handcuffs on them. That would be law and order. But Mayor Ford’s idea is to put more cops on the street and prosecute graffiti vandals.
Front page of the Toronto Star is a picture of Mayor Rob and a statement that if you want to talk to him, just phone. He is well-intentioned, but he is a headline grabbing populist and demagogue. He has no use for reality. He makes it up as he goes along.
I am hoping that he will be confronted with a gridlocked council that will not let him have his foolish ways.
By the way, in all the talk about new subways, he is committing the poor taxpayers to billions of dollars to build those relics. Most people, and Ford knows it, don’t know that dedicated surface transit with an underground component in busy traffic areas, is a fact of life. It is the way of the future. Even Paris, where people ride on the best subway system in the world, is now turning to surface trolley trains to ease their traffic problems.
So if you voted for lower taxes and an end to “lavish” spending on parties for outgoing councilors; for putting the car back into its proper place; for stopping “waste” you may be sorry you asked for it. I don’t think he can do it.
I’m sorriest about one thing: that Toronto voters have succumbed to the rhetoric I thought belonged only to the Tea Party movement: blind, mindless, angry protest.
I can’t believer though, in spite of my insistence that I resign myself to reality, that the “issues” Rob Ford paraded were so compelling that more people voted for him than the other two guys combined. I still don’t believe there are enough angry car drivers in Toronto who believe tit would be a good idea to tear up streetcar tracks and replace the street cars with buses. That’s a complete non-starter. First of all, congestion doesn’t happen because the roads are too restricted. It happens because there are too many cars. Parkinson’s Law says that “use expands to fit the space available.” Roads made wider or more accessible almost immediately become clogged as they attract more cars. I’m not making that up. It’s a statistical fact.
The idea may have resonated with grid-locked car slaves, but we are too far along, including funding from two other levels of government, with our new transportation plans, to reverse it.
(I am also puzzled by two conflicting “facts:” that people are angry at City Hall, but that, according to surveys, if David Miller had run again, he would have won. Perhaps the reality is that Ford is not that good, but the other guys are even worse.)
Perhaps the larger issue was the inspired slogan (hark! – do I hear Mike Harris redux?) “Fairness for Taxpayers.”. People who pay taxes always complain that they pay too much. I have yet to have it proved that our taxation has directly led anyone into bankruptcy. To use issues like a $14,000 farewell party for Kyle Rae as evidence of “waste” is pure rubbish. It is a small amount, less than most people spend on a wedding. Kyle deserved a decent send-off and parsimonious nonsense just doesn’t make sense. But that’s Rob. And nearly 50 percent of the people who voted (nearly half stayed home) love him. Like they loved Mel Lastman.
Taxpayers in Toronto get value for their money. Toronto is one of the most vibrant cities on the continent because we invest in ourselves. I simply don’t know what he’s talking about.
We are so tax-averse that, at every opportunity, many of us will break the law. When was the last time some businessman said: “pay me in cash and I won’t charge you HST? The government is cheated out of billions every year but otherwise law-abiding “folks” who protest taxation by being scofflaws. Maybe Rob Ford, who loves law and order should set up a department of “finks” who would lure contractors and others into offering a no-tax cash deals and then clap the handcuffs on them. That would be law and order. But Mayor Ford’s idea is to put more cops on the street and prosecute graffiti vandals.
Front page of the Toronto Star is a picture of Mayor Rob and a statement that if you want to talk to him, just phone. He is well-intentioned, but he is a headline grabbing populist and demagogue. He has no use for reality. He makes it up as he goes along.
I am hoping that he will be confronted with a gridlocked council that will not let him have his foolish ways.
By the way, in all the talk about new subways, he is committing the poor taxpayers to billions of dollars to build those relics. Most people, and Ford knows it, don’t know that dedicated surface transit with an underground component in busy traffic areas, is a fact of life. It is the way of the future. Even Paris, where people ride on the best subway system in the world, is now turning to surface trolley trains to ease their traffic problems.
So if you voted for lower taxes and an end to “lavish” spending on parties for outgoing councilors; for putting the car back into its proper place; for stopping “waste” you may be sorry you asked for it. I don’t think he can do it.
I’m sorriest about one thing: that Toronto voters have succumbed to the rhetoric I thought belonged only to the Tea Party movement: blind, mindless, angry protest.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
LOOTING THE BATTLEFIELD
Tragedy has two faces: the person who is undergoing the tragedy and the benefactor of the tragedy. Just watch a little TV and you’ll meet them both.
No one who watched Sixty Minutes on Sunday could fail to shed a tear over the hard-working, well-educated, formerly-prosperous Americans who are losing their homes and have no prospects for future employment. In some cases they beg for shelter from friends. In many cases they and their family live in a car or at a homeless shelter. American schools are full of children who have no address. That is the face of tragedy.
The other face is the bright young couple with the whole word ahead of them, the kids you see on HGTV's "House Hunters” They are looking to buy their first home. Agents take them to foreclosures where the listed price is low and where both the owner and the mortgage-holding bank will have to agree on the sale. In many cases the bank will accept a sale price that is actually below the amount of money that is still owed on the mortgage. The good sense of that is that the bank has already collected on the defaulted mortgage and can absorb a little loss in order to put the “lucky;” new homeowners’ names on the new mortgage. It is a disgusting business.
I am not sure that I would like to be the buyer of something that has been taken in default from someone else. Like the treasure on “Antiques Road Show,” an exquisite elaborate vase worth thousands that was traded by an American visitor to German in the years after the war. The price: two cartons of cigarettes. I simply can’t deal with that kind of hardship. But millions do.
Here is the opening paragraph of a popular house-hunting website called “Foreclosure Homes for Sale:“Smart shoppers never pay full price, why should you? Foreclosures are the best way to buy the property you want for up to 50% less than current market prices. And you've just found the premiere spot to locate great deals on "foreclosed homes for sale" of all types, including single family homes, duplexes, fourplexes, town homes, condos, and even apartment buildings. Whatever your real estate needs are, you won't find better deals and more comprehensive listings foreclosure houses anywhere else.”
One and a half million homes are up for foreclosure in America. One and a half million families are losing their homes. Yes, some of them were caught up by the lure of the sub prime mortgage and encouraged to buy far beyond the means by unscrupulous agents who told them the price of houses had nowhere to go but up. As long as that kept going the value of their heavily indebted house would go up. But we know what happened. Perhaps just as many of the foreclosures have nothing to do with the sub-prime seduction. Professional families found themselves unemployed. In the heart of San Jose, California’s Silicon Valley, there are hundreds of home that once belonged to successful information technology people. Many of them have not worked for two years. Many have run out of unemployment insurance. There is no tomorrow for them.
I just wonder how they must feel, if they are watching TV, to see the home where they tied up all their hopes, being sold to a bright-eyed young couple who seem either not to know, or certainly to care, that the people whose dream they have tried to buy, had it collapse.
The only thing it reminds me of is how, in bygone days, soldiers, camp followers, and other scavengers would swarm over a battlefield to search for valuable hidden in the uniforms of the dead. Pretty grisly stuff!
P.S. Banks are in the business of lending money to people who want to buy houses. Imagine if all those people decided to rent and the houses were owned by someone who had bought it for cash. They bank would go begging. They are not authors of the chaos, but they are benefactors.
No one who watched Sixty Minutes on Sunday could fail to shed a tear over the hard-working, well-educated, formerly-prosperous Americans who are losing their homes and have no prospects for future employment. In some cases they beg for shelter from friends. In many cases they and their family live in a car or at a homeless shelter. American schools are full of children who have no address. That is the face of tragedy.
The other face is the bright young couple with the whole word ahead of them, the kids you see on HGTV's "House Hunters” They are looking to buy their first home. Agents take them to foreclosures where the listed price is low and where both the owner and the mortgage-holding bank will have to agree on the sale. In many cases the bank will accept a sale price that is actually below the amount of money that is still owed on the mortgage. The good sense of that is that the bank has already collected on the defaulted mortgage and can absorb a little loss in order to put the “lucky;” new homeowners’ names on the new mortgage. It is a disgusting business.
I am not sure that I would like to be the buyer of something that has been taken in default from someone else. Like the treasure on “Antiques Road Show,” an exquisite elaborate vase worth thousands that was traded by an American visitor to German in the years after the war. The price: two cartons of cigarettes. I simply can’t deal with that kind of hardship. But millions do.
Here is the opening paragraph of a popular house-hunting website called “Foreclosure Homes for Sale:“Smart shoppers never pay full price, why should you? Foreclosures are the best way to buy the property you want for up to 50% less than current market prices. And you've just found the premiere spot to locate great deals on "foreclosed homes for sale" of all types, including single family homes, duplexes, fourplexes, town homes, condos, and even apartment buildings. Whatever your real estate needs are, you won't find better deals and more comprehensive listings foreclosure houses anywhere else.”
One and a half million homes are up for foreclosure in America. One and a half million families are losing their homes. Yes, some of them were caught up by the lure of the sub prime mortgage and encouraged to buy far beyond the means by unscrupulous agents who told them the price of houses had nowhere to go but up. As long as that kept going the value of their heavily indebted house would go up. But we know what happened. Perhaps just as many of the foreclosures have nothing to do with the sub-prime seduction. Professional families found themselves unemployed. In the heart of San Jose, California’s Silicon Valley, there are hundreds of home that once belonged to successful information technology people. Many of them have not worked for two years. Many have run out of unemployment insurance. There is no tomorrow for them.
I just wonder how they must feel, if they are watching TV, to see the home where they tied up all their hopes, being sold to a bright-eyed young couple who seem either not to know, or certainly to care, that the people whose dream they have tried to buy, had it collapse.
The only thing it reminds me of is how, in bygone days, soldiers, camp followers, and other scavengers would swarm over a battlefield to search for valuable hidden in the uniforms of the dead. Pretty grisly stuff!
P.S. Banks are in the business of lending money to people who want to buy houses. Imagine if all those people decided to rent and the houses were owned by someone who had bought it for cash. They bank would go begging. They are not authors of the chaos, but they are benefactors.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
I STILL CAN;T WAIT FOR TOMORROW
Just one line in a recent Globe and Mail story stabbed at me: “The future could come as early as 2025.” I can hardly wait!
It’s a story about a co-operative effort between Boeing and Air China to experiment with biofuel made from – are you ready? – Jatropha! It seems that China is already growing this oil-producing bush in southern areas. Remember, the plant grows in hot, semi arid areas and produces more than four times the quantity of oil than soybean.
But the real virtue of the miracle product is that it does not compete for space on land that will grow food. In fact, the article says: “Boeing envisions a future where the entire global aviation industry would be supplied with plant-based biofuels that don’t compete with food for land and water, so that adoption of biofuels by the aviation industry doesn’t drive up food prices.
Bingo! Why do you suppose we have lagged in development of this marvelous oil-producing plant? For those who enjoy conspiracy theory, we have a lot more to go on than our imaginations. Protectionism is rampant in many man-grown resources. Does anyone not believe that petroleum companies will lobby hard to keep their firm hold on their fuel-consuming markets? Does it say something that America levies a huge tax on Brazilian ethanol made from sugar because it competes with ethanol made (at much higher cost with much lower yields) than corn. Historically trade has been restrained to protect existing producers. For many years the sugar beet industry was protected from competition from lower cost sugar cane. Louisiana produces rice. Texas produces cotton. Both of them could be bought for less in other countries. The irony is that when out-sourcing is profitable for the companies involved, there are very few barriers.
Add to this lethal mix of protectionism the legendary destruction of mass transit to make room for super highways and more cars.
I still do believe that within the market-driver system there are benefits. Competition can drive prices down and improve research and development. However, when any company or any sector has a stranglehold on the market for their products, they will move heaven and earth to keep the competition at bay.
In the case of biofuel made from Jatropha, the critics are already claiming that biofuels won’t work in jet engines because at high altitude the fuel will freeze. Another stalling tactic.
Meanwhile it seems that 2025 – 15 years away – is too lung for some of us to wait.
It’s a story about a co-operative effort between Boeing and Air China to experiment with biofuel made from – are you ready? – Jatropha! It seems that China is already growing this oil-producing bush in southern areas. Remember, the plant grows in hot, semi arid areas and produces more than four times the quantity of oil than soybean.
But the real virtue of the miracle product is that it does not compete for space on land that will grow food. In fact, the article says: “Boeing envisions a future where the entire global aviation industry would be supplied with plant-based biofuels that don’t compete with food for land and water, so that adoption of biofuels by the aviation industry doesn’t drive up food prices.
Bingo! Why do you suppose we have lagged in development of this marvelous oil-producing plant? For those who enjoy conspiracy theory, we have a lot more to go on than our imaginations. Protectionism is rampant in many man-grown resources. Does anyone not believe that petroleum companies will lobby hard to keep their firm hold on their fuel-consuming markets? Does it say something that America levies a huge tax on Brazilian ethanol made from sugar because it competes with ethanol made (at much higher cost with much lower yields) than corn. Historically trade has been restrained to protect existing producers. For many years the sugar beet industry was protected from competition from lower cost sugar cane. Louisiana produces rice. Texas produces cotton. Both of them could be bought for less in other countries. The irony is that when out-sourcing is profitable for the companies involved, there are very few barriers.
Add to this lethal mix of protectionism the legendary destruction of mass transit to make room for super highways and more cars.
I still do believe that within the market-driver system there are benefits. Competition can drive prices down and improve research and development. However, when any company or any sector has a stranglehold on the market for their products, they will move heaven and earth to keep the competition at bay.
In the case of biofuel made from Jatropha, the critics are already claiming that biofuels won’t work in jet engines because at high altitude the fuel will freeze. Another stalling tactic.
Meanwhile it seems that 2025 – 15 years away – is too lung for some of us to wait.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
FOLLOW THE MONEY
When they asked the famous and colourful bank robber Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, his answer was: "Because that’s where the money is.” In the movie “Jerry McGuire, with Tom Cruise, one of his clients, a big-time football player played by Cuba Gooding, kept saying: “Show me the money.” That admonition has become part of today’s industrial, commercial and marketplace ethos. Everything is about profit.
One of the greatest tragedies of our dog-eat-dog society is the constant reminder to students that “You have to have an education to get a job” and “ a University deduction will get you a better job.” The philosophy is not new. In my student days if anyone decided to enroll in sociology or philosophy or Fine Arts, the parental question was always” What kind of a job can you get with a degree in….?” The result: we have bred a culture not of scholarship but of money-hunger.
Don’t misunderstand. I am enough of a realist to recognize that have money is a necessity. You can’t feed your family, house them or even educate them on scholarship alone. The irony is of course that you “educate” them toward vocational success. Universities are full of anxious, or better still anxiety-ridden kids, who are far more interested in a piece of paper that says “M.A. or B.A. or PhD” than in real learning. The degree is their key to a share in the good things supplied by the marketplace.
I was dismayed by the awful truth in an article by Gwynn Morgan in the Globe and Mail’s “Report on Business.” He is the founder of the resources giant Encana. He has done well in this resource-rich country, where “Value added” has been replaced by “sell those commodities.” That’s another story.
His plaint is not uncommon. It is heard often from the business community:“you are not graduating people we can use in our industry.” The comment has a kind of slave-market mentality to it because the slaves who sold well were best equipped to pick cotton. Today’s cotton-picking is a world of high tech commerce, competitive marketing, engineering prowess, and other marketable skills. In fact Morgan actually says that there are too many people studying things with low job prospects like visual and performing arts.
He goes on to blame academicians for their closed attitudes. Put in my words: “There are too many of you damned eggheads trying to tell kids what to do. What’s more you have all these indentured professors teaching rubbish like History and Archaeology.” My words – not his.
There was a brief period in our business-oriented culture, when employers were looking for “generalists,” suggesting that people with a broad set of education values were more desireable than specialists who knew nothing outside their chosen field.
He may be right. In a world that puts value on trade we need healthy slaves to pick the cotton of industrial and scientific competition. Who needs more serious musicians, poets, teachers, actors, singers, philosophers, seekers after larger truths? Remember Harry Brock, the illiterate scrap metal tycoon in “Born Yesterday” declaring that he could hire all the brains he needed?
If everything is now decided by the focus on, not just vocational success, but in profitable vocational success, then yes – we do need more engineers and scientists, and doctors. It is interesting to me, and maybe it means nothing, but why are so many doctors also interested in music and can perform capably?
Scholarship has no value. Work skills are everything. Welcome to Philistia.
P.S. Bingo! The Chinese are investing in jatropha. More on that soon.
One of the greatest tragedies of our dog-eat-dog society is the constant reminder to students that “You have to have an education to get a job” and “ a University deduction will get you a better job.” The philosophy is not new. In my student days if anyone decided to enroll in sociology or philosophy or Fine Arts, the parental question was always” What kind of a job can you get with a degree in….?” The result: we have bred a culture not of scholarship but of money-hunger.
Don’t misunderstand. I am enough of a realist to recognize that have money is a necessity. You can’t feed your family, house them or even educate them on scholarship alone. The irony is of course that you “educate” them toward vocational success. Universities are full of anxious, or better still anxiety-ridden kids, who are far more interested in a piece of paper that says “M.A. or B.A. or PhD” than in real learning. The degree is their key to a share in the good things supplied by the marketplace.
I was dismayed by the awful truth in an article by Gwynn Morgan in the Globe and Mail’s “Report on Business.” He is the founder of the resources giant Encana. He has done well in this resource-rich country, where “Value added” has been replaced by “sell those commodities.” That’s another story.
His plaint is not uncommon. It is heard often from the business community:“you are not graduating people we can use in our industry.” The comment has a kind of slave-market mentality to it because the slaves who sold well were best equipped to pick cotton. Today’s cotton-picking is a world of high tech commerce, competitive marketing, engineering prowess, and other marketable skills. In fact Morgan actually says that there are too many people studying things with low job prospects like visual and performing arts.
He goes on to blame academicians for their closed attitudes. Put in my words: “There are too many of you damned eggheads trying to tell kids what to do. What’s more you have all these indentured professors teaching rubbish like History and Archaeology.” My words – not his.
There was a brief period in our business-oriented culture, when employers were looking for “generalists,” suggesting that people with a broad set of education values were more desireable than specialists who knew nothing outside their chosen field.
He may be right. In a world that puts value on trade we need healthy slaves to pick the cotton of industrial and scientific competition. Who needs more serious musicians, poets, teachers, actors, singers, philosophers, seekers after larger truths? Remember Harry Brock, the illiterate scrap metal tycoon in “Born Yesterday” declaring that he could hire all the brains he needed?
If everything is now decided by the focus on, not just vocational success, but in profitable vocational success, then yes – we do need more engineers and scientists, and doctors. It is interesting to me, and maybe it means nothing, but why are so many doctors also interested in music and can perform capably?
Scholarship has no value. Work skills are everything. Welcome to Philistia.
P.S. Bingo! The Chinese are investing in jatropha. More on that soon.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
"FLIGHTS" OF FANCY
It’s a “boy’ thing. lke millions of other boys, I grew up fascinated by airplanes. My first flight was at age 8 when my father took me to Barker Field on Dufferin street in Toronto (there’s a big car dealership there now) sat me on his lap and took me for a flight in an open cockpit Tiger Moth. He too was hooked on flying and made many almost pioneering trips by air when airlines were in their infancy.
During the war, my friend Bernie and I made endless little models of warplanes and hung them from the ceiling.
I didn’t learn to fly until 1960, when I took advantage of the Commonwealth Air Training program with subsidized flying lessons. We learned to fly so that in the event of war, we older guys could fly non-essential flights and the real pilots to take to the air in combat. Or we would ferry aircraft. Stuff like that. You had to be under 35. I was approaching that age so I went flying. I didn’t really enjoy it that much, but logged many hours in a Cessna 172 flying week-end traffic for CHUM Radio. Yes, I was the guy who flew over the 401 and the 400. Those were the days before daily airborne traffic reports. We did it for the cottage-bound on weekends.
Still today, having abandoned my flying career, I am fascinated by flight. I read every article about the heavy competition with Airbus back promoting their single aisle planes and Bombardier getting into the mid-range competition. The big move is toward lighter materials and improved engine performance, both for economy reasons.
A few years ago I sent an Email to Northrop (now Grumman Northrop) to ask “what ever happened to the flying wing?” Northrop flew a prototype in 1940. The flying wing has no fuselage. With my sparse knowledge of aerodynamics (you had to know about “lift” and “drag” as part of your flight training) I wondered why we were still producing conventional aircraft i.e. wing, tail, fuselage. The fuselage is where the planes carry people and cargo. But the fuselage is not aerodynamically useful. It provides no lift. It is all drag. Why, I asked are we not going back to the flying wing? No fuselage means much less drag. The flying wing is lighter, far more economical, and has good carrying capacity. (In fact, the “Stealth” bomber looks like a flying wing.)
I asked, in my Email to Northrop, why the wing was not being promoted. I have never received an answer. I have reached a few of my own conclusions. The principal one being that passengers would not feel comfortable with no windows to look out and survey – what? The endless sky. They would feel claustrophobic, trapped in the middle of a wing. But, if the aircraft manufacturers could solve the problems of stability, it is the way to go.
There are other ideas that most air travelers would not be comfortable with. With forward-facing seats the passengers will fruitlessly go into a tuck position in the event of an accident. The truth is that that approach is useless. On impact the seat will come loose. The only sensible answer is to have the seats facing backward, with the passengers looking at the stern of the aircraft. That simply won’t fly, not because it is a bad idea, but because of our discomfort.
My flight of fancy is to ride in a flying wing. Perhaps they could install cameras so we could see outside and be able to watch our takeoff and landing.
I had to write this piece. I am still a kid fascinated with airplanes. I may go back to model making.. Does anyone still have a plan for the Republic Thunderbird?
During the war, my friend Bernie and I made endless little models of warplanes and hung them from the ceiling.
I didn’t learn to fly until 1960, when I took advantage of the Commonwealth Air Training program with subsidized flying lessons. We learned to fly so that in the event of war, we older guys could fly non-essential flights and the real pilots to take to the air in combat. Or we would ferry aircraft. Stuff like that. You had to be under 35. I was approaching that age so I went flying. I didn’t really enjoy it that much, but logged many hours in a Cessna 172 flying week-end traffic for CHUM Radio. Yes, I was the guy who flew over the 401 and the 400. Those were the days before daily airborne traffic reports. We did it for the cottage-bound on weekends.
Still today, having abandoned my flying career, I am fascinated by flight. I read every article about the heavy competition with Airbus back promoting their single aisle planes and Bombardier getting into the mid-range competition. The big move is toward lighter materials and improved engine performance, both for economy reasons.
A few years ago I sent an Email to Northrop (now Grumman Northrop) to ask “what ever happened to the flying wing?” Northrop flew a prototype in 1940. The flying wing has no fuselage. With my sparse knowledge of aerodynamics (you had to know about “lift” and “drag” as part of your flight training) I wondered why we were still producing conventional aircraft i.e. wing, tail, fuselage. The fuselage is where the planes carry people and cargo. But the fuselage is not aerodynamically useful. It provides no lift. It is all drag. Why, I asked are we not going back to the flying wing? No fuselage means much less drag. The flying wing is lighter, far more economical, and has good carrying capacity. (In fact, the “Stealth” bomber looks like a flying wing.)
I asked, in my Email to Northrop, why the wing was not being promoted. I have never received an answer. I have reached a few of my own conclusions. The principal one being that passengers would not feel comfortable with no windows to look out and survey – what? The endless sky. They would feel claustrophobic, trapped in the middle of a wing. But, if the aircraft manufacturers could solve the problems of stability, it is the way to go.
There are other ideas that most air travelers would not be comfortable with. With forward-facing seats the passengers will fruitlessly go into a tuck position in the event of an accident. The truth is that that approach is useless. On impact the seat will come loose. The only sensible answer is to have the seats facing backward, with the passengers looking at the stern of the aircraft. That simply won’t fly, not because it is a bad idea, but because of our discomfort.
My flight of fancy is to ride in a flying wing. Perhaps they could install cameras so we could see outside and be able to watch our takeoff and landing.
I had to write this piece. I am still a kid fascinated with airplanes. I may go back to model making.. Does anyone still have a plan for the Republic Thunderbird?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
PRIDE GOETH BEFORE....
Next to having children or getting married, owning a home may still be the biggest and brightest hope you can have. HGTV abounds with programs about loving young couples buying a house they could call their own. The myth of home ownership has come to characterize safety, security, and success. What a myth!
Perhaps I am moved to write this because of the chaos in the American marketplace; chaos that originated with the deeply embedded urge to “own” - a hallmark of stability and pride. Say all you want about the creative bookkeeping of an Enron, or the unshakeable belief in the marketplace being self-regulating, the fact is that Americans, and Canadians, are convinced that home ownership is the start of real stability.
I believed it once. Even during the years when my career took a slide we clung to our home. My bank manager told me, when I discussed the burden of the mortgage, that keeping a house was not just a matter of economic reality, it was a question of “did you want to own your home? Did it give you comfort? The answer used to be yes. It was the wrong answer. I had been trapped by the myth of home ownership. Only transients rented. Real people owned. Stable for the kids. A good investment. All that stuff.
It was that primitive urge, more than any other financial move that led to the collapse of the banking system and the near death of the American economy. On one side were the people who believed devoutly that owning a home was the ne plus ultra. And there were the money-lenders who were all too eager to indulge that passion for home ownership. President Bush babbled about the “ownership society.” Billions of dollars, trillions perhaps, were risked in the home-buying market. Greedy “investors” snapped up securities that were bundles of bad mortgages. The country was awash in debt and went to its near demise believing that home prices could only go up.
Now even more chickens have come home to roost as the greedy seem to have done even more harm to the gullible. America continues to be proud of its banking system while that infallible system puts the freeze on foreclosures. Thousands of homeowners may have been improperly booted out of their homes.
The real story is not the greedy versus the gullible. It is not the blind faith in a system that threatens to destroy itself. It is with the myth of ownership. The American Dream insists on owning a home, even if it is a cookie-cutter box at the end of many miles of four lane super highway. The truth is that bankers and developers thrive on the myth. The only person who does not come out ahead is the gullible home buyer.
Because of the economic crisis there are now millions of Americans, excluding those who have become homeless, who are renting their homes. At last, a tragic crisis has made people see the light. Why for heaven’s sake, do you mortgage your future for home ownership? For those who say “I’m tired of paying rent and having nothing to show for it,” I have this advice. Stop pursuing that dream. Rent. If you think owning makes economic sense you are kidding yourself. The mortgage you assume is a debt that must be paid. Instead of renting a house you are renting the money to buy a house. And you are tying up most of your capital. You are “mortgage-poor.”
I was one of you. We owned only one house and lived in it for forty-one years. Our children grew up there. We lived on a street with other similarly smugly self-satisfied home owners.
We sold. We invested the proceeds. (The only conundrum is the unanswerable: would we have been farther ahead financially if we had rented and invested the money in another kind of security?) We now rent. We care for the property as if it were our own. If the roof leaks or the air conditioning goes on the fritz, we make a phone call, not to a roofer or an air-conditioning expert, but to our landlord.
There is simply too much capital tied up in an immovable resource. It makes no sense. But the myth will persist.
Perhaps I am moved to write this because of the chaos in the American marketplace; chaos that originated with the deeply embedded urge to “own” - a hallmark of stability and pride. Say all you want about the creative bookkeeping of an Enron, or the unshakeable belief in the marketplace being self-regulating, the fact is that Americans, and Canadians, are convinced that home ownership is the start of real stability.
I believed it once. Even during the years when my career took a slide we clung to our home. My bank manager told me, when I discussed the burden of the mortgage, that keeping a house was not just a matter of economic reality, it was a question of “did you want to own your home? Did it give you comfort? The answer used to be yes. It was the wrong answer. I had been trapped by the myth of home ownership. Only transients rented. Real people owned. Stable for the kids. A good investment. All that stuff.
It was that primitive urge, more than any other financial move that led to the collapse of the banking system and the near death of the American economy. On one side were the people who believed devoutly that owning a home was the ne plus ultra. And there were the money-lenders who were all too eager to indulge that passion for home ownership. President Bush babbled about the “ownership society.” Billions of dollars, trillions perhaps, were risked in the home-buying market. Greedy “investors” snapped up securities that were bundles of bad mortgages. The country was awash in debt and went to its near demise believing that home prices could only go up.
Now even more chickens have come home to roost as the greedy seem to have done even more harm to the gullible. America continues to be proud of its banking system while that infallible system puts the freeze on foreclosures. Thousands of homeowners may have been improperly booted out of their homes.
The real story is not the greedy versus the gullible. It is not the blind faith in a system that threatens to destroy itself. It is with the myth of ownership. The American Dream insists on owning a home, even if it is a cookie-cutter box at the end of many miles of four lane super highway. The truth is that bankers and developers thrive on the myth. The only person who does not come out ahead is the gullible home buyer.
Because of the economic crisis there are now millions of Americans, excluding those who have become homeless, who are renting their homes. At last, a tragic crisis has made people see the light. Why for heaven’s sake, do you mortgage your future for home ownership? For those who say “I’m tired of paying rent and having nothing to show for it,” I have this advice. Stop pursuing that dream. Rent. If you think owning makes economic sense you are kidding yourself. The mortgage you assume is a debt that must be paid. Instead of renting a house you are renting the money to buy a house. And you are tying up most of your capital. You are “mortgage-poor.”
I was one of you. We owned only one house and lived in it for forty-one years. Our children grew up there. We lived on a street with other similarly smugly self-satisfied home owners.
We sold. We invested the proceeds. (The only conundrum is the unanswerable: would we have been farther ahead financially if we had rented and invested the money in another kind of security?) We now rent. We care for the property as if it were our own. If the roof leaks or the air conditioning goes on the fritz, we make a phone call, not to a roofer or an air-conditioning expert, but to our landlord.
There is simply too much capital tied up in an immovable resource. It makes no sense. But the myth will persist.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
SHOCKING NEWS - BUT WHO ARE THE GUILTY ONES?
I am shocked, dismayed, worried, and furious. Except that our anguish should be over our continuing failure to change the attitudes of millions of people, and by some aberrant kind of social acceptance, often backed by the “credibility” of religious belief, we validate the grotesque attitudes of homophobia..
Most of us are upset over the latest homophobic attack in New York. Millions of Americans are horrified that this could happen in their country. Politicians and public figures are quick to show their anger and dismay. But the threat to the homosexual is constant, continuing, and in spite of the expressions of horror, all too prevalent. I will not accuse anyone of crocodile tears, because I believe they are sincere. However, they are also naïve.
The suspects are being charged with hate crimes. America, waving the flags of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (most Americans can't distinguish between the two) are reluctant to brand ethnic or sexual hatred as a crime, since there is a Constitutional Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech. Seems not to consider “freedom” even it is a threat to someone else’s life and limb, and a clarion call for others to join the hatred.
I used to feel the same way when Trudeau patriated our Constitution and we added the Charter of Right and Freedoms. My concern then, and it still is, that judgements have been taken out of common law and the courts and put into indelible statutes.
But beyond the quibbling about “rights” guaranteed by any form of legislation, is the awful truth: homophobia is alive and well in America, and to perhaps the same extent in Canada supposedly a more tolerant country. Americans should not allow their naiveté to intrude on reality. The evangelicals almost unanimously militate against homosexuality sometimes piously claiming to “love” these poor “lost souls.” The Catholic Church damns it. The Armed Forces cling to “don’t ask, don't tell.” And hundred of fine citizens are picketing armed forces funerals with signs protesting against the lifting of the “don’t ask don’t tell” provision.
I am not at all certain that there are many of those homophobes who would not, they say, countenance violence, who quietly cheered for the suspects in the New York beatings.
I remember in my Open Line radio days having conversations with people who would say: “I don’t believe in homosexuality.” Believe it or not my friend, you have no say in the matter. It is a fact in our society and the sooner we stop kidding ourselves, the sooner there will be acceptance. And perhaps the teenage guys who think they are being macho will stop using the word faggot. I’m waiting. Hey – we can’t even get them to stop smoking!
Most of us are upset over the latest homophobic attack in New York. Millions of Americans are horrified that this could happen in their country. Politicians and public figures are quick to show their anger and dismay. But the threat to the homosexual is constant, continuing, and in spite of the expressions of horror, all too prevalent. I will not accuse anyone of crocodile tears, because I believe they are sincere. However, they are also naïve.
The suspects are being charged with hate crimes. America, waving the flags of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (most Americans can't distinguish between the two) are reluctant to brand ethnic or sexual hatred as a crime, since there is a Constitutional Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech. Seems not to consider “freedom” even it is a threat to someone else’s life and limb, and a clarion call for others to join the hatred.
I used to feel the same way when Trudeau patriated our Constitution and we added the Charter of Right and Freedoms. My concern then, and it still is, that judgements have been taken out of common law and the courts and put into indelible statutes.
But beyond the quibbling about “rights” guaranteed by any form of legislation, is the awful truth: homophobia is alive and well in America, and to perhaps the same extent in Canada supposedly a more tolerant country. Americans should not allow their naiveté to intrude on reality. The evangelicals almost unanimously militate against homosexuality sometimes piously claiming to “love” these poor “lost souls.” The Catholic Church damns it. The Armed Forces cling to “don’t ask, don't tell.” And hundred of fine citizens are picketing armed forces funerals with signs protesting against the lifting of the “don’t ask don’t tell” provision.
I am not at all certain that there are many of those homophobes who would not, they say, countenance violence, who quietly cheered for the suspects in the New York beatings.
I remember in my Open Line radio days having conversations with people who would say: “I don’t believe in homosexuality.” Believe it or not my friend, you have no say in the matter. It is a fact in our society and the sooner we stop kidding ourselves, the sooner there will be acceptance. And perhaps the teenage guys who think they are being macho will stop using the word faggot. I’m waiting. Hey – we can’t even get them to stop smoking!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
WHAT REALLY MATTERS/
Millions of viewers, me included, were carried away by the interview on 60 Minutes with Melinda Gates. Her husband Bill is the richest man in the world. I will not be surprised to see him become the first trillionaire in history. They have led the way in generosity. Their philanthropies are a signal to all billionaires to start caring about people. In fact, number two world’s richest, Warren Buffet, the sage of Omaha, has joined Gates to start giving away his fortune. According to Melinda, their aim is to give away 90% of their fortune. Not meaning any cynicism but that would still leave them several billions to maintain their lifestyle, and in spite of their protestation that their children re not going to be the big beneficiaries, will still find those kids sitting pretty.
I am not poor-mouthing them. Far from it. If more people with money would open their purse strings, there might be a lot less misery, both at home, and in Third World countries.
I have however, just one teeny-tiny little caveat; just one little concern about “charity’ just a bit of fear that the kind of charity we talk about are really (although the scope is far greater and the effect more far reaching) alms for the poor.
What Melinda is doing in the poorest province of India to combat infant mortality it incredible. What they are doing to make drugs available for diseases the big drug companies no longer care about i.e. malaria, is prodigious.
But I do have the very same feeling about their generosity as I do about the myth of Mother Theresa, who will be elevated to sainthood on the basis of a very flawed example of a “miracle.”
Like Mother Theresa, who quite openly said she is only there to comfort the poor and sick, but she is not there to help change the social conditions that make poverty inevitable. The poorest people in India can’t feed the children they have. They have nothing. The Gates Foundation will not, as nearly as I can see, change anything about the underlying social, political, and economic conditions that make suffering inevitable. They are not social changers. They are charity-givers.
Yes, they spend billions to help educate forgotten children in America, but do they exert the kind of social and political pressure that makes real social change possible? Why would they?
I don’t question their generosity. I certainly do not question their sincerity. But haven’t we had enough of very rich people putting money into help that is not really help?
Are the Bates any better than Andrew Carnegie, who sweated his workers and built .libraries? Or his henchman Frick who did all the strike breaking head busting dirty work and built a magnificent art galley in New York. Or Harry Oakes who discovered gold in Kirkland Lake then took all his money to Nassau and his idea of public giving was to create a magnificent part at the side of Niagara Falls. While the streets of Kirkland Lake subside into the holes he dug for gold.
I am not against good deeds. I am against the underlying evil that gets papered over with good intentions.
I am not poor-mouthing them. Far from it. If more people with money would open their purse strings, there might be a lot less misery, both at home, and in Third World countries.
I have however, just one teeny-tiny little caveat; just one little concern about “charity’ just a bit of fear that the kind of charity we talk about are really (although the scope is far greater and the effect more far reaching) alms for the poor.
What Melinda is doing in the poorest province of India to combat infant mortality it incredible. What they are doing to make drugs available for diseases the big drug companies no longer care about i.e. malaria, is prodigious.
But I do have the very same feeling about their generosity as I do about the myth of Mother Theresa, who will be elevated to sainthood on the basis of a very flawed example of a “miracle.”
Like Mother Theresa, who quite openly said she is only there to comfort the poor and sick, but she is not there to help change the social conditions that make poverty inevitable. The poorest people in India can’t feed the children they have. They have nothing. The Gates Foundation will not, as nearly as I can see, change anything about the underlying social, political, and economic conditions that make suffering inevitable. They are not social changers. They are charity-givers.
Yes, they spend billions to help educate forgotten children in America, but do they exert the kind of social and political pressure that makes real social change possible? Why would they?
I don’t question their generosity. I certainly do not question their sincerity. But haven’t we had enough of very rich people putting money into help that is not really help?
Are the Bates any better than Andrew Carnegie, who sweated his workers and built .libraries? Or his henchman Frick who did all the strike breaking head busting dirty work and built a magnificent art galley in New York. Or Harry Oakes who discovered gold in Kirkland Lake then took all his money to Nassau and his idea of public giving was to create a magnificent part at the side of Niagara Falls. While the streets of Kirkland Lake subside into the holes he dug for gold.
I am not against good deeds. I am against the underlying evil that gets papered over with good intentions.
Monday, October 4, 2010
SCALPING THE NEWS FOR GOLD
Where would all true liberals go for fodder if there were no New York Times, or The Nation, or the Washington Post? Like TV news rooms that start in the morning by scalping every newspaper for today's "features" - "stories we are working on" and other newsroom myths, I am stimulated to think by the Times. Which I could not say for the Toronto Sun or the Washington Times or Glen Beck.
So this morning, front page NY Times: "Companies keep saving the money they’ve borrowed at low rates as they wait for the economy to improve, but it is unlikely to improve if they keep saving," gets my juices going. Why should I worry that it will be a variation on my usual rant? The Times and the Post both rant about the same stuff. Frank Rich can be counted on to do an OpEd hatchet piece on the Tea Party. Why should I be any less predictable?
I can sometimes write what the Times won't, the exception being Paul Krugman. They are hot-wired to their otherwise thinking brains, to believe that all you have to do is "tweak" the perfect system and it gets more perfect. So they still preach the values of the free market system. All it needs is a little help. So fruitlessly, the Fed and Ben Bernanke continue to "stimulate" the economy with monetary action.
But, even to some of the opaque writers at the Times, it should be eminently clear that business can not, will not, and perhaps should not, lead the country out of despair. So we have the continuing story of low demand, low production and the eternal question:" why should any company spend money to chase a diminishing number of willing consumers. So the consumer waits until jobs become more secure before spending money, while the big companies wait for that suddenly frugal consumer to start spending. It is a classic "Mexican stand-off."
If governments in power were not so frightened of the voters' economic illiteracy, they would do what has to be done. First, they would have to abandon the worn-out orthodoxy that deficits are by definition - bad. What is "bad" is that the very governments that created the deficits with meaningless wars and foolish tax cuts, refuse to turn it all around. I continue to be appalled. I even hear myself echoing my least favourite President, Ronald Reagan, who said "there is no such thing as a free ride." After which of course he sent America into a future economic tailspin with the biggest spending spree in history to that point.
"Ah me" I sigh, as I shout my screed into a bottomless well of indifference. The well is so deep there are not even any echoes.
It is too late of course, for the administration to fly in the face of public opinion, no matter how warped by the incessant pounding of free market lobbyists,
and actually take charge of the economy. Isn't it obvious that monetary tweaking by the well-intentioned Bernanke is not making it happen. Only stimulus, and to hell with the deficit, can force the issue. Joint ventures between government and private money could turn the economy around.
But wait - all those companies who are hoarding the money they borrowed at zero interest are waiting for a takeover opportunity. The economy is swollen with cash, but it is in the wrong hands. The freakos of the Tea Party think the government should turn all their money back to the people. Funny - they never ask for private business to do that. Amusing!!
So this morning, front page NY Times: "Companies keep saving the money they’ve borrowed at low rates as they wait for the economy to improve, but it is unlikely to improve if they keep saving," gets my juices going. Why should I worry that it will be a variation on my usual rant? The Times and the Post both rant about the same stuff. Frank Rich can be counted on to do an OpEd hatchet piece on the Tea Party. Why should I be any less predictable?
I can sometimes write what the Times won't, the exception being Paul Krugman. They are hot-wired to their otherwise thinking brains, to believe that all you have to do is "tweak" the perfect system and it gets more perfect. So they still preach the values of the free market system. All it needs is a little help. So fruitlessly, the Fed and Ben Bernanke continue to "stimulate" the economy with monetary action.
But, even to some of the opaque writers at the Times, it should be eminently clear that business can not, will not, and perhaps should not, lead the country out of despair. So we have the continuing story of low demand, low production and the eternal question:" why should any company spend money to chase a diminishing number of willing consumers. So the consumer waits until jobs become more secure before spending money, while the big companies wait for that suddenly frugal consumer to start spending. It is a classic "Mexican stand-off."
If governments in power were not so frightened of the voters' economic illiteracy, they would do what has to be done. First, they would have to abandon the worn-out orthodoxy that deficits are by definition - bad. What is "bad" is that the very governments that created the deficits with meaningless wars and foolish tax cuts, refuse to turn it all around. I continue to be appalled. I even hear myself echoing my least favourite President, Ronald Reagan, who said "there is no such thing as a free ride." After which of course he sent America into a future economic tailspin with the biggest spending spree in history to that point.
"Ah me" I sigh, as I shout my screed into a bottomless well of indifference. The well is so deep there are not even any echoes.
It is too late of course, for the administration to fly in the face of public opinion, no matter how warped by the incessant pounding of free market lobbyists,
and actually take charge of the economy. Isn't it obvious that monetary tweaking by the well-intentioned Bernanke is not making it happen. Only stimulus, and to hell with the deficit, can force the issue. Joint ventures between government and private money could turn the economy around.
But wait - all those companies who are hoarding the money they borrowed at zero interest are waiting for a takeover opportunity. The economy is swollen with cash, but it is in the wrong hands. The freakos of the Tea Party think the government should turn all their money back to the people. Funny - they never ask for private business to do that. Amusing!!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
WHY DO THEY MAKE EVERYTHING SO BIG?
You may accuse me of another anti-American rant – but the quote is from a TV commercial, made by Americans for Americans. (Canadians get to see it only because most American advertisers can’t or won’t bother to make a TV commercial specially for us.)
The opening line is spoken by an Englishman presumably at a cricket match” Why do Americans make everything so big?” He shows his buddy a huge stuffed burrito. In the next frame someone in another country makes the same comment, then another holds the burrito to his chest like a baby being burped. The commercial is fun. No slurs are intended, although you and I both know Americans who will be offended by a Canadian making the observation.
There are really two issues: the first is probably the celebrated “bigness” of America. The second is more practical: the direction the highly competitive fast food market its taking.
It has been a few years since the publication of “Fest Food Nation,” which examined just about every element of the American food delivery systems from portion size to potato monopolies.
In “Fast Food Nation” the author documented the growth in portion sizes, using the typical order of fries from McDonald’s. I won’t bother to quote the figures, but the essence of it is that from 1950 to 1990 the price remained the same but the portion sizes grew, and grew, and grew. Competition in fast foods has two dimensions: low price points, but more – increased portion sizes. So Taco Bell, the originator of the “so big” TV commercial, features a stuffed burrito with twice the amount of meat.
The war continues. Everyone steps up to the plate – literally – and fills it with more product. The obvious comment has to be made, although it is superfluous, that Americans (Canadians not far behind) are leading the world in obesity and one cause is the mammoth food portions.
On my recent three month stay in Paris I was a little startled to see that the Parisians (unless it's all for tourists) are losing their reputation for small portions and are filling the plates. So far. I have not seen any results, judging from the continuing slimness of Parisians. But they can't be far behind.
Is the size of the portion a synonym for the American Dream vision of “plenty?” Or is the consumer being swept along by companies operating in down market times and mounting competition. Something has to give. Will it be the purveyors of fast food who simply can’t absorb the added food costs? Will it be the manufacturers who will be caught in the competitive crossfire? Or will it be the prime producers who always seem to get the dirty (I mean another word) end of the stick>
In a free market economy, it is all about competition. Because a free market economy is also a “demand” (as opposed to command) economy, he who advertises best will get the customers. Add to the mix that sale of Burger King for billions of dollars, and you have a fast food company operating with a lot of debt, the debt incurred by the takeover.
Does it all make sense? Will the competition kill the competition? Will the customer come out on top? That scenario seldom works, because ultimately the consumer will have to pay. Remember, the only source of revenue is the guy who buys the burrito.
The opening line is spoken by an Englishman presumably at a cricket match” Why do Americans make everything so big?” He shows his buddy a huge stuffed burrito. In the next frame someone in another country makes the same comment, then another holds the burrito to his chest like a baby being burped. The commercial is fun. No slurs are intended, although you and I both know Americans who will be offended by a Canadian making the observation.
There are really two issues: the first is probably the celebrated “bigness” of America. The second is more practical: the direction the highly competitive fast food market its taking.
It has been a few years since the publication of “Fest Food Nation,” which examined just about every element of the American food delivery systems from portion size to potato monopolies.
In “Fast Food Nation” the author documented the growth in portion sizes, using the typical order of fries from McDonald’s. I won’t bother to quote the figures, but the essence of it is that from 1950 to 1990 the price remained the same but the portion sizes grew, and grew, and grew. Competition in fast foods has two dimensions: low price points, but more – increased portion sizes. So Taco Bell, the originator of the “so big” TV commercial, features a stuffed burrito with twice the amount of meat.
The war continues. Everyone steps up to the plate – literally – and fills it with more product. The obvious comment has to be made, although it is superfluous, that Americans (Canadians not far behind) are leading the world in obesity and one cause is the mammoth food portions.
On my recent three month stay in Paris I was a little startled to see that the Parisians (unless it's all for tourists) are losing their reputation for small portions and are filling the plates. So far. I have not seen any results, judging from the continuing slimness of Parisians. But they can't be far behind.
Is the size of the portion a synonym for the American Dream vision of “plenty?” Or is the consumer being swept along by companies operating in down market times and mounting competition. Something has to give. Will it be the purveyors of fast food who simply can’t absorb the added food costs? Will it be the manufacturers who will be caught in the competitive crossfire? Or will it be the prime producers who always seem to get the dirty (I mean another word) end of the stick>
In a free market economy, it is all about competition. Because a free market economy is also a “demand” (as opposed to command) economy, he who advertises best will get the customers. Add to the mix that sale of Burger King for billions of dollars, and you have a fast food company operating with a lot of debt, the debt incurred by the takeover.
Does it all make sense? Will the competition kill the competition? Will the customer come out on top? That scenario seldom works, because ultimately the consumer will have to pay. Remember, the only source of revenue is the guy who buys the burrito.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
WHAT FOOS WE SPORTS FANS BE
I’ve said it all before and I am not taking any of it back. I am, shamefully, a rootin' tootin' fan of the great mercenary lottery called professional sports. I cheer when “our” team wins. I mope when the bull pen throws it away, or when Vernon pops up with the bases loaded. But how can I, or the rest of us, possibly cope with our unlimited gullibility in Toronto’s latest paean to profits.
More than thirty three thousand of us showed up at the Rogers Centre to bid a fond farewell to Cito Gaston. He obliged us with the inevitable tear coursing down his cheek. He bestowed on all of us the laurel wreath of being “the greatest fans.” He praised the city where he no longer lives. He said all the right things. I am not faulting Cito for his sentimentality, or even for his questionable success as a manager. So many of the players praise his stoic mien in the dugout, appearing to say little and to express no great emotional displays. Some say “He lets us be ourselves.” While others, quietly ask for a more loquacious, heart-on-the-sleeve manager. Cito responds by asking how many World Series Tony LaRussa has won. It’s all very passionate,
(A sidebar: the late Tom Cheek is being boosted for some kind of big award for his career. Cheek was the Blue Jays play-by-play guy since the Jays began. He owes his career to Toronto. He died too young so he is revered. But Cheek remained an American citizen and he never did move to Toronto, but maintained his home in Florida. Cito at least did make his home here for many years.)
But what is the passion all about? The fact is that the Blue Jays management saw an opportunity to sell tickets, in fact to brazenly market Cito’s departure. The fans lined up for it. I’m no different. When I see those promotional commercials advertising “Hustle and Heart” with the close-ups of sometimes unshaven but ready to fight-to-win players, I am swept along.
Yet I hear the likes of departed fallen heroes like Alex Rios dissing Toronto – complaining that the fans don’t really care; that we are a bad baseball city. Rios is glad to be gone. But he’s just another body-for-hire. Pro sports is full of this stuff. Lebron James was not just a great basketball player, but whose heart and soul and devotion belonged to Cleveland, picked up and went to Miami along with another of Toronto’s “heroes” Chris Bosh.
I don’t blame the athletes. They play for money and the more they can get the happier they are. We kid ourselves about “home town loyalty.” There are players who spout their devotion to the team that hired them to throw strikes or hit homers.
And we buy it all.
But again, nothing so reminded me of my own gullibility as when the Jays, now led by a South Asian (no racism implied) whose cultural background simply does not include baseball. He owes the Rogers shareholders the best. Not the best team – just the biggest bottom line. If coincidentally, having a better team improves profits, so be it.
Look at all of our devoted citizens of Maple Leaf country. Most of the fans were not born the last time the team with Lord Stanley’s trophy. But we cheer. Kids who manage to get on camera throw up the “we’re number one” fingers and twitch at their Maple Leaf jerseys to express their undying loyalty.
What fools we .. or are we?
More than thirty three thousand of us showed up at the Rogers Centre to bid a fond farewell to Cito Gaston. He obliged us with the inevitable tear coursing down his cheek. He bestowed on all of us the laurel wreath of being “the greatest fans.” He praised the city where he no longer lives. He said all the right things. I am not faulting Cito for his sentimentality, or even for his questionable success as a manager. So many of the players praise his stoic mien in the dugout, appearing to say little and to express no great emotional displays. Some say “He lets us be ourselves.” While others, quietly ask for a more loquacious, heart-on-the-sleeve manager. Cito responds by asking how many World Series Tony LaRussa has won. It’s all very passionate,
(A sidebar: the late Tom Cheek is being boosted for some kind of big award for his career. Cheek was the Blue Jays play-by-play guy since the Jays began. He owes his career to Toronto. He died too young so he is revered. But Cheek remained an American citizen and he never did move to Toronto, but maintained his home in Florida. Cito at least did make his home here for many years.)
But what is the passion all about? The fact is that the Blue Jays management saw an opportunity to sell tickets, in fact to brazenly market Cito’s departure. The fans lined up for it. I’m no different. When I see those promotional commercials advertising “Hustle and Heart” with the close-ups of sometimes unshaven but ready to fight-to-win players, I am swept along.
Yet I hear the likes of departed fallen heroes like Alex Rios dissing Toronto – complaining that the fans don’t really care; that we are a bad baseball city. Rios is glad to be gone. But he’s just another body-for-hire. Pro sports is full of this stuff. Lebron James was not just a great basketball player, but whose heart and soul and devotion belonged to Cleveland, picked up and went to Miami along with another of Toronto’s “heroes” Chris Bosh.
I don’t blame the athletes. They play for money and the more they can get the happier they are. We kid ourselves about “home town loyalty.” There are players who spout their devotion to the team that hired them to throw strikes or hit homers.
And we buy it all.
But again, nothing so reminded me of my own gullibility as when the Jays, now led by a South Asian (no racism implied) whose cultural background simply does not include baseball. He owes the Rogers shareholders the best. Not the best team – just the biggest bottom line. If coincidentally, having a better team improves profits, so be it.
Look at all of our devoted citizens of Maple Leaf country. Most of the fans were not born the last time the team with Lord Stanley’s trophy. But we cheer. Kids who manage to get on camera throw up the “we’re number one” fingers and twitch at their Maple Leaf jerseys to express their undying loyalty.
What fools we .. or are we?
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