LOOKING AHEAD

SAVING CAPITALISM

2011-11-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

This week’s chemotherapy seems to be sending me back to some kind of working groove. The process is a kind of coming together of existing ideas – my way of saying there is nothing original in all this, it is just a coalescence of facts and ideas, began with “60 Minutes” and an interview with Christine Lagarde, formerly France’s Finance Minister and is now head of the International Monetary Fund. She warned of economic dislocation leading to “social unrest.”

The Globe and Mail, in one of its centre spreads, commented on the end of left wing government in the Euro zone, punctuated by the victory of the centre-right in Spain. (Even though it seems like only months ago that the left won following the disaster of the terrorist attack on the Madrid Subway.)

In my wandering I remembered how many historians gave Roosevelt credit for saving Capitalism. There is a common thread. Lagarde recognizes that governments, of any political persuasion, were going to have to come up with money. Monti in Italy has already started. Tough guy, he will increase revenues and make the wealthy pay.

Behind all this is the threat of social upheaval. Roosevelt put a damper on the depression by spending millions in public works. (Critics complained that he stopped too soon just when America was on the brink of recovery. The war solved that one.)

That there is already social unrest is a fact. The rioting is back at Tahrir Square, There is unrest over cuts to social programs with Greece leading the way. The traditional establishment method of dealing with financial shortage is to impose austerity. “Austerity” usually translates into cutting benefits to the ones who need item most while making sure the wealthy do not suffer. The word used is “entitlements” which always sounds like poorly placed charity. The facts are always this: the ones who need it most are the ones who will spend it because they have to, while the ones who need it least continue to hoard money beyond their however expensive tastes.

Big companies squirrel away capital, the latest ploy being that they are spending capital to re-aquire assets in stock buybacks while spending little on capital or labor improvements.

I am truly sorry that we have marginalized the rather flimsy “dissent” here by deprecating the efforts of the “occupiers.” We have, instead of confronting the very real problem of inequities chosen to sneer at their effort characterizing them as intrusive koombayaw tent dwellers with no targets or policies. Unless of course you include silly stuff like unemployment and the rising costs of education.

The Euro group will have to face this reality: the stubbornness of Angela Merkel and her obvious striving for European hegemony. Ironically, when you look at “social unrest” is Germany; you would have to conclude that if there is any it will manifest itself in anger against the rest of Europe that wants Germany to bail it out. The Germans think it is a one-way street with all benefits flowing one way, from Germany to the rest of Europe. They refuse to admit that the Euro zone has been good for them, expanding their economy and guaranteeing their leadership. I would like to have been a fly on the wall for the conversations between David Cameron and Angela Merkel.

Behind it all is the utter tragedy of American politics, where November 2012 has trumped everything else; where the select panel of legislators fought fiscal change to a standstill, and where the American public has given a 7% approval rating to Congress. They got what they voted for. They just didn’t get what they deserved.

A GREAT WASTELAND

2011-11-08T14:59:00.002-05:00

For the last couple of weeks I have been trapped,my only source an endless series of
news stories all starting to sound the same. You have to have done it to discover utter
boredo: the Greeks are up the Greeks are down and we are ready to pass over to the next basket case: Italy, where the profligate government pays six and a half percent for money to run things. Canada spends 2.3 percent for its debt. Enough said.

The Berlusconi factor is nore more.The hedonistic and corrupt man who has run Italy for the past 16 years is leaving.

I'm writing this only to touch base with all my blog readers. I very nearly died from cancerous lungs and am still languishing in PMH where if my luck holds, they will be sending me home, where I cancuddle up to the trap of my own TV.

I hope to survive. If not. It's been good.

OTHER VOICES

2011-10-17T04:19:00.002-04:00

When I started writing this blog I hoped that it would be more than simply my comment and then your opinion if you cared. However, what I wanted most was to have a give-and-take among my readers.I hoped what I wrote would stimulate cross-talk, discussion, argument, disagreement, not only with me but with other readers.

Alas, I have not managed to find my way into that format with the energy generated by differing opinions. Your response would come only to me.

However, there is one way to generate cross-talk: that is to post your answers and let the readers join the discussion.

After my recent blog about "irrelevance" I got one response that I would like to share with all of you.

"Dear Larry:

Your recent cri de coeur was touching. You assumed that "like minded people" of your own generation would sympathize with your admonishments and condemnations, your deep loathing of misplaced apostrophes and those high English hedges that block your view of the ancient homes of the rich and privileged. You preach and preach, as though those who might read your blog didn't already know that the American Right is fraught with religious nuts and pro-lynch rednecks and gun-freaks. Your tedious rants are totally unnecessary and then you blame your readers for not getting it.

Would you want to listen to yourself? You can't even attend a concert without delivering a Mister know-all lecture on the composer and the artist and all that goes with it.

I felt sorry for you, jamming around tourist trap St. Ives, when only a few miles away, in the exquisite Tudor town of Totnes you could have been taking the little cruise boat down the river Dart when the tide was going out, seen the glorious countryside all the way to ancient Dartmouth, eaten the world's best fish and chips near the docks, and, when the tide turned a few hours later, puttered back upriver to Totnes where there are lovely pubs and hostelries and wonderful food to be had in a town built in the reign of Henry VII, not a straight line on the whole street.

What have you learned in 83 years? What truths have you discovered? Where do you find beauty in your life. What makes you happy? What do you love?

I wish you well
(name omitted)

FORGITTEN PROMISES - OR JUST MISLAID?

2011-10-15T20:13:00.000-04:00

FORGOTTEN PROMISES
When I launched my blog I was hoping to attract hundreds – no – make that thousands – of like-minded people with common needs, aims, and ideas. It was all about the retired, and the soon-to-be retired. It was all about staying relevant in a world that seems to be consumed with youth and needs of a rising generation.

I’ve missed the point. Instead of trying to rally like-minded and like-aged people around me with cogent and clear aims, I went back to being who I always was: a left-leaning social critic and burr under the saddle of the young and/or the privileged.
So my rants, which have diminished in number, partly because of my own physical shortcomings and partly because I realized I was singing all the old songs, go, un-listened to.

So I find myself today, far from physically well and 83 years old, striving for relevancy.
I have missed the boat. Instead of uniting people of like minds, I have gone back to be a crabby curmudgeon – railing at everything. I suspect that the railing may still reflect my sense of social injustice, but in fact, I am boring myself to tears. What, I ask myself, would I be saying and writing is I still had whatever media prominence I once had? Who would listen? Who would join the chorus? Very few people have, at least partly because they are, like me, a lot older and more tired than they used to be.

I ask myself what I can possibly say about the rain wreck that characterizes the American political scene? I ask myself why it is that the suburbs tend to be politically right wing and the urban centres a little more to the left. There are simple, perhaps too simple answers: in the 905 for example, the ring of suburbs and small towns surrounding Toronto, the central issue still seems to be taxes. They don’t ant to pay taxes. They comfort their stubbornness, not to self-interest, but with the fact that governments and politicians want to tax and spend. We get taxed. They spend.

It is prevalent. It is epidemic. It is Greece where the national pastime seems to be to outsmart the tax collectors, or simply to cheat. It is Ontario where the Tories’ election campaign consisted mainly of the notion that higher taxes kills jobs and that lower taxes create jobs. Utter nonsense, but it appeals to the discomforted people living from pay check to pay check with a huge mortgage overhanging their hopes; it is fuel for their political choices.

A few days ago on PBS, I watched a “debate” between Michigan Democrat Carl Levin and Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson. More of the same. The Republican mouthed the right-wing boilerplate about how government was stifling enterprise and initiative, and reinforcing that point of view with the “fact” that the proposed tax of people earning a million or more would hurt small business. The Democrat said, and he wins it statistically, that about 1% of small business earns over 1 million. (By the way, many of those so-called small businesses are hedge funds and their investment brothers.) But we are in a generation where emotion trumps statistics, where prejudice trumps knowledge and where an entire generation contributes to what we now call “post literate society.”

Finally thought, I know. I am a small voice in the howling wind of the illiterate landslide. I am too old, too cranky, and too irrelevant to be listened to. The only question I have let is: why do I bother.

NOTES FROM A POST LITERATE SOCIETY

2011-10-13T08:27:00.002-04:00

Caught on CBC Newsworld morning weather forecast Thursday October 13: "the rain has not arrived "as of yet."

Caught on same Wednesday October 12: a different weather person but she managed to insert "at this point in time" three times in one forecast.

Same program same day, interview with the newly elected premier of Newfoundland - premier said "at this point in time" twice!

Regularly on CBC News weather from the most amiable and dependable meteorologist: the rain blew in "Off of" the lake.

It doesn't really matter except that an organization as important as the CBC is giving licence to massacre the language.

This is the first in a series of "who cares anyway" on the misuse and degradation of language. The generation of text-messagers needs no more encouragement. They are already deeply into the massacre of language and the end of person-to-person communication.

GIVING 'EM WHAT THEY WANT

2011-10-09T11:10:00.001-04:00

One of marketing’s most compelling imperatives is that to succeed with anything – product, service, fashion – you name it- give people what they want.

So the CBC brass can hold their noses and present week-in-week out red-neckery in the service of “giving people what they want.” Don Cherry is at least as outrageous as the most outrageous performer/demagogue that has ever graced mass media. He is a fool. He is also rich. Bruce Dowbiggin, one of the media’s most thoughtful writers went on at length about the pros and cons of Cherry’s latest rant. And the CBC will continue to say he is too valuable i.e. he brings in a lot of revenue, to remove him.

If he does bring in revenue is it because the CBC is stubbornly keeping him employed? Certainly not – Cherry is an acquired taste – like ultimate fighting, another
”sport” that made it mainstream because is what “what so many people wanted.”

I don’t think we should try to be arbiters of public taste. It is what it is. If people want, for example to buy a house on a street with every house dominated by what are called “snouthouses” then that is their taste. The snouthouse is the projecting two car monstrosity that dominates the front elevation of thousands of cookie-cutter suburban houses. And it is what people want. Developers keep telling us that they build “what people want.” A few years ago an architect couple from Florida introduced the novel idea of houses with garages in the back. The front of the house would be dominated not by that two car snouthouse and its accompanying two car driveway where most of the time people park their cars, making the street look a little like a used car lot. But hey – that’s what people want. When I last checked the only place this “novel” idea took root was in Markham

May I cynically suggest, and I am not the first, that marketers know how to plug into and create a herd mentality. They aren’t always right. But in the case of a loud-mouth hockey guru, or organized killer-style fighting, or the subdivision houses that all look the same and are “saved” by having a slightly different front elevation or a different style from door, it seems to be “what people want.”

One has to believe that Hockey Night in Canada is an empire in itself. They make the decisions. If not, and the CBC has some concern over the emphasis on violence, what stops them from decreeing that when a fight begins the cameras do not pay any attention to it. To the contrary – it’s become an essential part of TV coverage

It is not up to any of us to declare Don Cherry persona non grata. It is up to people who tune in to Hockey Night in Canada, as much for Cherry as for the Leafs. I admit that I would tune in just to be there for the next outrageous, homophobic, racist, or brutal opinion the master was going to hurl at me. However, even I have a limit to my patience. After Cherry disgraced himself with his absurd welcome to Mayor Rib Ford and his idiotic comments about bike riding socialists, I was determined, even as a dedicated hockey fan, to be elsewhere when the first period ended.

Frankly, I don’t know how Ron McLean puts up with it. He takes his conversation with the motor-mouth as legitimate. He is made to look foolish, lurking in the corner, trying not to blush when his partner erupts in idiocy.

No my friends, it is not up to the CBC to cut him off. It is up to all of us to ignore him, and let it be known that he is being ignored.

FINALLY - WHAT DID ENGLAND GIVE ME?

2011-10-01T15:19:00.002-04:00

I have pondered. I have stewed. I have, especially after seeing Bristol, realized that my fruitless attempt to “see” the back roads and byways of the west of England, was nothing (for me only) but a romantic notion that I could see an idyllic element that makes the countryside of the U.K. so attractive. To me – it wasn’t. Yes, the size of the hedgerows was remarkable. Their very impenetrability daunting. But how many hedgerows do I have to see? How many narrow roads to I want to travel? How often did I find myself gazing out the car window at the pattern of farms, every field lush looking and fenced in by the ubiquitous hedgerows?

The small towns and villages did have charm. The castles appealed to my sense of history. But finally I realized once again, I am an urban creature. I think that cities, great and small, are the best reflection of the national ethos. The country road rurality (is there such a word) is interesting, but bucolic. If I were, I suppose, a landscape painter, or a member of the Barbizon school I would worship the outdoors. I don’t.

I am not without care for the quaint, the old and the sometimes exotic. But I am a city person. Which is why my greatest regret was that we stuck ourselves in the little town of Thornbury (kind of like Scarborough with an English accent) when I could have spent more time exploring the historic and the modern, the re-invention of famous cities like Bristol.

I thought that the main attractions in that once-famous city would be the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer responsible for fulfilling the dream of regularly scheduled Atlantic crossings. The only evidence I saw of his brilliance was the steamship Great Britain, and the suspension bridge crossing the gorge of the Avon. Great things most often happen in cities. Brunel characterizes that. His Great Western Railroad was the best in Britain, his suspension bridge was a masterpiece of engineering, certainly rivalling Roeblin who designed and created the first suspension bridge over the Ohio river at Cincinnati, and the famous Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn. So our trip to walk the decks and peer into the cabins of the ship was an experience. The ship was built in 1843 and plied the Atlantic before being sold to a consortium that made a fortune transporting settles to Australia. It was the biggest ship ever built. It could hold 700 passengers. Its “luxury” was of course limited, but in its day she was the Queen.

Brunel was responsible for the rebirth of Bristol and its shipbuilding industry. And that is what struck me most about Bristol. There is not much one can do about the twists and turns of the urban roads designed for a more leisurely time of carriages and horses. Bristol is an example, perhaps predicted by Brunel, of what can be done to “make” a city.

Our visits there were all too brief. You become tangled in traffic and wish only to find your way home. But “home” should have been someplace like Bristol or perhaps Cardiff.

I would like to have spent at least a week roaming the streets and back alleys, savouring the wonderful way the waterfront has been reclaimed with tasteful apartment buildings.

Because it was where Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot to us) took a leaky little ship – Henry VII was a real cheapskate) and claimed Newfoundland for Britain. It was Cabot who said the cod were so numerous you could walk on water by walking on the back of them. You “fished” by just putting a bucket overboard and helping yourself.

It all began in Bristol. I asked out exchanger-hosts in Thornbury if there was anything to commemorate Bristol’s position as Britain’s premier storage house for wine from Bordeaux. He seemed puzzled by the question. But he did recognize the name Harvey’s Bristol Cream.” Maybe it dawned on him that it was a name that commemorates a grand history from the time when Britain owned Aquitaine.

So I said farewell to the cunning little towns with their wall-to-wall tea rooms and antique ships, to the rural landscape with its soaring hedgerows, and those aggressive, impatient drivers who risk their lives speeding and passing on two lane roads which are difficult to call highways.

It was not what I expected. But what did I expect?

The night we left my Anglophilia took a real beating. I have always believed, or wanted to believe, that there was something somehow a little more civilized about the British. We sat in the restaurant of the hotel in Gatwick and struck up a conversation with a couple sitting next to us. They were very friendly. They lived in a little village in the shadow of Windsor Castle. They were on their way to Tunisia where he would do a lot of drinking and play golf. I should have stopped there. She wanted me to know how it "really is" in Britain with terrorists and hordes of nasty immigrants. “They don't fit in.” I tried not to argue but told her that where we live there is harmony among the many races co-habiting our city. (Not true of course because we have our share of bigotry.) Nothing would calm her down. I felt like I was back on the radio listening to a half-baking nitwit tell me her very of the “truth.” It went something like: “They come here and are immediately put on the National Health, given money and houses. My own children can’t get a house, but they do.”

I wanted to remind her that “ her own children” had a head start, perhaps a hundred years with the benefit of a state paid education, and opportunities that they could take with no cultural or language difficulties. It was not, I would have said, the fault of some poor guy from Somalia that your kids have not succeeded. But you can’t argue with people who want to scapegoat.

It was a sad finish to the trip that started with so much optimism.

By the way, it seems my not-so-best-selling "Don't Be Blindsided by Retirement"
did not fly off the shelves. Whoever wants one can contact me and when I find out how much it will be to pay for postage. I'll mail you a book. The handling is free.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY

2011-09-22T10:25:00.000-04:00

As you drive north from Gloucestershire the valleys get deeper, the hills rise to almost mountains. Wales is what dreamers dream about. My earliest memories - fictionalized and romanticized - the life of a Welsh coal miner, a book by Llewellyn made into a movie. Long lines of sturdy men (and boys) heading to the pits singing lustily. Of course there is more to being Welsh than being able to sing. That movie remains with me through. Donald Crisp the patriarch of the Morgan family. It was pure bathos but beautifully done thanks to John Ford’s direction and stalwarts Maureen O’Hara and Walter Pidgeon. And the tragedies of the pits and the poverty of the company-owned row houses. .

Travelled through most of south Wales and never did see one colliery. We did drive by Swansea, the scene of the most recent tragedy – four miners drowned in a vertical mine. The hills around Swansea probably still contain vast amounts of coal, but there are now better and cleaner ways to generate power. There must be some nostalgic longing among the British people for the days when the natural presence of both iron and coal were the machine that drove the Industrial Revolution, a “revolution” that came first to the U.K, with factories and steam trains and shipping and made them the most successful industrialized country on earth. Nostalgia of course, because they are no longer that power. Only the memories (and some of the bravado) remain. Back to our voyage of discovery..

By the time we crossed the border at Monmouth the hills shone green and loomed higher. The valleys grew greener, deeper and more lush. And there were forests. Only one had a name that we could see: Bean. But unlike our roads that are often rimmed with trees with plenty of room on the shoulder of the road, there is no room here and the forest seems to stretch back deeply from the roadside, roadsides often made picturesque but daunting by the hedgerows where our shoulders would be. And that’s my poetry and illusion about the once-country of Wales, last home of the Britons forced back by hordes of Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Norsemen.

The language. “Sufferin” Succotash” spoke Mel Blanc, the voice of Daffy Duck. The cartoon character made the sound I hear in Welsh. The “double L” is pronounced “sshh” but seems to be formed between the tongue and the back teeth in a puddle of saliva. Today’s Wales pays tribute to the language and all the signs are in Welsh then English. There are ff’s, there are words without vowels. I am no linguist of course, but is the derivation Celtic? It reminded me of Basque, a language that was never written until the Basque nationalist scholars decided that it could be. The letters used approximate sounds unknown to English speakers. Similarly in Welsh there are back-tooth sounds, gutturals, and throat-clearing consonants that defy “spelling.” No word is spoken as it looks. Beyond this, and it is only speculation, I have no knowledge of the language. Was it strictly oral? Was it written in some ancient script? Don’t know. I DO know that “ll” is pronounced the way Daffy Duck would say it.

We had been starved for castles and Wales offered castles galore. We saw, with one exception, nothing but ruins. I’m a little vague on the history of the area. There were castles built by the English to defend Wales against the Normans. (But the “English, courtesy of William I were Norman.) There were Norman castles to defend Wales for the Normans. The two best we saw were Raglan, just inside the Welsh border, and Kidwelly, a Norman castle – one of a chain that guarded Norman possessions in southwest Wales. It fell several times during the 11th and 12th century to the Welsh and in 1159 was burnt by Lord Rhys. It went back and forth but was finally held by the English the least of them was a portion of a battered Norman castle all that was left after the Welsh hero Llewellyn got through with it. But don’t think that there were only English villains and Welsh heroes. The Welsh fought bitterly among themselves, just as the English did in the 17th century civil war. I’m not an authority on the somewhat Byzantine shape of politics, friends and enemies, invaders and residents of what is now the U.K. Remember, there was a time when a king without a throne named Alfred, hid in a swamp while the Danes hunted him – Alfred who would be the first king of what came close to a unified England. Hence – Alfred the Great. Don’t phone and ask me for more. I’m ion over my head already

It is clear that the winners were vindictive, the losers vanquished. There was no such thing as what we mistakenly call “chivalry.” Look how Henry VIII ravaged the monasteries.

Raglan represented, at least to Cromwell, the worst of the Royalists. It had a history. One owner, William Thomas, fought alongside Henry V at Agincourt. The next owner was the Earl of Pembroke. It was also the boyhood home of Henry Tudor who became Henry VII and was heir t0o the Lancastrian control of the throne.

During the Civil War it was garrisoned by the Royalists and subjected to a long siege accompanied by heavy artillery bombardment. Cromwell’s engineers finished the job, tearing the castle apart to the point where no one could live there, assuring that no upstart Royalist could shelter there and strive toward renewed power. The saddest of all is that for many years Raglan was a “quarry.” People were urged to carry off as much of its stone as they wanted. They did not finish the job. The ruins are spectacular. The architecture timeless. Sans roofs and some walls – it is magnificent.

There was still another ruin to be seen: the site used on the Antiques Road Show. What a disappointment. Nothing to rival either Raglan or Kidwell, and certainly nothing to compare with another “roadshow” taping site: Gloucester Cathedral. Then finally – a castle – standing and preserved: Tretower. It is really more of a manor house. There are no soaring towers. No moats. No massive gates. A two story manor house but of course, with Royalist sympathies. The York kings stayed there

Finally the rain was getting to us. Let’s find out about modern Wales. Let’s buckle in and head for Cardiff. I often wonder, as I see tour buses Toronto, how much they really see and how accurate the commentary is. I am always disappointed but I keep going back for more. Disappointed because the buses make only the designated stops while whizzing by other stuff you want to at least photograph. (I n Toronto I heard that at least one tour stops at the south side of Casa Loma and gives them a view but doesn’t go u-p into the castle lot for the complete view. Takes up too much time and what do tourists know anyway?)

In Bristol, after we finally trudged what seemed like miles from our hotel through chilling winds, we came to a tour bus in front of Cardiff Castle. (Most of the castle was built or rebuilt b y a wealthy Welsh philanthropist, the Marquis of something-or-other.
What I got from the commentary was the story of one of the U.K.’s most successful cities. The newest “capital” in Europe and the smallest. The fastest-growing – see the huge stadium and the most cleverly redeveloped – see the transformed waterfront. He talked about how Cardiff was once a huge shipping port courtesy exports of coal and steel, both of which have shriveled to nearly nothing. The city seems to bustle, and I could easily put up with the commercial hubris of the commentator. Sidebar: turns out he is a retired musician who played with the Welsh National Orchestra and has made many trips to Toronto, one of his favourite cities. He played at Roy Thompson Hall.

Bristol, like many “re-invented cities is bustling and hopeful. So is Bristol only more so.
One trip to see the incredibly restored transatlantic steamer “Great Britain.” But we’re heading back. More to come.

LETTER #7: GREAT VIEWS, GREAT FOOD, RUTTY ROAD WILDERNESS.

2011-09-18T12:54:00.000-04:00

Shirley does not react well (significant gasps and spasmodic drawing in of breath) to driving on tiny side roads that seem to threaten that any minute they will peter out and we will plunge over an unseen cliff and not be seen by the odd car that passes by, or we’d be staring at a field full of sheep gazing with that ovine puzzlement at an intruder into their domain. I wax poetic again. Carried away.

I’m not quite sure why it happened, but as we navigated from home to Cirencester, we did not travel the broad M4. Instead, our Tomtom was taking us on the “scenic” route. For a short time we’d travel a reasonable two lane road where we could see the slopes of the Cotswolds rolling around us. But most of the time we were consigned to one lane winding roads, roads that would descend steeply with an abrupt turn at the bottom and deteriorate into a pair of wheel tracks – well almost. It is a times like this that my navigator, holding the GPS is going on about how stupid it is and that at the next layby we should turn around and go back. To where? She wasn’t sure. But she was sure that we were lost and our sun-bleached bones (impossible unless the rain stopped) would be all that rescuers would find. I thought of others who had been led by their GPS to strange places. There was the tragic story a year or two ago about the couple who found themselves on a muddy, unused road where their car became stuck. One of them had to leave to look for help. One of them, I don’t remember which one – died. This is the stuff that urban legends are made of.

I am impatient with her and our voices start to rise. Then we break free of the wilderness and turn on to a more hospitable highway with the prefix “A” attached. We are saved.

The upside of cruising the Cotswold back roads is that you get a wonderful view of these lush, rolling hills. There are surprises. We reach the bottom of a hill on a tiny road and there before us is a mansion. I don’t just mean a big house – I mean A MANSION!

An observation in passing: the Cotswolds are a tourist magnet. I was standing in a tourist information booth in,I think, Chipping Campden. A very agitated Chinese man was having a long and difficult (due to language) conversation with the tourist information woman. It was about finding a room. The “i” sign is what you head for most of the time. They will find you a place to stay. On this occasion she told the man: “It’s Friday night. The weekend. Prices always go up in the C otswolds.” In fact, as I will describe later, much of the “charm” of these little towns and villages is that the High Street is lined with antique shops – a magnet for the tourists. I wondered what the local residents did. I saw no evidence in these places, or snch other for that matter, of the convenience of a Mall.

Arrival at Cirencester. Took a while finding out to9 to pronounce the name. The opening two syllables rhyme with “siren” and the remainder pronounced as it looks. There may have been more but it appeared that the only things worth stopping for was thr massive (and under renovation) Parish Church of St. John the Baptist. It’s old. The nave was begun in the 12th century, the tower in 1400, the Lady Chapel in 1240. Old and big but not memorable. By this time I am getting “Cathedraled out.” We moved on.

Up the route designated by the most incomplete guide I have ever read (see this – see that – but where?) We push on to Stow on The Wold. (never got to see thre Wold.) The guide, for once being helpful, points us to a B&B called “Limes,’ an exquisite six bedroom cottage set in a lush garden. It is owned by a young couple with two little girls, one barely a toddler. (Later they will confide to Shirley that they will soon sell and get lout from under the hectic life of raising a family and running a major B&B.)

A comment about food. We ask our hostess for directions to a decent restaurant. In the old town square - this used to be a big market city - we choose the dining room in The Old Stocks Hotel. It is far beyond “decent.” The procedure is unusual. We are greeted at the bar. We are offered a small table and something to drink while our table is being prepared. . They take your order and call you to your table when the meal is ready to be presented. It was one of those succulent surprises: As good as the best meal we have had since leaving New York almost four weeks ago. I have ordered a salmon filet, Shirley a chicken breast. The salmon arrives on a bed of fettuccini Alfredo laced with spinach right in in the sauce. It is perfect, The salmon flakes under the fork. It has a sweetish tang to it, perhaps a honey marinade. There is a jardinière of fresh vegetables served on the side. Shirley’s chicken is perfect. I tell the wait person that this is as good a meal as have had, not only in England but on the QM2, where the meals could be either dazzling or indifferent.

A note in passing. It took some getting used to that in most restaurants we visited you did not take a seat and wait for table service. (Available sometimes) You order at the bar, sometimes carrying your drinks back to the table and waiting until a server arrives with your dinner. As often as not, you return to the bar to pay the bill. In every restaurant where we used our VISA card, there was no place on the machine to add a tip. It has to be done with cash. In some places they accept credit cards but put a surcharge on your bill. (I’m sure VISA frowns on this kind of discrimination.)

Something is happening in the culinary world. I would doubt that a place like Thornbury, say twenty years ago, would have had a really good restaurant. As TV shows for “foodies” proliferate, as celebrity chefs become stars, and as the wine lists grow larger and more discriminating – the food gets better and better. England is no exception. In an earlier blog I mentioned fish and chips at Rick Stein’s in Falmouth. Only later did I realize that he has become a “brand” – perhaps like the over-exposed, over-valued Gordon Ramsay who has made a career out of being a celebrity. Stein may be the hottest chef on British TV shows

In Thornbury there is Ronnies, which was named the best new restaurant in the UK I wouldn’t go that far, but it was pretty good. Also in Thornbury a hotel restaurant called “Mezzes.” By the name you would presume Greek. It was a sort of hodge-podge of Mediterranean foods from shishkabob to spreads. I have never, ever had “hummous” that compares with “Mezzes.”.

We head north for Stow and enter the realm of the everything in the Cotswolds for tourism. We stop every time but continue to find more and more antique shops and places to buy local crafts and cunning little tea rooms.. We ;pass from ?? to ?? then we come to a sign that points to “The Roman Villa” at Chedworth. We sometimes forget that the Romans were masters, occupiers, and long time residents of England for about 400 years. This “villa” first discovered on the 19th century, has now become the site of continuing archeological investigation and re-creation. For a villa presumed to be occupied by two families, it was remarkably large and luxurious. Occupied for 200 years, it included such quintessential Roman luxuries as baths, hot ones and cold ones, radiant heated rooms, spacious kitchens and latrines. The Romans brought that culture of progress with them.

If you read Bernard Cornwell, best known for his “Sharp” series, but wonderful on medieval times in England, he writes that the far more primitive people of Britain who followed the Roman departure understood little about Roman technology. Where the Romans had heated stone floors in their homes, the British lived kin huts with dirt floors. In the Cornwell books there is always some reference to a Roman wall or road that had fallen into disuse and ultimate decay.

The Cotswolds were pretty enough, but after a while everything starts to look the same. We finished our excursion in a town called Broadway, stopped for lunch, and pushed on with our search for access to the M5 and return to Thornbury.

Luck was on ojur side. A sign pointed to Sudeley Castle. We took the turn and drove endlessly. Often there are no signs giving distance. It was father than we thought,. But would bring us near Cheltenham and access to M5.

Sudely was a treat. A monument to nearly a thousand years of English history. Henry’s last queen,. Katherine Parr is remembered there. The chapel’s stained glass windows show her and Henry and other dignitaries. I was a little startled that when we entered the chapel there was a reminder that a contribution would be welcome. After paying 12.40 pounds (about $18) just to wander the grounds, we were asked for more!

The castle was occupied by permanent residents so the interior was completely closed to visitors. We paid the price to see – and it was worth it – a classic garden with topiary that rivals anything I have ever seen, Not the gargoyle-like figures in some pasrks, but yew trees trimmed to dozens of enormous shapes lined the gardens. Sheep (the ubiquitous ones) grazed in the fields. Had we not seen the sign and continued to depend on our “Country Roads of England (a great disappointment) we would have missed it completely.

We have one more week. Having joined the National Trust we now have a comprehensive book showing the location of dozens of castles and palatial estates. We hope for Wales. And soon I will take you to one of the great surprises in the west country – the re-invented city of Bristol. Remarkable!

Correction: thanks to my friend and historian Helen, ”The Lion in Winter” – played by Peter O’Toole, was Henry II not as I wrote Henry I.
Shows what name-dropping can do to your ego.

LETTER 6 - RAIN, WIND, HOPE

2011-09-15T05:43:00.002-04:00

NOTE: Response to my recent blogs QM2 and England, have been almost nil. Is it because your server is posting the blog as "junk? Is it because somehow nothing has been going through? Is it because you have no response? If all I wanted was to keep a record for my own use, I would not send out a blog. Please let me know what I should do. Meanwhile - here, for those who read it, another entry.

Typical late summer in South Gloucestershire, wind, rain, chance of sunshine. This time it has been aggravated by the tail end of the last Atlantic hurricane which lashed (that’s journalese cliché) the British Isles, especially Ireland and Scotland. Trees fell. One man was killed. The Brits carried on. We stayed in and hoped for change. Sunday was ferocious. Trees bending, rain pelting, forecast: more of the same. By Tuesday it had calmed to a light gale so we decided to make one short excursion in the afternoon.

Gloucester Cathedral is one of England’s most storied churches. Built in the 11th century it is described as combining many Gothic styles. To me is has that architecturally delightful look – the sturdy towers soaring into the sky ands topped with (I forget the architectural term) spindly Gothic towers. Inside it is massive with enormous heavy pillars supported the classic vaulted (There seems to be no “style” to them i.e. Doric, Ionian etc.)

Being an unbeliever does not prevent me from being awestruck by the structure. There is a spiritual quality about it (I usually detest “spiritual” wanderings) perhaps because it is so awesomely huge, possible because it contains and reflects a thousand years of history.
Henry I (see Peter O’Toole in Lion in Winter) haunts the place. Rumours abound that somehow Henry use this place to hide his older brother Robert, whose right to succeed their father William, was usurped by Henry. There are, as is characteristic in these cathedrals, many chapels and tombs. I was attracted to the spot that alleges it is the burying; place of Edward II. He was known by most as the great lawmakers. He is known by some as the king who expelled the Jews. They were invited back by Oliver Cromwell.
There is always speculation about how Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice. Suspicion is that there must have been Jews around – even though he patterned Shylock after the worst legendary evil qualities of the Jews. (Strange of course that he redeemed them in the famous “Do I not…” speech. That’s another story.

Gloucester also has a waterfront and was once a bustling port. (I don’t know how it connects to the sea – directly, by estuary, or by river. But there are dozens of restored warehouses, a large marina, and promenade. There is a tribute to “The Fighting Glosters” (sic) commemorating their part in the Korean War.

The next day dawns bright, sunny, blue skies. Time for another day trip, the one I have most looked forward to: a day in Bath, on of the country’s gems and home of the most faithfully reproduced Roman Baths. I hoped also to get a better look at the famous Georgian architecture – the beautiful uniform Georgian town houses. (The real thing, as op posed to the “faux Georgian” that abounds in Toronto where everyone who lives there is pretending to come from old family.) I exaggerate.

First mistake. I miss another cutoff going on a roundabout. We are headed away from Bath on the M4. The M4 is one of those severely limited access highways. You can go 15 or 20 miles before you can turn around. I had planned to stop at a “Park and Ride”
and take a bus into the city centre. My highway mistake was remedied, courtesy of Tomtom by sending me, not back to M4 but to an “A” carriageway, sometimes not divided but two lanes. As much as I had to concentrate on driving, I could enjoy the quilt-like fields that spread out below the highway – farms with fields of green and gold and hedgerows looking neat and nearly perfect.

As I suspected, we were headed straight into Bath without a Park and Ride anywhere in sight. Miraculously found a large parking garage just a few steps away from the city centre. Stopped for a classic English lunch at the Hong Kong Noodle Restaurant. Astonishingly good but too challenging to finish. Started walking along the suggested two hour walking tour which would take us toe both the Abbey and the Roman Baths. Tiring much too easily, we took a “hop on hop off” tour bus. We “hopped off” at the Baths.

The fun began. I detest having to fight crowds just to get close enough to look. The slavering crowds at the Baths reminded my of a day spent dodging tour bus tourists at the Alhambra and trying to get close enough through ravening crowds at the Louvre fighting for enough space to see the Mona Lisa. The Roman Baths are right up there.

The restoration is perfect. Not only is the enormous spring fed pool surrounded by people, but so are all the other fascinating exhibits. There are all kinds of restored Roman artifacts. The frustration is that you can’t ever get a photo shot that doesn’t have the heads and other body parts of other tourists straining for a look. I am not so unrealistic to suppose that this is not part of tourism. I only wonder why the management does not meter the admissions so that everyone can get a decent view. They don’t. The groups pour in one entrance. The individuals in another. It is bedlam. And it is tiring. Having waited all this time to see what restoration has brought (I visited Bath in 1975 when restoration was in progress but there was nothing much to see) we decide on one stop at the adjacent Abbey.

It is worth a look. It is perhaps just another Gothic pile, or perhaps I’m becoming jaded. Perhaps I was exhausted. Perhaps we should get in the car and find our way home to Thornbury. It takes about 45 minutes just to find our way out of Bath. Worth it? Better to fight the crowds and gripe than to stay home and wonder.

Tomorrow we head for the thatched roof cottages of the Cotswolds.

LETTER 5 CORNWALL - CROWDS - FOG - EDEN.

2011-09-11T11:44:00.001-04:00

The road is barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Heading toward me is a leviathan – a huge tractor. The machine has an enormous motor-driven trimming mechanism and he is trimming the top of his more than ten-foot-high hedgerow. He moves relentlessly toward me. I have no alternative but to back up until I find a place where the road widens. After several muddy impacts with the hedgerow, I make it. He lumbers on, turns in the roadway where I have waited, and waves acknowledgement. What choice did I have! We are lost somewhere on the back roads still looking for signage to lead us to the King Henry ferry. It was late afternoon of our third day.

Day one. Thursday, Finally we are in St. Ives. Nothing like what I expected. It hangs from steep hills the way Nice hangs from the slopes of the Alpes Mediterranee. Our Cornwall discovery drive will begin. But first….

It is spitting rain, a fine mist that comes and goes. I decided that we should use a “wasted” rain day to begin our next “excursion:” Cornwall starting at St. Ives. Long tedious drive made worse by the Tomtom GPS – made to drive you mad. The voice finally started working but not well. Following the explicit instructions we headed west. We were told to get on M5, then told to exit. No sooner had we exited than we were told again to head for M5. Maybe it was my fault – some costly error in the maze of directions on a roundabout. At one point I drove an extra 30 miles, only because we were sent (for the last time) to M5 – sent in the wrong direction and having to drive 15 miles before we could turn around and resume. If the GPS had belonged to me and not to our exchanger, who is now happily n Toronto using my Garmin GPS, I would have tossed it out of the car window accompanied by vile and foul imprecations.

A note in passing. I have never been so shouted at or so honked at angrily, than on this trip. I found myself wondering: do people in Toronto honk impatiently at anyone who seems either to be confused, disoriented, or simply slowing down to read the signs? Perhaps we do. I am impatient when someone seems to be driving slowly as if looking for a place to park. I identify them as visitors and cut them some slack. Here I have not been given that kind of latitude. If I dare slow down on a roundabout so that I can easily see which of the many directions I should take, there is angry horn-honking. Even worse, when I am a little confused and have to pull over to check things out, the anger behind me exploded – especially if I have made a sudden turn off the roadway. One man rolled down his window and let fly with expletive-loaded scolding. My response was that while I may have turned in without notice, he, as the following car, has the responsibility to stay clear or be able to stop. Maybe not in England. I am thinking of printing a sign for the back window “Tourist – please be kind.”

Returning to the tried and true we opened a map, took the correct route from Exeter, arriving tired in St. Ives several hours later. The next hour was spent fruitlessly looking for accommodation. None available. I had thought that the “season” was over when the kids went back to school. Not in St. Ives. They have a huge music festival starting in a couple of days. After an hour found a room in the Badger Inn. Room tiny. Kleenex unavailable. Bathroom exhaust fan continued to run annoyingly loudly for several minutes after the light was turned off. On the plus side the food was surprisingly good, and there were sweeties topped with clotted cream. (Later in the trip I would “get into it” with a woman in Cornwall who adamantly told me that the clotted cream in Cornwall was the best, in spite of Devon having the reputation for it.) I was a little surprised. I thought “cream.” Whitish? Not so. Looks more like butter..

Today we try – with some success this time – to find a tourist information booth so we can pick up a map and go discovering St. Ives famous galleries, including a branch of the Tate. By 10 am it”s getting crowded. No parking anywhere on the street. The parking lots are as high as you can get in St. Ives. Walking into town is easy – all downhill. Getting back will be the problem. (Turns out we found the bus that goes there.)

The Tate is a masterpiece but we chose, unwisely I think, to take a guided tour. The young man , artist in residence for nearly 20 years talked and talked and talked. We saw most of what was on one floor – exciting work by Gabo, and a fun piece of hundreds of white balloons riding on a curtain of air. But by this time my usual gallery “fatigue” had set in. We established ourselves at a table in a small restaurant overlooking the ocean and a huge sandy beach and dozens of surfers. An exquisite vista. We were simply played out. The Barbara Hepworth Museum would have to wait, perhaps forever.

Observations. Too many people visiting a strange place get into a taxi and let the cab driver tell them everything that is right and wrong with the people, the politiucians and liofe itself.. I find that deplorable. But what about a bus driver? Sitting on the bus at the seaside esplanade he announced:. “St. Ives” isn’t what it used to be, The best properties are being picked u-p by rich people from London. Everything has become so commercial. Right here (pointing to the land overlooking the sea) used to be Council Houses. (Subsidized housing so well known in Britain.) Now it’s all luxury buildings that only the rich can afford.”

I thought suddenly of the Ford brothers and their plan for Toronto’s Portlands. They seem taken not by how the lands can be made a part of the dynamic of good living in our city and a magnet for visitors. Instead they see it as a chance to exploit property values: a big shopping mall to be built by a world-famous Australian firm known for the blandness and detachment from the outside world, a ferris wheel, and more and more condos. Nothing wrong with that if all you want is to maximize profit, which seems to have happened here in St. Ives. The human factor, alas, seems to have fallen into a distant second place.

Leaving the seaside we ventured along a street, hoping to see some of what makes St. Ives famous. Yes, there were a few galleries, but nothing in them that would alarm a middle-class tourist. There were snack shops. Every other shop it seemed, was selling fudge. Of course, it was, according to the signage – unique – and very Cornish. To me it was more of the same-old-same-old. Either we couldn’t find it or the vaunted St. Ives chic is not there.

We awaken on day three to fog. Our waitress at breakfast says that Cornwall is “socked in.” It was not a pea-souper, where you could barely see your hand in front of your face. But it was unpleasant. Visibility on the road was perhaps 50 metres. Everyone else drove fast. I crept. Impatient drivers would swerve out into the fog and tear by us.

Because it was “there” and on the way – we drove through Penzance. No pirates. Fog, palm trees, guest houses, B&Bs, and hotels A boat basin with all the boats high and dry. Low tide.

The real disappointment was that we could not see any of the seaside sights. St. Michael’s Mount has a 12th century castle, now a private home, that can be walked to at low tide and boated to when the tide was in. We pulled into the parking lot. There were tour coaches parked. Fog or no fog it was on their schedule. All I could see was a stretch of tidal flat disappearing into the fog. I am guessing that some of the more intrepid took off shoes and socks and walked across the mud to the castle. Most seemed to be standing around and staring.

We ;passed through the pretty village of Marazion and headed once more into the fog. Of course it is complicated by twist and turn, impatient drivers, and widths that terrify me when another car approaches. I have still not quite grasped the “feel” of the car and a sense of how close I am to the hedgerow on one side and the oncoming car on the other. There is a lot of breath-holding. And of course there are impatient drivers behind me. From time to time, if I spot a “layover” I will pull in and let the impatient roar on ahead.

We stumble on Trelisick Grdens. (It was once again, not in the guide book.) We decided that it wouold b e cheaper to join the National Trust and get free parking and free admission to all their listed properties. Trelissick was one of them It actually turned out to be a good deal. For the price – something over 30 pounds, we got a ten pound voucher, our parking fee of 3.50 was refunded and we got to walk through exquisite gardens covering many acres of foliage, tries, and lawns. (English lawns are evergreen – the upside of the continuing rain.) On the way out we used our voucher for what the menu calls “cream tea.” It is more. A large pot of tea with hot water to add, two crumbly scones, a little pot of clotted cream and a jar of jam. For the two of us, under 10 pounds! It would, we discover, take the place of dinner at our next stop.

Before we stop, another castle visit, the one with the hair-raising confrontation with the hedgerow-trimming juggernaut. Turning right as we leave the garden, it is a short drive to the road leading to King Henry’s Ferry. I am assured that it is a better way to go than the land route which is another 20 miles through Truro. They were wrong! The ferry crosses a “river” which I think is a port estuary. Two large ships are anchored, waiting, I presume for docking instructions. The ferry takes us across but then there is a 6 mile twisting road drive to the fortress. We almost don’t stop. We pass the fortress without seeing a place to park. We continue on down a hill into the town. People are walking up the hill, a long dreary trudge to the castle, not made any more pleasant by the light misty rain. Shirley informs me that she is not walking. I go back to in what I think will be a fruitless search for a place to park. Eureka. A small sign points to the castle parking lot.

It is a masterpiece. Built as part of a chain of forts by Henry V!!! in around 1550 is is marvelously preserved. We enter and congratulate ourselves for having joined Nationsl Trust. Turns out this ;place is run by the English Heritage society or something. We pay. It’s worth it. Heavy stone blocks that, according to the gatekeeper, are the original with very little renovation or repair required. The rooms are stark. The walls thick. Cannons point out to see, presumably in the direction of hostile French or Spanish forces.
Strange, you tend to think of Henry as the gay divorcer, forgetting that as king, however venal and savage the kings of his day all were, he did protect England. To be cynical about it – not for his people but for himself - his own privately held fief.

The trip back, looking for the ferry was highlighted by the encounter with the hedge trimmer and occasionally, with cars tearing in the opposite direction totally confident that there will be no collision. After many false starts and bad turns we spot the ferry and make our way back to the road.

We arrive in Falmouth, once one of Britain’s principal ports and embarkation port for the Shackleton Antarctic expedition. The town is teeming with tourists. I observe that most of the tourists who arrive by car are Brits. The ones arriving by tour coach are Europeans. Falmouth is not listed as a “must see “in “Back Roads of Great Britain.” Surprising. The Marine Museum is a wonderful compendium of the sea and of explorations, with the accent on Antarctic exploration. The complex of buildings which include the museum, are wonderfully designed. The facing of the buildings is all weathered wood. The biggest surprise was Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips. The word must have gotten out. The place was pretty full, The food and th4e service were perfect. There were almost to many fish and chip choices – from battered to grilled to fried. We chose to split (old folks split portions) an order of battered sole. Perfect. Chips done the way they should be – cooked through then fried for crispness. A little light for my taste, but we didn’t leave a single chip. They had ginger beer. Not just any ginger beer. There were choice. I picked “hot.” It had an extra tangy kick. To finish we shared a treacle tart with clotted cream. On the way out I noticed a large bookshelf with travel books and food books all written by Rick Stein. Where have I been all this time?

From Falmouth our next stop would be the famous “Eden Project.” But first, a stop for the night. We find a B&B on the main road and bedded down without dinner. The cream tea snack was enough. Observation: another Englishman, our host, gives us all the inside stuff on what’s wrong with England. (He reminded me in his scorn for government of the Viet Nam vet we met on the QM2.) He had been a farmer. His first target was the control of food prices and marketing by the supermarket chains. He was angry that marketing boards disappeared with the joining the EU. Then he told me how brainless politicians were. Then he blamed unions. He didn’t seem to know where to focus his anger. He seems also to believe that Thatcher was good for England, just as so many Americans, out of touch with the facts, believe Reagan was good for America.

Final stop. Maybe the best of all: The Eden Project. The entire complex was built by private charities. They found a worked-out clay quarry, dug a little deeper, and created a masterpiece of exotic space covered by enormous geodesic domes, which they call “biomes.”. \

You reached the “biomes” walking along winding paths with lavish plant and horticultural displays. Palm trees, dahlia bushes, plants I had never heard of. Each carried the message of conservation and the nurturing of the world we live in. Eden Project is an evangelist for the environment, for renewable energy, for natural foodstuffs.

Each biome led seamlessly to the next. We started at the Mediterranean. It was a massive collection of plan t life from temperate climates – everything from Italy to the American south-west, from South Africa to Saharan Africa. Paths twisted and turned. Hundreds of plants and trees were marked. Flowers we all coupled with descriptions of where they came from. The Tropical rain forest was as you would expect – jungle and forest from Africa. Asia, Indonesia, Australia. The wood used was bamboo. The arguments made were for sustainable resources. It would gladden the heart of every devout tree-hugger.

I confess. I find many of these people tiresome. I am an environmentalist but not a zealot. I do my part by separating garbage, by using public transit, and when highway driving maintaining a fuel saving, pollution saving speed, and we buy our own supermarket shopping bags I want us to learn bout biofuels and biomass power generation. I do not march in demonstrations against the killing of baby harp seals.
What was absolutely overwhelming was not just the message of living without the environmental chaos, it was the massive enterprise of conceiving and building the project. One of the ironies of course it that enorous fuel-burning trucks and machinery were needed,

There are still people who want to do a project dedicated to the environment by using only primitive tools and lots of willing manpower. You couldn’t have built Eden Project with good intentions. Some small wrinkles like a little mock train station where we took the land train back up the hills to the welcome office. It was made entirely from scraps of wood, old window sashes, doors, and windblown lumber. Cute.

The drive back was clear but horrible black clouds darkened the horizon. We managed to skirt most of the rain. Arrived “home” exhausted. Tomorrow, a day of rest.

LETTER #4 HELLO LORNA DOONE

2011-09-07T05:04:00.002-04:00

LETTER #4 – HELLO LORNA DOONE

A crow raucously signals the start of a sunny day. Maybe he was just signaling some road kill.Out my window I see two fat sheep grazing in a hillside pen. At the crest of the hill there are more sheep. It is the beginning of our second day and we are in Somerset. We’re headed for the sun-tossed (we hope) surf off the coast of Devon and the Bristol Channel. Our host Jan, a former engineer, who with her husband David, own the B&B we have chosen - tells me that the two sheep are pets. Their owner is a “Horse Whisperer” much in demand for her laying on of hands and curing sick animals. She visits her sheep regularly. Are they one day to become food? Certainly not. They are her pets. Raised from infancy. They will die natural deaths and will not be sent to a dog food slaughterhouse but interred with respect.

Our high hopes for picturesque West Somerset began at Taunton. The town and much of the countryside have a long and colourful history dating back to before the Civil War. No one seemed able to tell me if Taunton was Royalist or Puritan. Finally found the famous castle only to discover that the renovation s and conversion to a museum, which the guidebook had said would be finished in 2010, were still underway. (It reminded me of the Orangerie in Paris where the announced dates for finishing renovations were delayed again and again, finally re-opening last year after many years of delay.)

Taunton, like many cities everywhere, has closed a large street to traffic. This one was a little sad, almost tawdry. No chic boutiques. The restaurants – except for a Burger King and a café across the road – were closed. We had our first High Tea. It did not disappoint. Dainty sandwiches, scones (no clotted cream) quiche and other little delicacies. But that, and the outside of the castle, were all we got to see of Taunton. Getting out and back on the road was a challenge, around and around we went never finding the highway. Frustrated, I finally turned on the TomTom GPS, which refused (and continues to refuse) to talk to us. Eventually we found our planned route which would take us to our planned overnight – Washford.

After an aborted look at a B&B whose only virtue seemed to be its price, we found Jan and David in their wonderful oak-beamed cottage; “Monkscider” named for the monks who has used it as a cider mill. (This part of Somerset is apple country, but not everyone knows it. More in a minute.)

Jan, she was an engineer, and David, has was and still is a writer and magazine editor, bought the place several years ago and proceeded to embellish it, almost too much, with pictures, knick knacks and all very tasteful adornments. Our room was a-flutter with things like marionettes hanging from a rafter. Jan promised us that we must spend at least a day exploring her part of Somerset. We booked a second night and hit the road early to the next town, Williton, where we would find an ATM machine. Monkscider, like many B&Bs does not accept credit cards. On the way, a fortuitous wrong turn led us to Wachet, a little place clinging to the side of the hill leading to the sea. Narrow streets. Cunning little shops and ;pubs. A promenade with a statue of the Ancient Mariner. Below the boat basin with fishing boats and pleasure yachts.
Scenery abounds. Hills everywhere. The “highway” rolls, twists and turns, rises and falls with the hills and challenges my sense of space as cars whiz by in the opposite direction and I hold my breath hoping not to graze a mountainous hedgerow. Highlight of the day: a trip to the once-wrecked (courtesy of Henry VIII) now mainly restored Cleeve Abbey, a Cistercian monks monastery dating from 1188. Interesting conversation with the woman in the shop who sells the tickets. She complained that people seem not to know about the abbey. That day, excluding a group of students on a field trip, there were, including the two of us, just 12 visitors. Thousands are missing one of the loveliest cloisters I had ever seen, mainly restored. For the children - a treat. They are given monks robes with cowls and shuffled along, looking very Cistercian, from one stone chamber to another.

One wasted afternoon. Jan suggested w ride the steam train thr0ough and around part of Exmoor with step-off step-on stops along the way. Landscapes, when you could see them. Beautiful. Otherwise, bad advice.

We left the Abbey and stopped for a little thirst-quencher at the White Horse Inn just up the road. There I meet a young female bartender who proves to me that my notions of many young people living in their own cocooned world remain unclear about what surrounds them. Making light of it, I asked her if the beer was cold, having been served a Boddington’s pint at room temperature in Taunton. She said she didn’t know. She doesn’t drink beer. Later I asked her about apples. She didn’t know. “You are in the heart of apple country. Look there -a tree full of red fruit.” She hadn’t noticed!

In fact, when I told Jan the story, she was appalled. Said she’d speak to the owners who happen to be friends of hers. In this part of the world everyone is “friends,” even though unless your great-great-great grandfather had tended sheep on the hilly pastures, you were still (as they say in the Maritimes) “from away.” Jan said that was the way it was.

I told her about having read in the wonderful novel “Maine” about an Irish-American family from Boston’s “Southie” – and the comment that Americans all seem to want to be from somewhere else. After generations the family in the book clung to their Irishness. I commented about a sweet lady we had sat next to on a bench in Thornbury. She was English to the core. I got the sense, and I have always had it, that the English are English, even if they come from somewhere else. Sometimes that clinging to heritage can be annoying when you have English friends who have lived in Canada for thirty years and still speak of “home.” Another story.

Dunster Castle was next. A huge well preserved (thanks to National Trust) castle with a view of Bristol Channel. A storied castle that was seized by the Royalists and then besieged by Cromwell’s forces. The walls are covered in portraits, more than a few by the likes of Joshua Reynolds. The usual elaborate bedroom and formal sitting rooms. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see palm tress thriving in the beautiful gardens.

More hills and narrow-escape roads take us to Selworthy which is, according to “Back Roads of Great Britain” is a must-see for its collection of thatched roof cottages. Ho-hum. Not worth the drive, except for those wonderful moments where you came to the crest of yet another hill and the countryside spread before you.

Next morning said farewell to Jan and headed for Lynmouth. But on the way, a breathtaking view of everything from the famous Porlock Hill. Drivers are advised to avoid the steep hill, especially in the rain, and take the toll road that winds its way via numerous switchbacks to the summit and heart-stopping views of the sea below. Even more enthralling was the twisting “toll road” through a lush rain forest. Canopies of green. Enormous tress, looking like the famed Douglas firs. Along the way you pay a toll and proceed through more woods. Suddenly you break free of the forest and drive along the narrow roads at the crest. Below you is Lorna Doone Country – Exmoor, where the Doone brigands terrorized the countryside and Blackmore got his inspiration. The result was the book almost everyone read in high school lit.

On and up and more up. Then the descent began into Lynmouth. There is a hall memorializing the death of 34 people. You could see why. Even after a bit of rain, the Lyn rivers poured in a torrent from the gorge. Stopped for pictures and my first Cornish pasty. Flaky, delicious and we’re not even in Cornwall.

The rest of the day was a waste, except for a long drive along a one-car-wide road to Barnstaple. That was a stop we could have missed. Wandered around the town fruitlessly looking for the once important waterfront. Gave up. Back to Thornbury the fast way.
Next – we go look for the “man with seven wives.”

LETTER # 3 - ENGLAND AT LAST

2011-09-02T12:33:00.002-04:00

Apologies for getting sick our first five days in England in bed. Up today and ready to see things and remember,

First, leaving the Queen without having done everything – from dance lessons to duplicate bridge, I don’t feel cheated. The final night was about as vulgar as possible, only because vulgar is what I usually ascribe to any show that is like Vegas – loud and showbizzy. The Cunard singers and dancers opened with a meaningless but well done set of songs and dances, Then came the classic first three buttons open swagger of the Vegas hitmaker – Joel Bennett. Yes, he did do the lead in Les Miz. Yes, he did the lead in the Broadway flop musical based on Cyrano. But here he was, belting it out. He also has a deep and profound side, which you can see the minute he starts talking about Jimmy Webb and the drama surrounding the cake left out in the rain in McArthur Park. He did an Italians song and archly commented: “Why do I sing in Italian? Because I can.” The audience seems to be mainly the same kinds of people who still want to hear Bobby Vinton and kept Celine Dionne running for years – middle aged throwbacks to the fifties and still hoping for a return of Doris Day.

My friend who hates this kind of talk will once again suggest that I am becoming vituperative. Not at all – just terrible superior.

We hacve an early call dor departure. Characteristically, we both lie awake in anticipation. There was a short burst of sleep somewhere around 4 a.m. We trudged wearily to breakfast then to the disembarkation procedure which are nothing if not tedious. On a signal from the tanoy (or whatever their speaker system is) we on deck 11 herd ourselves to the club on deck 7 where we await orders. We are cleared for departure. Down and down we go arriving at the disembarkation point. Having been cleared by customs while still on board, we have only to check out and collect or luggage. It always seems like an eternity of shuffling slowly to the front of the line. It wasn’t. Our bags were where they were supposed to be. We had no trouble getting a taxi. He had to stop on the way to the train station so I could visit an ATM. An anxious moment: at five minutes before arrival of our train to Bristol, we were told to go to a different platform which meant take the elevator up and then another down and we rushed to get a train that was so crowded there wasn't enough room to change your mind. I’d done it! Our arrival coincided with the last bank holiday of the season and the back-to-school date for millions. The train was a zoo. Our baggage stayed in the hallway. We did find two seats which for me were knee-bruisers. The train was a local making every stop. By the time we reached Bristol it was half full.

Our host was at the station He greeted Shirley with a kiss and me with a hearty handshake – lugged all our stuff to his car and off we went. Graham is a classic. Retired young, his “Lanky” accent is still strong. He took us briefly through his town - Thornbury – small town ex.-urban chic.

I had already started to cough – incessantly. One more tour of the town and we returned for dinner. I ate well, thanks to his loquacious and charming Mary, an Irish girl and mother of their three grown children and numerous grandchildren; I excused myself and hit the sack so I could cough in private.

Thornbury is our first look at a small English town. It holds about 15,000. It is neither quaint nor clever. There are no thatched roof cottages, (that I could see) clever little pubs left over from the reign of Henry IV. There are many old stone houses, some of them stuccoed, perhaps to give them a Regency look. There are no high rise buildings – no office building, no condos – just human scale. There is something slightly “precious” about it all. We parked in a huge free parking lot right next to a clever little mall which leads to the High Street. Graham told us they were especially fussy about “how” you parked. They did not like anyone parking improperly. You had to be within the lines and not even touching a line. I’m not sure what the penalty is for this enormous malfeasance.

The high street reminds you of every ex-urban community that found itself part of the flight from the city. Chic little shops – like perhaps what you would see in Unionville, or the old part of Markham or perhaps Uxbridge. Holding enough small town charm to make you feel peaceful I guess.

It makes me miss the sound of fire sirens churning by yet all hours along Wellington...

LETTER #3 - TOMORROW SOUTHAMPTON

2011-08-28T10:07:00.002-04:00

After one day of reltively heavy weather with wind and rain we awoke this morning to the Atlantic looking like a millpond. The day then begam as it has for the past three - a musical morning with Hugh. I look forward to his congeniality, his encyclopedic memory for music and his tendency to logharaeia. (Heaven knows how to spell that one. I'm already in pain from a response reminding me about improperly proof read blogs.)

Last night I endured (my friends will understand) a 3D performance of Carmen. I apologize I guess, for being unfriendly to most opera which , like last night's Carmen is actually a few wonderful arias interspersed with endless melodrama. Besides, the mezzo who sang Carmen tried far too hard to be sensuously sexy and slithery. She carressed and made faces, she slid her skirt tantlizingly up a rather too-large leg. At intermission I pleaded sleepiness and Shirley followed my, grudgingly, back to our cabin.

By now it is mid-afterboob and we have just come through our first, and heavily anticipated chamber music conert. Alas, it was more of a parade of chamber favourites than a concert. Appalingly, perhaps because the acoustics in the theatre are not made for music, the instruments were elctrically "enhanced." It made the music sound like it was telephoned in from the next room. The Adagio String Quartet played, without interruption nine selections starting with Corelli and ending with the Pizzicato Polka with stops in between for the Pachelbell Canon, Handel's Arrival of The Queen of Sheba. The four ladies stayed in their seats and the audience, tiny, appluaded a little between each selection.

Tonight we look forward to another performance by Joel Bennett, the star of Les Miz. What he does is pure Las Vegas. But it is, however heavily embellished, well done.

And a bit of redemption. Lunch today included roast prime rib. It was perfect! Cunard hs been vindicated. Did they really need my stamp of approval?

LETTER #2 THE QUEEN GETS CLOSER

2011-08-26T12:55:00.001-04:00

Letter #2 – THE QUEEN GETS CLOSER
Friday August 26 and with three days to go I finally met what I had dreaded, an American with “attitude.” Sitting at a table next to us, a gangly man in his 60’s is wearing a Viet Nam Veteran peaked cap complete with the gold braid. The cap is an invitation to others of like age and mind to join him. One does. He’s a man in his 80s who trumps Viet Nam with his stories about WW2 landings in Okinawa.

The response from the Viet Nam vet was something like: “We dropped two nucular (sic) bombs on them and ten years later they were running high speed trains. I was there on R&R (from Viet Nam) and they were better off than most Americans.”

But what really got me cranked up was earlier in our conversation when he declared that “all politicians are corrupt and on the take. Name me one who isn’t. My own congressman from Arizona admitted as such.” So, instead of meeting an Ugly American, I met an Angry one. Really, not so much “angry” as completely disillusioned,
to the point that he believed American s were being “taken for a ride by
politicians.” In spite of his condemnation of politicians, he seemed to be thriving.
I didn’t dare get into things like health care or economics – I’d have had an earful of stuff like: “Too much government.”

He even declared that our old enemies made better cars than “we” did and that all American cars were not worth the money.

It was not long Ago that one of my blogs was all about how negativity has tarnished all politicians. How were have so degraded them that we are losing faith in the entire institution of politics. We do have it in Canada, but nothing like the disaffection and alienation Americans – while still believing they live in the greatest country on earth - have to endure.

I would have to be that this man votes about as far Right as you can get. Everything about him was cynicism mixed with patriotism. But what came through for me was that he had been anaesthetized by events and instead of trying to change things, simply wants no more to do with it. But I’m betting that if there were a national emergency – he’d be back volunteering, just as he had volunteered to go to Viet Nam.

It was an eye-opener. For the past couple of days my connections seem to have been to nothing but middle class Brits and their families and their eternal need to find other middle class Brits to talk to. A couple we sat next to yesterday chatted with us briefly until another couple arrived and they could talk about Blighty to each other. Do I sound cynical?

The crossing has become rather humdrum. What there is to see we have seen. What there is to do is more of the same. Last night we were treated to a show in the big theatre.
A man named Bob Arno, billed as the world’s only legal pickpocket, treated us to a hilarious evening as he literally undressed several passengers while relieving them of credit cards, watches and wallets.
Now I am sitting next to the door to the balcony. To my right the sun “glisters” (thank y0ou John Keats) off an endless ocean. Shirley is wrapped up in a book. I too have a book, appropriately “Atlantic” by one of my favourites – Simon Winchester. I have to quote him because he writes in an evocative way I can only dream off. He is still a youth and is taking his first ocean voyage – the Empress of Britain from Liverpool to Montréal.
The ship is off Newfoundland when suddenly it stops. An RCAF plane appears and drops, via parachute, a package containing a drug needed by a suddenly sick elderly woman. The engines start up and they resume the passage. Winchester writes: “There was something uncanny about the sudden silence, the emptiness, the realization of the enormous depths below us and the limitless heights above, the universal grayness of the scene, the very evident and potentially terrifying power of the rough seas and the wind, and thru fact that despite our puny human powerlessness and insignificance, invisible radio beams and Morse code signals had summoned readily offered help from far away.”
I am humbled by Winchester knowing that the best I can come up with is the clichéd “trackless ocean” which spreads itself around us.

Finally, for those who have cruised and expect groaning tables of continuous food, this transatlantic trip doesn’t have it. I am still trying to get a decent breakfast. Yesterday we tried the Britannia Room for breakfast. It started well with two small puffy triangles of French toast but quickly went downhill with corned beef hash that was so salty it would have killed anyone with high blood pressure. When I complained, I was told that it came from a can from their supplier. I told them to speak to their supplier. I didn’t get into kitchen orthodoxy which preaches that no decent chef allows food to be taken from the kitchen unless he has tasted it. Shame on Cunard for that one.

We had even tried an alternative to the wonderful dinner in the Britannia and headed for “The Carvery.” It consisted to a typical buffet “bain marie” with an assortment of pre-cooked meat dishes. The only “carved” meat was desperately overcooked pork tenderloin accompanied by soggy roast potatoes. Tonight we return to the safe haven of the Britannia.

This afternoon we’ll do a movie in the “Illuminations” room.

If these words are a bit hard to follow blame the slight rolling of the ship. Nothing is perfect – but we’re close. The slight roll and my having to concentrate on a moving computer screen is have an unwanted effect.

LETTER #1 - NORTH ATLANTIC

2011-08-25T07:54:00.000-04:00

Standing next to me in the men’s loo, a gentleman asks: Is today Tuesday?” There was a kind of wry amusement in his question, my own amusement that we had bee on board the Queen Mary Two since only last night. The sense of time will attenuate as the week goes on. But for now, everything is new, brilliant, eye-catching and seductive. It all makes the time seem to stand almost still.

Enough poetic wool-gathering. We have been on this remarkably calm and serene ocean for almost two fays. Today there is a breeze and a long ocean swell has developed a swell that this superb piece of marine engineering has conquered – so far. She is living up to all the advance billing about the engineering that reduces (but doesn’t eliminate) any sense of pitch and roll. Only a delicate swing. I worried that Shirley would find it uncomfortable, given her distaste for travel by water, Not at all.

I had hoped that I could, as in past “letters” deliver some kind o observations about the “who” and “what” of my fellow travellers. The first surprise was that the passengers, whom I had expected to belong to my own geriatric class, included hundreds of young people, young families, singles and seekers and even at least one aging but still predatory unmarried women from Arizona.

We have just come from a lecture (to a packed theatre) by famed British journalist and independent M.P. Martin Bell. He is the elder statesman among British TV journalists and he took us on a trip through the world’s past as he reported it – Bosnia, Yemen, Darfur – and points in between. He has been q witness to history. He served most recently with UNICEF. His “take” on war, is predictable and he sometimes seems more interested in amusing than enlightening his audience. But he is good at it.

Before that an unexpected breakfast treat: a conversation with Hugh Petter. He does “lecture recitals” and is one of many celebrity attractions we meet every day. I heard him yesterday in a recital with commentary. His commentaries were amusing, but then I love anything to do with music. He playing was not up to the same standard. He was, to put it simply – sloppy – missing notes, “faking” passages he couldn’t or wouldn’t handle. He trudged along through Beethoven and a very flawed “Pathetique” sonata. Then some Schubert and a musical massacre of Grieg’s Wedding at Troldhaugen. I’m exaggerating. He plays better than I do.

I saw him at breakfast and asked if I could join him. What do I say now? Your playing was slipshod? What followed was about two hours of my favourite conversation with musicians about music. We ranged from Bach thr9ough Beethoven. He is encyclopedic about chamber music and hummed parts of Schubert and Beethoven. We got into very special themes, like the repetitive theme that Sibelius used in his – I think – seventh symphony. We had a grand time chewing through Dvorak and Debussy, through the great \artists like Horowitz and Rubenstein, with a detour for Martha Argerich. I was in a state of bliss and I forgot totally about his playing.

I had hoped to be able to observe some common quality about people who tackle a sea passage and how they compare with the gluttonous “cruise” patron s who gorge themselves at very opport7unity on a 24 hour smorgasbord then troop off collectively to the next port of call where they infest the streets and jam the stores. (That is a completely unqualified observation. I have never r taken a cruise (except for two river cruises, and have only the reports of friends to base my comments on.)
I worried that the table assigned to us in the huge Britannia Room would be with an overweight couple of hard-right Republican s from somewhere in the Midwest. Instead we struck gild. A real estate man from San Francisco, twice divorced and on his way to a family wedding in Cortona. An undisguised liberal. A German couple who seem on the one hand to be concerned about how the Right has taken over managing the American economy, while at the same time bemoaning the fact that hard-working Germans are being asked to bail out a Greece, a county of lazy ne’er-do-wells. For spice we were joined by a couple of English women, one a doctoral candidate in motion picture arts, the other a ballet teacher – both with wide ranging and humourous points of view. In all, a fortuitous assembly for us. There was only one bump in the road – lunch today with a couple from London Ontario I “picked up” on the way into the dining room. She was Scottish and didn’t seem to have an “off” switch on her mouth.

I promised I wouldn’t spend a lot of time talking food. If you’
If you've cruised you know all about it. The Britannia Room food was superb, the service impeccable. I remember a few items: a gently poached piece of Boston Cod, a tenderloin that was broiled with care, and a rack of lamb pink and perfect. However, I learned again, to my dismay that breakfast buffets are all the same: rubbery eggs, cold bacon, indigestible pancakes and not even close to laky croissants.

Briefly – a note about performances. There is nightly fare in a spacious theatre. The first was a knockout cabaret performance by the star of the Los Angeles production of “Les Miz” and last night a meaningless pastiche called “Viva Italia” – a pointless, but well performed string of Italianesque songs (sung in English) and danced to with vigour but not much else. No plot. No script. No meaning. A kind of mindless “Mama Mia.”

It is already Thursday morning, and I am finishing this off on the way to a better breakfast.

IF THEY SAY SO - IT HAS TO BE GOOD

2011-08-21T08:34:00.002-04:00

I used to be a copywriter – a good copywriter. My partner and I won prizes for copywriting, even though I had to remind him not to write stuff like: “There’s two things etc…” told him he meant “there ARE…” but the mistake has flourished until today everyone, even educated people who actually know how to read use a singular verb with a plural subject.

I got sidetracked. This was supposed to be about the fine art of writing advertising copy.

So much “copy” has deteriorated into mindless jargon that it no longer is a question of truth or accuracy. Today I nearly fell off the chesterfield as a TV commercial announced that a special cheeseburger was made with “naturally aged Cheddar Cheese.” AS OPPOSED TO WHAT? Artificially aged and if so, by what chemical magic do you age cheese?

The other one that has my brain frying is the claim by Tim Hortons that their “Smoothie” contains a “full helping of fruit.” What pray tell is a “full” helping? It is a bowlful, a dessert-sized portion?. It is none of those. It is a mindless bit of fake hyperbole that some copywriter put down, and that some artistic director approved and that some client accepted.

Nonsense!

While I’m here doing my typically purist, elitist carping about language. On ABC News a reporter in Libya, announcing that Ghadaffi’s end may be near said: “He’S up against the ropes.” I believe we still call that a mixed metaphor. He was either: “on the ropes” or “up against the wall.” Ah me. How great it is to be perfect.

And on the same network news a story about a 13 year old named Jessica who, like Nancy Drew, was able to solve a crime the police could not. The news anchor declared: “Jessica has quite a future ahead of her.” Or did he mean a past behind her?

The other day a CBC News reporter talking about the glass falling from condominium balconies referred to “incidences.” Nice new word. Wouldn’t the original “incidents” have worked?

In the face of blood-letting in Syria, Hamas incursions into the Sinai and famine in the horn of Africa – I choose to meddle with trivialities.

Starting next week another in epic series “Letters from….” Not Paris this time, but from first – the Queen Mary Two, taking us across the Atlantic to Southampton. Then four weeks in the west country of England – Cornwall, Devon and Wales.
I’m off to see…..

WHISTLING IN THE GRAVEYARD

2011-08-18T09:27:00.002-04:00

President Obama is busing around Middle America there trying to buoy up his chances for re-election next year. His best friends, it may turns out, are the Republicans who seem to have a kind of bizarre death wish as they back the Bible-toting, homophobic, Obama-hating Michelle Bachman.

That’s all pretty obvious. Even more obvious is the emptiness of the Obama speeches – sounding more like a pep rally than a genuine look at what ails the country. He toured Minnesota and told them how wonderful they were. From there he went Iowa where he mouthed platitudes like: “America will come out of all this stronger than ever.” Brave words. Empty words. You can’t escape with rhetoric and fine oratory anymore. You have not made a specific statement in months. To keep on proclaiming that “America is the greatest country on earth and Americans are the hardest working people on earth, simply isn’t going to cut it. It may bolster his popularity which popped up a whole 2 percentage points in the last few days but is still under 50%.

The interesting note here has to be that his Republican wannabees accuse him of bad-mouthing America. It is not allowed. No politician who thinks he can win does it by poor-mouthing America's performance. The other point he made, and it got the applause he expected, “recovery is not something that can be done by Washington!” Pure pandering to the voters’ worst instincts. Please, if not by Washington – who? The tooth fairy.

The last few weeks the media have been full of stories about how American corporations are sitting on billions in cash – billions that they will not put to work to create jobs. The story is that they are worried by the uncertainty. They should worry – they are the authors of most of it.

Obama did, to give him some credit, talk about how much there is to be done: schools, construction projects – all labour-intensive – and all provided of course by Washington, or through Washington by the States.

There is nothing new in what Warren buffet said the other day. He, and other rich people like George Soros, have long said that they and all the rest of the billionaires should be paying their share. Buffet said that the total percentage he paid on income was less than the percentage being paid by a secretary in his company. The reason of course is that much of the Omaha tycoon’s profit comes from capital gains, and those are a sacred cow – sacred for the wealthy of course. The same could be said of mortgage interest deductibility. It is a boon to the people who can afford to own houses. It has also been part of the problem of overheating demand in the housing market.

Looking back at everything he has said, and aside from the jingoistic stuff about how great the country is, he did manage to say that construction was the biggest mover of the economy. No secret there. Construction is the biggest employer in America – and in Canada too.

The stories about the big corporations hoarding money in their treasures told another sad tale: the accumulated capital held by just four major companies would be enough to buy back all the repossessed houses in America!

As long as Michelle Backman and Texas Governor Perry are the front runners, America has a lot to fear. And it won’t heal itself because America is the greatest …blah, blah blah

PARASITES AMONG US

2011-08-09T09:57:00.001-04:00

There is certainly no simple solution to the economic crisis. Too many people and too many governments owe too much money. Pure and simple – that’s it!

Better late than never Italy is planning a massive ad campaign to persuade people to pay their taxes. Citing “parasites who live at other people’s expense,” the Italian government wants to shame Italians into paying their taxes. I’m not hopeful. Persuasion doesn’t work. Punishment, even jail, that’s what works.

As you know. I’m not an advocate for the “tough on crime” advocates who think there is nothing like threat of a prison sentence that will “send a message” to potential wrongdoers. The fact is that tougher prison sentences become a political means to tame the anger that some people live on. But when the so-called “good citizen” believes it is his right, better still – his obligation – to avoid paying taxes, we are in trouble. The whole world is in trouble, as much because people won’t or can’t pay their share as the sinister machinations of banks, investment firms, hedge funds, and mortgage lenders.

A few weeks ago the Globe and Mail, in their centerfold “Folio” section did an analysis of tax rates paid in difference countries. Canada was up there around the middle, below such countries as Denmark, but far ahead of the United States, whose citizens not only pay lower tax rates, but who insist on even lower taxes all the time. I remember Ronald Reagan of all people, the president who single-handedly raised the deficit to new heights, reminding people that there is no such thing as a “free lunch.”

Closer to home, there is an “underground” economy in this country that robs Canada of billions of dollars in revenue. There are rather sadly, hordes of immigrant women who do domestic work and do not declare earnings. That, sadly, is aided and abetted by people who hire them knowing that the money they pay them will be unencumbered by taxes, and that they, the employers, don’t have to mess around with stuff like Employment Insurance and reporting payment. It’s a cozy arrangement.

But even worse, are the thousands of people who “avoid” paying sales tax.

This is where persuasion doesn’t work. Punishment might. I have declined offers of “pay cash and we won’t charge HST” and have told the merchant or service provider that I prefer to pay my taxes. The government should set up a department that systematically goes after both the vendors who skirt the law and the buyers who are only too willing to help them. They are, like the Italian ads will say, “parasites who live at others expense.

Until we do something, including punishment, about the entire culture of aversion to paying taxes, we will continue to wallow in economic misery. And shame on every politician who gathers votes by promising lower taxes.

Mayor Ford take note.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF...

2011-08-08T07:26:00.002-04:00

No one says I can’t have an opinion about marketing a product. Especially if that product has tried everything and nothing works. I remember how right I was several years ago when I guffawed at General Motors investing millions to advertise the Cadillac, the car that every market survey said was driven by people over 60. “Waste of money,” I cried. “Chasing rainbows,” I declared. “The brand deserved to be laid to rest,” I insisted. The rest is history. I was wrong. And even though GM needed a multi-billion dollar federal rescue, the one bright spot was Cadillac, now being marketed as hip, cool, and “today!” The Escalade was probably the reason. But even today, are they sending good money after bad with “It’s not just a luxury car – it’s a Cadillac?” Then they let fly all those arrows and the hottest new Caddy slips in among them all and emerges unscathed.
But How big a danger are bowmen today? Do they lurk behind every bend in the road?

Forget about General Motors. I have a new target – and what a target! Research in Motion.

For years I have watched as everyone who was anyone depended on his Blackberry. I received Email replies tagged “sent from my Blackberry.” Even President Obama and his Blackberry were inseparable. But the vagaries of marketing hi-tech electronic are so Byzantine, so unpredictable, who can depend on anything?

Getting serious. R.I.M. stock has dropped more than two thirds in the past year. (I haven’t checked since the last crash, it has to be even lower.) Because I am a baseball fan and wherever possible, tune in to Blue Jays games, I see the constant pounding by RIM of their new “pad.” They must be spending a fortune to try to sell a product that has been put in the shadows by Apple’s IPad. They are now saying that their new generations of phones will win the markets back, or at least stop the bleeding. The hubris developed by years of dominating success is hard to set aside. It’s almost like the Big Three in Detroit sneering at Japanese cars while their (Big 3) market share kept dissolving before their unbelieving eyes.

R.I.M. has tried to turn things around. They are laying off thousands to reduce costs. They continue with their current executives even though investors are howling for their removal. And the stock continues to drop. Only the contrarians are buying.

So – here’s my idea: stop promoting the new and better pad. In fact, prepare a series of mea culpa commercials in which the President, who can be made to look earnest and sincere, admits that they have fallen behind and that they owe it to their faithful to promise better days ahead. Then you announce serious price cuts to the Playbook Tablet so that it comes in at a huge bargain compared to IPad and the other Android powered “pads.” Give it away. Then announce that soon there will be pad that will surpass anything that is now on the market. When it is introduced everyone who bought a discounted Playbook Tablet will be able to turns that item in and be given a discount on the new winner.

The hitch of course is that they have to produce that winner.

But one thing is certain in my mind: the executives, who have been announcing a recovery and a stop to the shrinking of their markets, will have to produce.

The trouble with Research in Motion is that they have been coasting, living off past laurels. A little fix is not enough.

For all you marketing gurus – something to think about. But don’t blame me if I’m dead wrong.

FORECAST - GLOOMY. FUTURE - UNCERTAIN

2011-08-07T13:51:00.001-04:00

I have been absent for some time, partly because I can’t go on and on griping about the same stuff – American foolishness from a country that knows better. Partly because for the last two weeks I have immersed myself in glorious music at the Festival of The Sound. (More on that later)

There has been a kind of “schadenefreude” over the America gloom that has settled on world markets. I think that quietly much of the rest of the world is enjoying the American distress.Tomorrow’s big U.S. papers should carry it all: the accusations by the right wing of the Republican party, the insistence by the Democrats that they did the best they could, and a fading President trying to shore up his image and pretend that November 2012 is not the issue.

It was most interesting to me that Standard and Poors (the same people who once thought that mortgage-backed securities were triple A) has made a judgment that is at least partly political. It may only be an excuse to conjure up the image of two parties fiddling while Washington burns; of factional quibbling that became more important that economic survival; that seeing who would blink first was part of the game; and a continuing belief in their basic values.

I would keep watching with amazement and amusement at how the Republicans could continue to mouth political and economic platitudes, like buzzword realities and truisms: big government is the cause of unemployment. Or – higher taxes for the rich are job-killers. In all the debates (although I may have missed it) I have not heard any say “Mr. Boemer, exactly how does increasing taxes on the rich cause unemployment?” Just keep saying it often enough... – and the rest you know.

Even though poll after polls shows that Americans are much more concerned about unemployment than about the deficit, the pounding about deficit reduction goes on and on.

Some economists have railed against the “compromise” especially since it reduces government spending which reduces employment even further. Wall Street may be the home of an interest vested in capital success, but it is also possessed of enough wisdom to see (and perhaps Standard and Poors sees it too) that in America the public service is a huge employer. It does not make a profit at what it does, but it is essential to the survival of the country. To hear the Tea Party talkers, it is just another symptom of the evil of Big Government. (These Constitution worshipers aren’t even slightly aware that Founding Fathers were in favour of strong central government.)

Most of all, I am sorry that Obama did not use the power he has under the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by executive order. I guess he didn’t want to carry that burden into November 2012 – especially if unemployment stays high – and it will.

The situation may have gone from desperate to hopeless. But when you are the world’s biggest economy with a population of the world’s biggest consumers – I guess you can go on hoping.

We all can.

GRIDLOCK VS DEMOCRACY

2011-07-21T10:11:00.001-04:00

The President is held captive by a hostile Congress. Congress, held for ransom by the right-wing Tea Party people, is held captive by the possibility of a Presidential veto. The entire country is holding its breath while government tries to maneuver its way through the complexities of power.

America laboured hard over its Constitution and the accompanying Bill of Rights. The former seems graven in stone. The latter is always moving forward and exploring new ground. The system, under its current dilemma is paralyzed. And that’s the way the founding fathers wanted it. There were to be a series of “checks and balances” to contain the power of any one branch of government. The absurdity of some of it is that the hard Right in America uses their view of the Constitution as a cudgel to beat the daylights out of anyone who dares to think progressively. And as if that weren't enough, the hard Right accuses the Supreme Court of violating the Constitution by making legal judgments that can set aside legislation. (I lost all faith in the “fairness” of that body when they awarded the presidency to George Bush when Al Gore won the election.)

If you believe that you live in “the greatest democracy on earth” then you don’t question the system. Well, I happen to live in an almost perfect country where even a right-wing government must adjust to our sense of social justice in order to win an election.

Great Britain is in crisis right now. The Commons has the power to force Prime Minister Cameron to step down. There is a growing feeling that it will have to happen for the Conservative government to survive. They are in power only with the consent of the Liberal Democrats. Should they decide to vote “no confidence” in the current government, it could fall. Together the Liberal Democrats and Labour hold more seats than the Conservatives. This is all politics One-A for most people. I am returning to basics only to describe the difference between political gridlock in the U.S. and the ability to overturn a government in our Parliamentary system. Of course, if, as in Canada, one party has an overall majority. The Opposition can complain all it wants without making the government fall. The only effect of Opposition is to pry votes away from the governing party in the next election.

In America, the “next election” seems to be the focus of most of the lawmakers. They take the pulse of the voters all the time. If certain political moves are not favourable, they will lose in 2012.

Just imagine what would happen if America has a government like we have where the legislative body is supreme. (Excepting the ability of the Supreme Court to rule on constitutionality and violation under the Charter of Rights.) The President would stand before the assembly of Congress and be confronted with his alleged failures. There would be real debate. The misbegotten notion of bi-partisanship would simply fail under the weight of competition for votes. It is true that the same circumstance occurs in our system if there is a minority government. Harper stayed in power by being clever about working with the opposition. That was enforced bipartisanship.

The only degree of protection Americans have is the right to “recall.” An elected representative can be recalled if enough of the public petition that he or she has erred. It happens. It happened in California and led to the administration of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As America hurtles toward financial chaos, the debate roars on. Now they say that they may use “executive power” to raise the debt ceiling. They can. But will they?

This diatribe has exhausted me!

ONE LAST (I HOPE) KICK AT THE CAN

2011-07-20T14:16:00.003-04:00

I watched with disgust, Rupert Murdoch being “humble” in front of the Parliamentary inquisition. He and his son must have agreed, during a session of media training and coaching on how to look your best, to appear humble. Even more, to appear to be forthcoming, willing to share their angst and publicly parade their “shame.”
A good show. Unless you simply don’t believe Murdoch. I don’t.

I am currently engrossed in reading “The First Tycoon” a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

During the late stages of his life he became a railroad baron, selling off his steamship lines to concentrate on a new source of wealth. According to the biographer, Vanderbilt was a man of honour, honour that is, in the context of the times. The times were the “robber baron” years, the railroad magnates like Gould and Harriman and the beginning of the great America wealth and economic dominance.

A New York State Assemblyman asked Vanderbilt how involved he was in day-to-day management of his railroad empire. The Vanderbilt response: “I don’t manage anything. We have our superintendents etc. who attend to those matters,”

The author goes on with: “What Vanderbilt did was set general policies, as well as the overall tone of management. ANY CORPORATION HAS AN INTERNAL CULTURE SHAPED BY THE DEMANDS, DIRECTIVES, AND EXPECTATIONS THAT RAIN DOWN FROM ABOVE!!

I am hoping that I won’t pursue this subject further. Murdoch is being, at very least, disingenuous, and worst, a cockeyed liar! He knows everything that goes on in his empire. Its part of the man he is. He can’t separate himself from the criminal sleaziness. He is a micro-manager. Even his son dances to daddy’s tune.

Heaven help us if the British Parliament joins in the Murdoch two-step.

SWAN SONGS. THEY DON'T PAY

2011-07-20T11:06:00.002-04:00

You may already have read the long, sad story of the 60+ year old TV news writer who was sacked because he made a mistake. If you have read it, along with the avalanche of sympathetic comments, you will know what he did, why he did it, and how he was “fired.”

“Swan songs” are seldom rewarded. More often than not they are seen to be people “passing the hat” for themselves after something went wrong. Like perhaps Rupert Murdoch, who will not sing a swan song, but insists on distancing himself from the obvious: his historical complicity in creating a new level of gutter journalism.

I have received oceans of sympathy on a couple of occasions, In both cases the “sympathy’ did nothing to reverse the outcome. The first was my “epic” talk radio series on sexual dysfunction that led me to part company with the broadcaster I have been part of for about 14 years. The day the president of the company went on the air and officially announced that I would not be returning, the phones rang literally “off the hook.” The response was so overwhelming that one entire phone exchange was compromised for several hours. But the result was that nothing changed. I was still on the outside looking in. I wrote a book about it. One critic writing about “The Day I Invented Sex” said: “Solway has lost his job and he is passing the hat for himself.” So much for sympathy.

The next time I did a total no-no. You don’t go public when you think your employer has done you wrong. I did. I like to say I didn’t plan it that way, but the end result was the same. I was “duck-walked” to the exit at CFRB. My sin? I had been there for two years, filling in for others and even having my own Talk Radio time. I had expected to move from “replacement” to permanent fixture. That day I checked the memo board and management announced that they had hired someone else (who it was doesn’t matter.) I went on the air that night and said something like: “If you were expecting to be able to listen to me on a regular basis, it is not going to happen.” Of course the phones went crazy with people offering sympathy for me and anger at management.

I should have directed my producer to stop these calls. I knew what the outcome would be. I was right. The “swan song” sank me like stone.

But in fact, my time had come and I knew it. The station was in what I thought was a vain pursuit of a younger demographic. But the fact was that I had been around far too long. anyway, at least to the position of permanent substitute.

This is a rather long introduction to the woeful story of the CBC news writer who was shown the door. I could put the link here and let you see for yourself. Instead I will add the entire text for your perusal of the ultimate “swan song.”

"This is a story about a dog who died and then came back to life and ended my career in local television news. When I put it that way, it’s funny. People can’t help giggling when they hear it. And I often end up laughing too, that edgy scratchy laughter that comes at one’s own expense and leaves little welts on the soul.

But the larger context of the story is sad. Sad because it relates to issues at the heart of journalism, especially the local TV kind. But I’ll get to that later. First, some background, and then I’ll share the funny part.

For the last eight months or so, I’ve been working as a casual writer at the local CBC supper hour television news. Casual means they call me in when a regular writer is sick, or on holiday or otherwise unavailable. Which means I go in for an eight-hour shift about eight or 10 times a month.

It’s called a writing job, but in fact it’s both much more (and much less) than that. We write the introductions (intros) to reporter’s stories that are read from the teleprompter by our two anchors. We write voice-overs: the 15-second scripts of local, national and international stories that the anchors also read. We edit the video images of those stories. We spend a lot of time writing “supers” (the names of the people in the reporter’s stories that flash up on the screen), and location tabs (the cities, or street addresses, where the particular stories take place) and other things. When you see the flashing tabs on the screen that say “Live” or “Breaking News” or “File Pictures,” or the reporter’s name, that’s the writer’s job. When you see images of rioting in Bahrain , or a pub fire in Victoria , it’s the writers who edit those pictures together online, and who write the words spoken over them, and who make sure those words and images are “pushed” into the computerized system that drives the newscast. We are required to be adept at highly sophisticated software programs with names like iNews and Instinct.

To do this work, in short, you need to be a lot more than a writer. You need to be an editor, a technician, a keyboardist extraordinaire, an expert in the style and spelling of place names and titles. And you have to work fast. Sometimes very fast. So fast that, often, you force yourself to forget about good writing; just throw down the words, make sure the facts are approximately correct, and “get it out.” (You’ll notice that among the many economies in TV news copy is the elimination of verbs: “A raging fire in Surrey . Three firefighters with smoke inhalation. A devastated neighbourhood. The full story at 6!”)

There are two regular writers on every shift, along with a show producer and a lineup editor. One or two anchors, a sports guy, a meteorologist with a sense of humor. And maybe six or seven reporters. Every weekday, they produce a 90-minute news show. It’s an impossible task, but it’s one of those impossible things that happens every day, without fail.

I just said “without fail.” But of course, that’s a lie. In real terms, the failure of local TV news is structural, spiritual and immense. But that’s the serious part of this story, and I need to tell you the funny part first.

Last Thursday, I get a phone call at home just before 10am. Can I come in right away? A regular writer has called in sick.

I say yes and shower and my wife drives me to the Skytrain and I’m in the newsroom at 11:30am—75 minutes after the start of the normal shift. It will be a short compressed day. I sit in my cubicle and log in. On my computer screen appears the projected lineup for that day’s show. Oh-oh. This will be a tough one.

Here’s what my day looks like:
1. A 30-second “sting” about the running of the bulls in Pamplona .
2. A 30-second voice-over on the premiere of the final Harry Potter movie in London .
3. A 40-second voice-over about the rescue of a lost hiker in Lions Bay .
4. A voicer on a seniors home in Abbotsford targeted by a robber.
5. A voicer on a plane crash in Harrison Bay , with two dead.
6. A voicer about the coroner’s report on a UBC student who died of a cocaine overdose.

That’s the easy part, I tell myself. I can handle these half dozen stories. But it will mean passing up lunch. Because I’ll have to find all the videotape for these stories, assemble the tape, edit it and then write the six scripts to fit the time allotted to them. And make sure everything is properly ingested by the voracious computer monster that delivers the show to our handful of viewers.

But there is more. I was also the writer assigned to three reporters’ “packs.” These are the full stories, prepared by individual reporters, that would appear on the night’s newscast. The three stories have names assigned to them. One is “War Over”—a 2-minute story on an Abbotsford couple who lost two sons in Afghanistan, reflecting on the fact that today is the last day of the Canadian combat mission in that country. The second is “Stranger Tattoo”—an offbeat feature about a foreign student in Vancouver who approaches strangers on the street, and asks them to tell the stories of their tattoos for a blog and a book she’s writing. (Hey, it’s local news.)

Both of these stories (I’ll tell you about the third one in due course) will require me to huddle with the individual reporters, approve their scripts, make changes if necessary, make sure I have all the names and titles of the people they interview, write a snappy anchor’s intro, and input everything into the computer. These stories will appear on the 6 o’clock segment of the show. But that’s only part of it. I also have to prepare 30-second voice-overs for both these stories, for the 5 o’clock segment of the show.

I swallow hard, glance at the clock (it’s already 2:30pm—two and a half hours to airtime.) I’m hungry, and my bladder is sending out worrying signals. But I’ll eat and piss later. There’s work to do.

I take a quick look at the last item on my agenda ( the third story.) No big deal. It’s a story that will be fed in from CHEK-TV in Victoria by 5:15pm for a quick turnaround into our 5:30 show. It’s labeled “Hot Dog”, about a police dog left in an SUV for three hours. One of the “shocking treatment of animals” stories. It sounds straightforward. I have a 17-minute window to make sure the story is in our computer, and to write the intro for it, and to insert the proper "super" information. No problem. (I can hear you laughing. Haha. Maybe you know what’s coming.)

The next two hours are a blur. I work my way furiously through seven voice-overs while the other writers, editors, producers and reporters enjoy lunch and toilet breaks. By 5 o’clock, I stretch, take a much-needed visit to the urinal and congratulate myself. I tell myself I’ve done pretty well for the new kid on the block. Just need to wrap up one more voice-over, then tackle the “Hot Dog” story, and my workday will be done. Another $230 in the bank, and I’d proven something to myself.

The lineup editor drops the Hot Dog script on my desk. I look at the clock. Holy Jesus, what happened to the time? It’s 5:15, and this story is slated for 5:36 in the lineup. This will be tight. I start to write the intro. There’s no time to scan the reporter’s script. Poor dog. Who would leave a mutt in an SUV, in sweltering heat, to die a cruel death? Given the short time frame, I write what I think is quite an evocative intro, a eulogy to 10-month-old German Shepherd who would not live to do the heroic police work he’d been trained for.

I type the 100 words into the computer, include the “super” information, and am delighted to see that there’s a minute to spare before anchor Tony Parsons has to introduce the Hot Dog story. Another deadline achieved. Then, he reads my words exactly as I have written them, throws to the reporter’s story . . . and my world freezes.

“The dog didn’t die,” somebody shouts over my shoulder.

“Yeah, he survived,” somebody else says.

“Who wrote he died?” It’s a Greek chorus of recrimination.

There’s a funny hollow sensation in my ear.

“I wrote that, it’s mine,” I say, raising my hand like a schoolboy caught passing notes.

“Somebody write a correction for Tony. NOW!!” I recognize the voice. It’s Wayne, the executive producer. He’s hovering just a few feet away. I look at him but he studiously avoids eye contact.

A minute later, Parsons, a consummate pro, veteran of a million newscasts, with a voice that can make even a mistake sound like music, intones on the air: “We apologize. The dog, of course, didn’t die.”

Then, (I think) the entire newsroom goes silent. For minutes I hear and feel nothing except a faint pressure in my ears. It’s the kind of dead silence I remember in Bosnia during the war years, just after a bomb exploded. Sucks the air and all noise out of the environment. Then the silence breaks when somebody shouts “Dog-killer” across the room. There is laughter. I laugh back. I recall the famous National Lampoon cover photo with the headline: “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine We’ll Kill This Dog.”

Half an hour later, leaving the newsroom, I wonder why we would carry a story on a newscast about a dog who DIDN’T die; who, in fact, was in pretty good shape when they opened the SUV door. I hate the damn dog for surviving. He will grow up and never know how he’s contributed to my humiliation.

The next morning, I’m fired. “You’ve broken a trust,” the executive producer (that’s Wayne ) tells me after calling me into his office. He doesn’t even bother to shut the door. “How can the anchors ever trust anything you write after this?”

I blink. “It’s a damn dog, Wayne , for heaven’s sake. A mistake made in the heat of the moment, at the end of a crazy shift. I was called in late to fill in for somebody, thrown into a very hectic show . . . ”

“In any case,” he interrupts me, “we feel you’re not suited for this job. You’re too slow. There’s nothing wrong with your writing, but we need somebody who is fast and who can handle the technology. I’m sorry. In fact, we’d like you to leave right away. Invoice us for the day’s work.”

I have the feeling there’s some deep subtext here. I’m a 62-year-old hack with white hair, working among a bunch of kids. In fact, three of the people in the newsroom were my students when I taught broadcast at UBC. I’m doing this job because I need the money, and because it’s a connection to the profession I love. Nobody has the temerity to ask me what the hell I’m doing here. I’m the ancient mariner, taking up an entry-level space.

Hell, years ago I invited Wayne , the exec who’s just fired me, to talk to my class about local news. I was a visiting professor. He ran a local newscast that hardly anybody watched. Now, here I am, an anachronism near the end of his string, trying to defend a wretched piece of copy about a puppy.

We have a few more words, back and forth. He mostly keeps his head down; he clearly doesn’t like saying these things. I clearly don’t like hearing them. (Note: This is the first, only and last time anybody in this shop has criticized my work.) I’m particularly stung by the comment about breaching trust with the anchors. I’d rather hear it from them. Breathes there an anchor with a soul so dead who wouldn’t laugh off a silly mistake about a dog? But it’s not to be. My time here is up.

On the way out, I shake hands with Drew, the lineup editor, and say good-bye. “I hate to sound selfish,” he says, “but are they bringing somebody in to replace you today?” (Somewhere, in some parallel universe, I’m lying in a fetid trench, my legs blown off, shrapnel in my gut, and the platoon sergeant looks at me and barks: “Where the hell are the reserves?” In the distance, a German Shepherd is barking.)

So this is how it ends. But I’m told that everything in life, the comedy and tragedy alike, carries a lesson. In the wreckage of this fiasco, there must be something useful to extract.

I started this essay with the idea of writing a critique on the nonsense that passes for local TV news. But I can’t get away from that poor overheated dog. He overwhelms me. I don’t deny my culpability, but how did a highly-trained journalist with 42 years of experience both overseas and in Canada find himself in a newsroom, sweating bricks, writing about a dog that was left in a SUV for 3 hours? (There’s a lead for a producer who wants to pursue a good human-interest story about the job market in Canadian journalism.)

What management wizard put me in that chair, and assigned me that work, in a pressure-cooker deadline situation?

Would I have made my fatal mistake if, a) I hadn’t been called in on a short shift, b) I had taken an earlier toilet break, or c) I had had the time for lunch?

How is it that a news anchor, who’s job it is to read words from a teleprompter, and who is paid an enormous salary to do that and only that, was not given the time or the opportunity to read his copy before he went on air? One glance would have spotted the error. (I would understand reading raw unedited copy if we were talking about an earthquake, a hockey riot, or a serial killing, but a fluff piece about an undead dog! )

Animal stories are, along with murder, fires, sex, celebrities and weather, the staples of television “action news” fare, if you believe the style-over-substance gurus at Frank N. Magid Associates who have advised the CBC and other networks for decades. If the stories aren’t powerfully visual (i.e. the bulls at Pamplona, Anthony Weiner’s crotch, Lady Gaga’s meat dress, police car lights flashing over a corpse on a darkened street, etc.), they probably won’t make the local news. It’s got to sizzle to get into the 6 o’clock lineup. Media scholars call it the victory of "information mechanics" over journalism, entertainment trumping news.

That’s why, for example, during the Stanley Cup playoff series in Vancouver , a hugely-important story about the record-breaking debt load of Canadian families was pushed aside for drivel about how much people were paying for Roberto Luongo jerseys, and the adventures of the Green Men. The daily battle for ratings requires an embrace of the flashily trivial. These stories are known in the trade as “talkers”—the things people are discussing around the water cooler. Once, long long ago, it was TV news that set the agenda of public discourse; today local news is an income generator that sniffs the wind and follows the public appetite. It's called pandering. That’s why you see so many “news” stories about new iPhone apps, and the new KFC bunless chicken sandwich. (Yes, I wrote that voice-over too.) News directors get instant updates on how many people are watching; the Suits will tell you those rating numbers don’t dictate content. Trust me. They do.

And that creates a working culture that disrespects the talents and the professionalism of the many fine reporters, producers and writers who work in the newsroom that I was asked to leave. (To be honest, they rarely make bone-head mistakes like the one I made.)

Hunter S. Thompson said it better than I can: "The TV business is uglier than most things . . . a cruel and shallow money trench . . . where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.”

That’s how the dog story came to land on my desk at 5:15 p.m. on that fateful day. Only one of us would survive the encounter. It wasn’t me.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY - A "MEXICAN STAND-OFF"

2011-07-18T09:18:00.002-04:00

At the heart of the expression is the question: “Who will blink first?” That pretty well encapsulates the dilemma of high unemployment and a sluggish, if not comatose, recovery, in the United States. (Their recovery is pivotal to our future economic health.)

The New York Times Sunday edition ran a story that should be obvious to everyone. It is a wonder to me that vote-hungry politicians are still fighting about it. The story maintains that at the heart of the stumbling “recovery” is the American consumer, traditionally the big spender who keeps (or kept) the economy rolling. The consumer has virtually disappeared. No one wants to spend, certainly not while times are still perilous. The story says that car sales in America will drop by more than 25%! That will be trouble for the already troubled auto industry, one of the last bulwarks of American capitalism.

The “standoff” obviously is that corporations are waiting for people to start buying. Buyers are waiting for corporations to start hiring,. The slogan should be: “You start hiring - we start buying.”

I have said many time in my blogs, that it should not be up to American business to fund the American economic recovery. In practical terms, they are businesses, not charities. But wait.

If the old principal of paying a decent wage, pioneered by the otherwise intractable labour-hater Henry Ford, still has legitimacy, then corporations perhaps do have a role to fill in the economic recovery. It is not altruism. It is good business sense.

The consumer is either unemployed and without spending power, or employed but worried about the permanence of the next pay cheque. (Add to that the mindless, uninformed, politically-maneuvered deficit “crisis.”)

The standoff continues, and the only ones who can end it are the corporations. In America they simply will not accept that government could do it. Interesting is the fact that America does not need more houses, or more cars – both of which are the biggest generators of jobs. We sometimes forget that construction is the major job provider in both our countries and the bursting of their real estate bubble precipitated the great recession in 2008. Both of those industries generate prosperity and profits. The only other enterprise that does not generate immediate profit – aside from war that is – is the creation of a modern infrastructure with the building of projects that do not bring immediate profits, the way making a product and selling it for profit does. They don’t develop a technology and market it for profit. They do modernize and improve society as a whole. Most of all, they hire people.

Forget it. It is not going to happen.

The alternative is to have corporations hire people, expand payrolls and benefits, and generate the capital required to turn Americans back into consumers and buyers of the very products and services these rejuvenated hirers will create.

I am not a conspiracy theorist so I would not dare suggest that private industry, by withholding job creation, can magnify the unemployment crisis that grips the Obama administration. What I do see is that major corporations are fattening their treasuries; that the stocks of these companies are thriving on the stock market, that profits are better than ever, that maintaining staff reductions and continuing the spiral of cost-cutting makes them healthier than they have ever been.

But unless they start to hire, the structure will weaken and collapse. Some suggest that government should create such enormous tax advantages that business could not resist hiring, But the critics of that will wail that Big Government is taking over.

The stand-off continues. Will it be “adios” or “hola?.”

PREYING ON DISCONTENT

2011-07-16T10:16:00.002-04:00

As I watched a replay of Dennis Potter’s last interview, I heard this brilliant journalist and writer speak out about Rupert Murdoch and what he has done do honesty and decency. Potter died of cancer fifteen years ago. In the interview he said he had a name for the cancer that was killing him: Rupert Murdoch.

I am not having a “eureka” moment, when suddenly all becomes clear and I can finally divine what has made Murdoch a media billionaire. It’s not that momentous. Murdoch could not succeed unless the readers and viewers of what he shows on TV and in print had an appetite for it. It is like porn: it survives and thrives because there is a profound public need for it.

It is more than voyeurism. It is more than ignorance or indifference – it is a galvanizing force for discontent. Every politician knows that if you can tap into the discontent of a voter, you will win. In the simplest terms it is called “pressing all the right hot-buttons.”

Enshrined in our psyche is the misbegotten notion that everyone is entitled to an opinion. It may be so, but that does not make the opinion true, or valid, or worthy. Just because you believe devoutly that the Earth is flat does not make it so, nor are you “entitled” to voice that opinion. You can “believe” that crime is rising even though every statistic says it is not – because a political hopeful knows you believe it – even though it is not so!

It would seem finally, that no one, rich or poor, failing or successful, mentally stable or completely wacko, is immune from the appeal of the “hot button.” It is, for example, easier to believe that all politicians are crafty, venal, and duplicitous than to examine them in the bright light of understanding. Knowledge and information are required. You need go no farther than the situation here in Toronto where enough people saw themselves as beleaguered taxpayers whose money was being leaked into a massive “gravy train” that they voted for the man who told them he was “on their side.”

There are enough words in our language to explain the corruption of public morality and civil society. The winning word is still “demagogue.” The political snake-oil salesman who finds that vulnerable spot and presses the winning button. Choice becomes emotional. If not emotional, then somehow pleasing to the senses and the bruised ego. Is computer porn popular because people are deviates? In some cases – yes – but in most cases it is the essence of the cheap thrill and the naughtiness of it all.

What made News of The World the most popular newspaper for about 150 years? It had lots of pictures so you weren’t forced to read. When you did read is was scurrilous, close to libelous, and “naughty.” Peeking in the keyholes of the rich and famous and powerful has always appealed. I have, and so have you, sat with friends in conversation and found yourselves lapping up all the latest gossip.

So is Rupert Murdoch another Idi Amin who came in at the point of a gun? No one forced people to listen to Glen Beck or Anne Porter. No one coerced people into joining the Tea Party movement. No one demanded that you set reason and information aside and swallow huge gulps of lying demagoguery.

Who made Murdoch? Who empowered him? We did.

“The fault Dear Brutus….”

VINDICATION DONESN'T MAKE ME FEEL GOOD

2011-07-11T09:53:00.002-04:00

I’ve been saying it for months: the turnaround in U.S, employment isn’t going to happen because private business is simply not ready to hire. And why should they? I have said it over and over again: business looks out for itself, that’s what the marketplace is all about.

In Saturday’s Globe, front page of Report on Business: “Caution keeps cash-rich U.S, employers from hiring!” Corporations have been cost-cutting and piling up profits. Hedge Funds and other “investors” are enriching themselves speculating with money borrowed at almost zero rates of interest, far less than the profits from their trading. The stock market has boomed, with the exception of a blip every time the government announces a less-than-expected job increase. The fact is that corporations are now endowed with a responsibility to make the government look good. On the contrary, they maybe instrumental in helping to savage the Obama administration's employment failure.

Interesting that the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, decry the idea of “tax increases” (actually return to pre-Bush tax rates) and declare: tax cuts are “job killers.” How preposterous and contradictory that statement is. And how blind to the reality the American public seems to be. If the accumulation of more money will result in more jobs, why isn’t it happening? How have they managed to hoodwink millions of Americans into believing that the deficit is the biggest problem? How indeed, when every survey indicates that given a choice between cuts to Social Security and Medicare and big tax breaks – they simply won’t tolerate cuts to essential services. They make it sound less than essential by calling them “entitlements.” Some Republican congressmen can be heard warning that America will become another Greece if it doesn't turn back the deficit. And they’re buying it!

Business says they won’t hire until “the economy starts to look O.K” But of course the irony is that the economy won’t look O.K. until hiring begins. However, I insist that it is neither the obligation nor the prerogative of private business to step up and give it up for the country. An interesting sidelight: some businesses are hiring but at much lower wages. They are using the recession to continue to do cost-cutting at the expense of working folks.

Black to my old saw: this is where only the government can make it happen. But every time there is even a hint that government will start spending to create jobs the howls of “socialism and chaos and bankruptcy” rise up. I’m really starting to feel sorry for Obama. He did squander his goodwill in the first year with a hopeless stab at bipartisanship and by the time he came to his sense the Republicans had taken over The House. Now of course, everyone – one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives is looking at next November. Everything they do is dedicated to re-election, even if it means continuing to support fatally flawed financial policies.

China does it differently. The “government” acts independently of public opinion. They decide, even with many Chinese still in poverty, to spend billions to build a high speed rail line connecting Shanghai and Beijing. Our press asked the question: “How would you like to travel from Toronto to Moncton in just six hours?” What they do is ultimately good for the country. Massive rail-building is labor-intensive. By the way, much more labour intensive than building highways. But in the U.S. so much of that government largesse was spent to widen highways to be driveN on by people who can’t afford the gas for their cars.

More than enough irony to go around.

RUPERT MURDOCH IS NOT GETTING THE MESSAGE

2011-07-08T11:43:00.003-04:00

more than a century ago we had another Rupert Murdoch. William Randolph Hearst was the principal, but not the only – there were also other “Yellow Journalists.” (See Patterson and McCormick.)

In an age when print journalism dominated the social and political scene, Hearst was tops. (If you saw “Citizen Kane” or read Lunberg’s “Imperial Hearst – you were not surprised.) Even the august New York Times was not immune from the attraction of personal vendetta. Witness the Times continuous badgering of Cornelius Vanderbilt. But that is another story.

The story here is that reality should have finally caught up with this gossip-mongering slimebag. He doesn’t seem to think so. His son was seen widely on TV in the last few days extolling the virtues of the Murdoch Press and apologizing for whoever (it certainly wasn’t his beloved Daddy!) caused News of The World to collapse in into a pit of shame and criminal accusations. In fact, do not be surprised to see the Sun (in London that is) when it starts publishing on Sunday, to be a clone of the now disgraced NOTW.

Just as Hearst managed to influence history, Murdoch has his dirty hands all over police and politicians. Hearst virtually caused America to go to war with Spain over the explosion that destroyed the battleship Maine in Havana Harbour. Colonel McCormack and Cissie Patterson in later years, led the Isolationist (sometimes almost pro-Nazi) attitude toward involvement in “foreign wars.”

The tragedy is not that under the rubric of “free press” Murdoch has corrupted the truth and has shamelessly endorsed the Far Right, aided and abetted by half-truths and downright lies about the current administration. Every so often conscience, or a kind of cowardly backtracking, led Murdoch to act against the most flagrant violators. He recently told Glen Beck he was not wanted. Beck was the godfather of the Tea Party movement, and a completely bonkers conspiracy theorist. Last year his book reached number one on the best-seller lists. And that is why I continue to wonder if these revelations will have any effect on the loonies of the Far Right in America – the ones who continue to insist Obama is a Muslim and that he was not born in the U.S. They are the ones who believe that the State of Hawaii is in on the conspiracy.

All that is food and drink to Rupert Murdoch. What his imperative is, we can only guess. Does he want some kind of oracle-like power? Does he really believe the rubbish his media outlets produce? Can anyone be that stupid?

A few years ago Al Franken, former Saturday Night live performer and now United States Senator from Minnesota wrote “Lies and The Liars That Tell Them.” It was Franken’s denunciation of the right-wing press with special emphasis on the concoctions that came out of the Murdoch media. People who read the book enjoyed it only if it supported their beliefs that Murdoch was a scoundrel. The religious Right and the Tea Party folks were not enamoured of the Franken screed.

America seems not to want to violate what it perceives as its dedication to the Constitution and the amendment that guarantees free speech and a free press. The British are not so squeamish about legalistic bombast. They have chosen to recognize Murdoch’s duplicity. But they still have to be able to prove criminality i.e. the “hacking” of the email and voice mail messages of prominent and not so prominent. Anything for a good scandal. Anything to give them leg up on the competition. And Fleet Street abounds with sensationalism. The press in America (although Murdoch is trying) has never reached the heights of gossip mongering that Fleet Street has. Just a shocking is that the venerable Times of London, even though it has always had a politically conservative bent, is owned by the rapacious Murdoch.

Finally, I do wonder why the world seems so surprised. I do wonder if the scandal will tarnish Murdoch. I haven’t bothering to check for myself, but I wonder what Fox News (or as David Olive of the Toronto Tar calls “faux news) is saying about their boss.

Most of all will a public that includes people, millions of them. who only want their own prejudices given legitimacy, stand behind the New York Post and Fox News?
Makes you wonder.

THE PROTESTS - ARE THEY FOR REAL?

2011-07-07T15:53:00.002-04:00

Whenever there is a protest of any kind, it attracts every malcontent from the anarchists and Trotskyites to the opponents of genetically modified food, and the fur seal hunt. All they have in common is that they are angry at the establishment. They can be a rabble and they often behave like one. The WTO protesters never miss a chance to demonstrate against free trade, world trade, and favours for multinational corporations. I sound like one of them already.

With the current malaise in the European community where the have-nots – Greece Portugal, Spain and Ireland, arrayed against the mighty, principally Germany and to a great extent Francem, maybe it's time for a reality check. At issue is the future of the European Community and the survival of the Euro. Suddenly I am not so sure that free trade and the establishment of multi-national trading communities is such a great idea.

I am not going to join the WTO protesters. I’m afraid they can’t, for all their hysterics, put the toothpaste back into the tube.

But my attitude toward multi-national amalgamation and the dissolution of sovereign state boundaries is undergoing a change. And it’s not just about Greece.

Many years ago I did a story about the Canadian cheese industry, especially our own Cheddar cheese which was loved by the British to the tune of millions of pounds a year. Suddenly it was gone when the ECU set up its own trading community. A cheesemaker in Trenton told me that the town of Cheddar, where the cheese originally came from, has been displaced by a European Market-based cheese factory just outside Munich.

In fact, the European Community has “rationalized” industry and agriculture to reduce costs and make the marketing of goods go beyond national boundaries. Sounds like a good idea. An example is that in the EU there was always a lot of duplication. There was no point in everyone making – for example – butter. Let’s let the Italians or the Dutch or the Danes have the butter monopoly. It will be good for everyone. Maybe it will only be good for business.

Recently I visited Portugal and had a conversation with a Portuguese teacher/artist who lamented what the Common Market had done to the Portuguese fishing industry. As part of the bargain that let Portugal into the European Community, they were obliged to relinquish much of their hold on fishing. It was good for the Spaniards. And if you look at it in cold economic terms, it made sense.

This is where we come apart. “Cold economic terms” is not what makes real people happy. To displace industries and products from a country for the sake of economies of scale, does not deal with the enormous labour dislocation.

I’m saying all this because of the decision by the British government, Building a new cross-country high speed line, to give the business to Siemens. It makes good “Euro-sense.” The British government has said it is better for the taxpayers. In fact, it is better for multinational companies. The thousands of people who work in Derby, the location of Europe’s oldest train factory, are also taxpayers. They will be out of a job because Bombardier will have to close the plant because of lack of orders.

Britain was a great industrial power. It’s Clydeside and Belfast shipbuilders were among the best in the world. No more. Glasgow is no longer the ship building capital. In fact, my wife and I will be traveling on the Cunard Line’s flagship, Queen Mary Two. It was built in France! Not that the shipbuilders of St. Nazaire aren’t entitled to make a living, but whither British shipbuilding?

I found it especially painful, when, in the interests of globalization, Air Canada chose, a few years ago, to expand its fleet with the acquisition of new planes from Embraer because they put in a better offer than Bombardier. I know, I know – Bombardier is also a multinational company, but I asked myself at the time, how many Brazilians traveled on Air Canada.

I am not a protectionist by nature. But I am also not a “destructionist.” I still lament the departure of the textile industry from the area around Boston when they migrated to the cheap labour markets of the Old South. When that was not cheap enough the manufacturers moved to El Salvador and from there they found it even cheaper to be in Honduras.

Some time ago I wrote a piece about the descent into oblivion of the American fashion industry. At one time more than 50% of the clothes Americans wore came from American factories. Today it is less than 2 percent!

Somewhere we have lost our way. Somewhere, by rationalizing trade we have managed to uproot millions of people.

And I’m not even mentioning when the Free Trade mania does to underdeveloped countries where they have neither the capacity nor the capital to compete. They are reduced to being customers, while their labour forces molder away.

Does this mean I’ll be present when the protesters hit the next WTO meeting? You can never tell.

JUST FRACKING AROUND

2011-07-06T12:10:00.002-04:00

Or how about: “F…. you buddy. I got what everyone wants.” Fracturing shale or “fracking” has revealed a new and potentially harmful (for the environment) source of oil and natural gas. Everyone is fracking. The latest entry into the field is Argentina, which sorely needs a new capital base. But so does China, where their total dependency on imported petroleum may disappear. North Africa and the Middle East have millions of potential barrels of shale oil. The world is turning upside down. Ukraine and Russia are also thought to have sizable shale fields of oil and gas, as do many North African and Middle Eastern countries. I even hear that Israel may also have frackable shale oil reserves. Brazil has found huge deposits offshore. They don’t have to “frack” it. Just drill baby drill and out comes the black gold. Everyone is in on the game. It’ll be every frackin’ guy for himself!”

On the serious side, we can no longer speak of ”energy geopolitics” in the same way. If America got into a fight with Iraq it was not to overthrow the guy who was once their friend – Saddam Hussein – it was to guarantee access to Middle East treasure. Not since Bismarck coined “Realpolitik” has there been the possibility of a seismic shift in international maneuvering. Energy geopolitics suggests the end of future price rises.

What should really worry everyone is not just the potential ecological damage done by fracturing shale. But the fact that new oil supplies will bring the price down reducing the need to work at renewable energy.

Therein lies the fatal flaw. The marketplace decides. When oil hit $150 a barrel, the electric car, in spite of its high cost, was going to be the alternative. Wind power seemed to have a big future, so much so that L. Boone Pickens, the consummate oil man, was promoting massive wind facilities. He backed off when the price of oil went down. Everyone with a short memory, and that’s almost all of us, suddenly went for the “bargain” oil and gasoline. Why spend a fortune on a car that uses to gas when the price of gas has come down? That is reality.

What can break the stranglehold of the “realities” of the marketplace? Certainly not public demand for product. There must be public demand to make the planet independent of oil. No company with a keen eye on the bottom line will make the necessary move. Why should they?

Only government and its will to make the Earth a better place can make it happen. All those libertarian critics of “big” government are writhing at the thought. Even they will have to come to understand that only government, acting not for profit, but for the public good, can make the moves. It does happen. In B.C. they have a successful carbon tax. In the U.K. they have done it too. Germany is bound to follow, perhaps to lead, as governments insist that long-term we have to stop using fossil fuels. And, as I wrote a few weeks ago, New York’s mayor Bloomberg is going to convene a conference with the world’s 40 largest cities to change people’s minds. He believes people can be persuaded that the long term gain is worth the cost.

Meanwhile, the bonanza is here. It will be hard to stop. There will be cries of: “Business does well when the government lets it do what it knows how to do.” The advocates for a free and open marketplace will have their way.

Unless….

MINDS DOIN'T CHANGE. TIMES DO CHANGE.

2011-07-05T11:20:00.002-04:00

Nothing irritates Canadians more than to be ignored, unrecognized, or simply brushed aside as an irritating neighbour to the United States. How furious was I when I read a supposed-to-be tongue in cheek column in the New York Sunday Times by their London correspondent Sarah Lyall writes that “After they leave the cozy somewhat small-potatoes confines of Canada, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will travel to Los Angeles?” I know, she’s comparing the lotus land of celebrity to Canada but still she doesn't understand. Not only are we not “small potatoes” but we are a shining example of how a country creates a true liberal democracy without a revolution or a civil war. We have had a few bumps in the road like the Métis rebellion and the shameful execution of leader Louis Riel. Do you think that any American, except for some of my good friends who read this blog, will suddenly apologize for continuing to be indifferent and uninformed about their neighbour. My memory gnaws at me when I recall President Nixon referring to Japan as America’s biggest trading partner. When the president gets it wrong, how can I complain about a small minded Times columnist? Not only, my American friends, are we your biggest trading partner (although China is closing in) but we, not the Middle East, are your biggest source of oil and gas.

America should try to understand that in spite of the mindless anti-monarchy protesters in Quebec, the country seems to be enjoying the visit of the royal couple. They are amiable and approachable. They are social and interested. They represent the monarchy of tomorrow. But for some, that is not enough. The anti-monarchists simply do not understand the heritage of constitutional monarchy.

I happened to listen to Cross-Canada check up on CBC and it was all about the visit of William and Kate. One caller, an anti-monarchist from Vancouver went on and on about how “removed” this couple is from the hard realities of life: getting a job, having enough money to get by etc etc. This opaque point of view represents not only republican opinion, but misses the point entirely. The royals occupy a ceremonial and historical part of our lives. But the fact that they are immune from the everyday trials and hardships of "getting by" makes no sense. The sons and daughters of the wealthy also do not have to endure the trauma of making a way for themselves in a competitive society. Should we do away with them too?

Many of the calls rambled on more emotionally that realistically. There are millions of us who grew up singing God Save the Queen in school. But we also grew up saying the Lord’s Prayer. Neither of those reflects today’s reality. The difference is that in the continuum of history, the royals do matter. I don’t subscribe to the notion that from Magna Carta on we were a constitutional monarchy. We weren’t. We still had scoundrels like the Stuart Charles I and II. We had George III who is his madness let the thirteen colonies slip away. Britain, remember, also tried a more-or-less republican style with the great Protector who succeeded Charles I and imposed a Puritan iron hand on the country, and worse, a massacre of the hateful Irish.

Some of the freest and most progressive countries are constitutional monarchies: Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

What is the famous quote about “Those who forget history…?

GONE, GONE, GONE.

2011-07-01T11:39:00.003-04:00

Ben died last week. He was interred in a Jewish cemetery without any religious observations, only the profoundly heartfelt memories expressed by his old friends.

I met Ben at Vaughan Road Collegiate. His name was “Ben” for “son” and his middle name was “Zion.” So – Son of Zion. His parents were labour activists from Poland who had emigrated briefly to British mandated Palestine but returned to Poland and emigrated again – this time in 1934 – to Canada. They were part of the revolutionary movement that was fiercely Communist. They belonged to organizations like the United Jewish People’s Order and sent their son to Camp Neivelt, a Communist summer camp where the “Internationale” was sung in Yiddish. (Interesting sidelight: the uncle of a friend of mine, who belonged to the United Jewish People’s Order, not for its politics, but for social reasons, was barred from entry into the United States, for belong to a subversive organization. He was flying back from Mexico and the plane made an unexpected stop in the U.S. He was hustled off the plane and sent to Ellis Island where his anxious relatives had to bail him out. He was facing possible deportation to his European country of origin! That’s how bad things were for America’s political enemies.)

In the 30’s and 40’s, in spite of government moves to virtually outlaw the Party, it thrived. Toronto had Communist aldermen, there were two Communists in the Ontario Legislature, Joe Salzberg and Alex MacLeod. Because the Party was officially banned, they called themselves the LPP – Labour Progressive Party.

Those were glory days for the Left, as yet untarnished by revelations of the excesses of Stalin (although everyone knew of the 1936 purges and of the assassination of Leon Trotsky.) Incidentally, it was after the savage repression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 that many of our home-grown Communists deserted the cause. I studied drama at the Theatre of Action, a very left-leaning school forum for social theatre. Members of my own family were Communists. Unions like the Canadian Seaman’s Union and the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union, and the United Electrical Workers – all Communist run. They fell before the onslaught of the anti-communist forces of the Social Democrats, who were not above malicious union busting.

I am telling you all this because those memories will continue to fade and die as its advocates, like Ben, are gone.

People everywhere, in our fast-becoming conservative society, are impatient and even hostile, to any mention of these bygone days of idealism and fight for the working man.

Perhaps the best eulogy came from Stephen Endicott, son of the famous James Endicott, a Canadian missionary born in China who was a supporter of Mao and of Chinese Communism. Endicott was reviled by the establishment in this country. It is an indication of how profound the suspicions were that Ben was dismissed from his post as a high school teacher for his political views. He later went of to a much larger career as a professor at the University of Toronto.

Steve brought me back to a forgotten reality: the cause of the working man. I do not support the hard-left doctrines but I do support what Steve said about how Ben would have responded to the crushing of the Greek working people in the name of economic recovery. The class warfare of olden days is alive and well. He said that once again the spending cuts fell on the back of the ones least able to survive, and the benefits continued to accrue to the affluent. He didn’t have to mention that the Greek firestorm is a reflection of so much wrong in the world today. Greece is full of income tax evading scofflaws, millionaires who simply don’t pay their share. So when the government announces new “austerity” measures, the austerity falls on the helpless while the wealthy breeze through, virtually unscathed. That it had to come from an unregenerate Communist is sad.

We don’t need to use Greece as an example. In America, they are having a political debate over the question of raising the debt ceiling. At the heart of the problem is that the super-rich individuals and corporations are not appropriately taxed, according to their means that is, while the politicians bicker over the deficit and economic survival. Americans know damn well, just as the do the Greeks, that the fault lies not in unregulated social generosity but in unenforced laws to make the wealthy pay their share.

Ben would have been happy to hear Steve remind us of the gap.

THE ELEGANCE OF POLITICS

2011-06-24T09:56:00.002-04:00

it has become difficult to distinguish between "governing" and "pandering." At what point does a leader, or a government body pass from legislating for the good of its citizens, and pandering to their prejudices to get votes. This is cynical of course, but it is not new.

Throughout history, from the time of the Circus Maximus to the pose of being "tough on crime" politicians have looked for way, not to improve the life of its citizens,. but to pacify them and persuade them that they had their best interest (the citizens) in mind.

How else could you explain the current state of affairs in as mighty a place as Washington or as miniscule a place as Toronto City Hall? Obama knows the campaigning for his second term will begin soon and he is rallying public opinion. But he still seems to be his own man, having flown in the face of public opinion (or misread it) and the support of Congress by doing a troop withdrawal that falls far short of what Americans expected. We will see if the governing turns to pandering. Will he bow to public opinion and increase the size of the troop withdrawals? Without that he will be perceived to be a tool in the hands of the militsry. He can only dine out on the killing of Bin Laden for so long.

A quantum shift to Toronto, where the mayor has once again proved that he "hears what the taxpayers are saying." Council, the mayor's willing prisoners, voted to abandon the "bike riding socialists" and kill the Miller heritage Jarvis bike lanes. The mayor stayed on sideline. The bike lanes, which reduced the car traffic lanes from five to four, are to be abandoned. even though studies show that the lane reductions did not impede traffic flow. He claims that he knows what his beloved taxpayers want. (If they had their way we'd remove bike lanes and sidewalks so everything could be paved for cars.)

That move is nothing but politics. But a much more sinister move is that he will not march in the Gay Pride Parade. With hordes of taxpayers in the former suburbs, like his beloved Etobicoke, he is displaying his own homophobia. "It would not be appropriate" for him to join the gay-lesbian-trans-gendered hordes as they parade their depravity for all to see.

Is there politics here? Does it really matter? Is Ford simply using his bully pulpit to gang up ion people he does not like, homosexuals and cyclists, left-wingers and
other misguided citizens. What he needs now is to have Don Cherry pronounce him clean and caring and not one of those fellow-travellers.

The tragedy is that his level of pandering displays the narrow bias in the mayor, but even worse, a presumption that most people in Toronto are on his side.
He is nothing if not a skilful manipulator.

I cry for the future of my caring city.

TIPPING POINTS?

2011-06-16T10:31:00.003-04:00

I was fascinated by the book. It became a best-seller – all because the author did a clever examination of why some things become enormously popular. They all have that:” tipping point,” described as an event or a group of people, which rockets something either unknown or forgotten on to public consciousness. My favourite example from the book was “Hush Puppies” an almost forgotten soft shoe. He examines why it suddenly took off, and who it might have been who made this literally “old” shoe all the rage.

The idea should also be brought in to explain social fads. The practice of young “macho” (or wannabes) a [appearing with a several day's growth of beard has become ultra chic. In fact, Hugh Jackman appeared on the Tony Awards show with an uber-chic stubble.

The unshaven look used to be considered unkempt. I am sure it has played havoc with the razor business. Where did it all start? The first time I ever saw it was on the original “Miami Vice” where Don Johnson added to his manliness by appearing with several days of stubble. The idea took root. Young men who want to look “with it” use a razor that shaves but leaves enough stubble to be he-manly. I can’t
understand why women seem to like it. The stubble must play havoc with their complexions, not to mention unwanted abrasiveness in more private; places.

I jump from the unshaven look to tattooing. The principal difference being that you can always shave your face back to smoothness. Removing a tattoo is painful and expensive, and doesn’t always do a perfect job.

The time will come when the tattoo will be passé. The time will come when the unshaven look will be just as passé. It will take someone like a celebrity, or some “in-group” to lead the way.

I have long since resigned myself to the idea of self-decoration. But a few days ago, confronted with a very manly man who seemed covered from fingertip to armpit, I saw what it really was: the arm looked like a lizard. There are many who say that females are the ones who put the tattoo where it can only be seen during intimate moments.

But today, I watched a very well turned out blonde get our of a very new car. As she got out her sweater lifted enough to display skin between her top and he slacks. There was a very large, round tattoo announcing itself. It was a momentary glance, because she adjusted her clothing and headed for Pusateris. (Which is also chic)

The question: will there be a tipping point to end the fad? Was there a tipping; point that gave it worldwide revival? Was there someone, some fashion maven, some star, some rock singer – who was the first to show the new mark of “in?”

All I can say is: we’ll see.

TORONTO - MIRROR OF A BIGGER PROBLEM

2011-06-11T15:35:00.002-04:00

My city may have the biggest traffic jams in North Americas and may, according to numbers, rival London. No one seems to care enough to make a change. We almost had it, but Toronto squandered a chance to have a truly new transit system. But that’s politics, and “fairness to taxpayerS” trumps common sense or even fiscal prudence.

If you know Toronto, you know that the new St.Clair West “dedicated” streetcar line has shaved many minutes of traveling time. The even more dominating statistic is that people ride it. I got on that streetcar at the Yonge subway stop and along with more than 50 other passengers went west, This was not rush hour. It was 1:30 in the afternoon! Our mayor, who was photographed this week smiling as he leaned on the grille of his Lincoln Navigator, has no time for streetcars, The roads, he insists, are made for cars. I have no objection to subways, but they are very costly and take forever to build. Never mind that one of our mayor’s pipe dreams is a subway financed by private money. Gimme a break.

The madness is that the man who declared: that “the war on cars is over” still has an overwhelmingly favorable voter support, according to polls. I mused, as I sat there on that St. Clair streetcar: “If there are at least 50 people riding, that means that 50 cars on not on the road." The space taken up by one streetcar can’t be compared to the space taken up by 50 cars. But he doesn’t get it. Worse still, most people don’t get it either. He told them he would have respect for their taxpaying burden. He speaks perhaps to people who live in the former suburbs and are attached to their cars. The though of anything like toll roads or gas taxes to pay for transit that they won’t deign to use, is unacceptable.

One can only imagine what traffic would be like if we didn't have our transit system.
I still wonder at the choked rush hour highways, packed with people (one car-one driver) who could be joining the thousands who ride the GO system.

I wrote recently about the conference of the world’s 40 biggest cities. Michael Bloomberg is a lot smarter than Mayor Ford – and he is also a lot richer. His city is famous for traffic, but even in that seething metropolis, the centre of the Times Square area at Broadway and 42nd street, is car-free.

And just one more reminder: Paris, which has the world’s finest subway system. is now building dedicated surface routes for trolleys. Maybe our mayor should drive his Lincoln Navigator to Paris and see for himself.

As I said in the beginning, this is a cautionary tale for every big city – go transit or go broke.

AUTHORS OF OUR OWN MISFORTUNES (2)

2011-06-08T21:25:00.001-04:00

In my blog last week about the folly of “reverse mortgages” I added that house buying is, for many, a mortgage-poor path to insolvency. I received one response from a friend in England who set me thinking. She agreed about “house-poor” people. And she said the rush to buy a home helped put Britain into financial trouble. (They didn’t have sub-prime mortgages, but the housing market was grossly overextended.) We know that millions of people are in so far over their heads, that the economic problems evident today, especially in the U.S., are directly related to the home-ownership mystique.

Remember the “ownership society” that George Bush wanted America to be. Owning your own home was the sold, American-way-of-life thing to do. The principle part of “The American Dream.” But the imperative of home ownership is not new. Veterans returning from WWE2 wanted to own a home. In America we got Levittown’s, enormous cookie cutter development aimed directly at the home-ownership hungry veterans. To a great extent that happened here too. Does anyone remember how E.P. Taylor enriched himself by turning his farm into Canada’s first “satellite city?” He was responsible for Don Mills, which became the magnet for hungry home buyers, How deeply embedded the idea was - one of the conditions he exacted from government was that if he was to build on a farm miles away from the city, he would have to be guaranteed that a multi-lane access road would be built to get to Don Mills. Bingo! The Don Valley Parking Lot.

Governments everywhere, especially in the U.S. and the European Union, are staggering under a load of debt. The biggest part has come from the stampede of helpless and naïve people rushing to buy homes. There us a fatal myth about renters. They are unstable people who care little for the property they rent. There is no “pride of ownership.” We bought the myth lock stock and mortgage.

Governments, fighting the almost fruitless war against the deficit, want that ugly figure to be a reasonable ratio of the Gross National Product. If we applied the same to home buyers and looked at their gross household product, we would soon discover that the ratio of debt to equity was over the top.

What’s even worse is that in America, which like it or not, sets the tone for the world’s economy, greed replaced sanity. Millions of imaginary assets were purchased by people who were gulled into signing documents beyond their understanding and far beyond their budget. All’s fair though – when a country is trying to put people into home ownership...

My wife is, dare I say it, addicted to TV shows like “House Hunters.” I watch it with her, but for different reasons. She watches to see what the prospective home buyer seems to want. I watch it to marvel at the gullibility of the young couple who have permission to overload themselves with a debt that they may never pay. (And we know that many homes among the millions being repossessed are “under water.” The value of the home is less than the size of the mortgage.

I have wondered why banks and other institutions which have become the de facto owners of abandoned or foreclosed property have not, perhaps with government assistance. Offered these homes for rent. (In fact, it does happen where, instead of allowing the house to be empty the foreclosers have rented it to the former owners.

Of course, home ownership makes sense to the developers. They build and get all their money out when they find a buyer. If they rented, they’d still have the cash tied up. Eureka! That’s the real underlying truth. The builder doesn’t want to tie his money up. Neither should the prospective buyer. Accountants have done all the figures and in most cases it is far more practical to keep your capital intact and pay rent.

The argument pro buying is usually: “I’m tired of; paying out money and having nothing to show for it.” People are rent-averse but the irony is that when you buy you are simply renting the money from the bank. The only consolation is that over the long term the value of property increases – unless you get in at the wrong time, the way, when there is a housing boom, everyone wants to buy a house.

My bank manager once said to me, when we insisted on staying in our home, "If you really want the home, that’s what counts." It is not a matter of money.”

We rent. Our capital is tied up in income producing instruments. Our landlord is responsible for all the problems. When we travel, we lock the door behind us and head for the airport. Worry free!

LOOKING AHEAD - IN A REAR VIEW MIRROR

2011-06-05T10:59:00.003-04:00

I keep watching those political shows that are the staple on Sunday morning TV. The current dither is all about Mitt Romney and about how Sarah Palin upstaged him by going to New Hampshire right at the time Romney was (surprise surprise) announcing his candidacy. Even the New York Times weighed in with a piece about Sarah and her mindless tour of America: Gettysburg etc. The story was headlined by a picture of her on the buddy seat of a motorcycle. She has this traveling bus but she “avoids” media coverage. She even parked her bus at the door of her hotel to distract journalists who didn’t notice her slipping out the back door. That’s just one example of how crazy the run-up to 2012 is already. There’s more to come!

On ABC’s look at the coming presidential primaries there was the usual jabber about the “most important” element in the next campaign: employment. Obama is already fretting over the meager new job figures for May, passing it off as a “blip.” Some blip.

They, especially the Republicans, along with a roomful of “maverick” Democrats, keep hoping that Corporate America will step up and create jobs. After all, the market economy is everything. Just look at China,. They have a bad economic year when growth is only 8%. Ask yourself: “how much is China depending on private corporations to create jobs?”

In the pursuit of the orthodoxy that only the private sector can get the job done, government looks at heaping even more tax cuts on corporations. They believe, in spite of all the evidence, that corporations need more money to spend on jobs and on capital expenditures. Truth is it all gets stashed away in the company treasury. Meanwhile, American home prices have fallen to 1992 levels with no recovery in sight. Until the American consumer starts spending money the corporations are not going to be hiring more people to make more goods to sell to a nation that has sopped buying stuff. But they cling doggedly to their orthodoxy. They support the claims that government should spend less by citing the wastefulness of countries like Greece and Portugal, and the Celtic Tiger – Ireland. In fact, Ireland is suffering from a real estate boom that burst while collecting some of the lowest corporate taxes in the world. Greece’s credit rating is in the toilet. The G7 thinks they should be spending less. But at the same time perhaps they should be more diligent in collecting taxes. Speaking of which, what ever happened to the Obama promise to rein in the flight of capital to tax-free offshore havens?

They still look in the rear-view mirror, expecting wisdom to spring from what used to be.

In fact, what used to be maybe never was. Maybe it was all part of a grand illusion.

At the heart of America’s problems is not the unwillingness of cash-rich corporations to bail the economy out, it is in the enormous disparity between the rich and the dispossessed. One percent of the wealthiest Americans have more assets than the bottom ninety percent! The only instrument that can right this obvious wrong is a government with the will to make changes. In America, and I have to guess, in Canada too, no one wants to rock the leaky boat. Let’s try another tax cut. Thankfully Harper seems to want to delay any such government largesse, at least for the near future. Which I guess is the fundamental difference between us and our neighbours: they are the wealth-based orthodoxy and ours is, no matter what government is in power, still a “liberal” democracy which pays attention to social responsibilities. Most of the time.

AUTHORS OF OUR OWN MISFORTUNES?

2011-06-02T17:43:00.002-04:00

More than twenty years ago I wrote and voiced a commercial for a new way to raise money: “reverse mortgages.” I did it for an insurance agency that was offering these panaceas for older people in financial straights.

Since that time the reverse mortgage business has thrived. The latest TV commercials tell us that there are now lower rates, thanks to a major insurance company.
The commercials tell us that if you are over age 62 you can access “as much as” 40% of the value of your home. Sounds good. Then tell you: “You continue to live in your house until you either leave or sell.” Still sounds good. But, and this is advice to fellow seniors, there is no Santa Claus. There is an American TV commercial featuring a failed Republican presidential candidate (and sometimes actor) Senator Fred Thompson. He actually tells viewers that he is proud to be part of this program.

I have always wondered why people who are at or nearing retirement age, and may have become empty nesters, decide that a four bedroom house for two people in foolish. So what do so many of them do? They continue the foolishness: They sell their home and re-invest the proceeds in something else, usually a condominium. They jump, if not from the frying pan into the fire, from one frying pan to another. Nothing seems to change. True, if you timed it well, you sold your home at a profit and promptly paid too much for a trouble-free condominium. The only answer to this decision seems to be that it is somehow better to own than rent and that owning represents an investment. At your age why would you want to make that kind of investment? It’s like taking your money and putting it into the stock market in common equities that do not produce revenue (or produce very little) and have the possibility of increasing or decreasing in value.

The choice to jump from one frying pan to another seems to be right up there with staying in a home you no longer need and financing that stay with a reverse mortgage. In all the ads I’ve seen, there is no discussion about the downside – of course. You get the money yes. But your home is encumbered with a mortgage. You make no payments of course, but someone has to be paying. Indirectly it is you. The lending company which holds the mortgage will be making regular payments to itself, at least on paper. Those payments will of course be added to the existing reverse mortgage on your home.

Now, you decide to sell the house. Whoops. It is encumbered not only with a mortgage, but with the paper payments that have to be made at what the company says are “lower interest rates.” The net value of your home is diminished.

The other situation: you decide to move, perhaps into an assisted living home. The mortgage on the home, and accrued interest become payable. You will be lucky to have anything left.

When my wife and I finally decided that it was folly to keep our house, which was a money pit and the money supply had seriously diminished, we sold. Guess what. The obligations outstanding, between our mortgage and the liability on our line of credit amounted to about 40% of the value of the house! We got out with 60% of the value, invested it, and live comfortably in a downtown condominium where we rent a spacious 2 bedroom apartment. We live with just as much comfort and security as the people who live in their home encumbered with a “reverse mortgage” except that we are free and clear. We owe nothing.

While I’m on the subject, I have come to believe that home ownership is greatly overrated. It is embedded in our psyche. People who say: “I don’t want to pay rent and have nothing to show for it,” opt instead to be mortgage poor. You are still paying rent. The difference is that instead of renting a place to live you are renting the money that appears on your mortgage.

Never mind what I say – I’m not really qualified. Go talk to your accountant.
I did write "Don't Be Blind=sided by Retirement," but at the time I wasn't so steamed up about the reverse mortgage.

SEXUAL JOUSTING UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS

2011-06-01T08:01:00.002-04:00

Here go my feminist credentials up in smoke! Maureen Dowd, very feminine and very feminist Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times has declared that the Strauss-Kahn headlines have caused a sea change in European attitudes toward women. If the former head of the IMF did in fact sexually assault a chambermaid, he should be appropriately prosecuted. But Dowd goes a lot further.

“In the wake of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, as more Frenchwomen venture sexual harassment charges against elite men, the capital of seduction is reeling at the abrupt shift from can-can to can’t-can’t. Le Canard Enchaîné, a satirical weekly, still argues that “News always stops at the bedroom door,” but many French seem ready to bid adieu to the maxim.”

She writes about how Sarkozy is trying to re-invent himself as a loving family man. She cites the “fact” that the French are no longer going to wink at sexual impropriety. Berlusconi tops the current list of misogynists.

She also makes reference to how the French have long disdained the Puritanism of America but now everything may be changing. For me, and I am a fan of Ms Dowd, she has gone from the particular to the general, a long leap and a stumble.

I know what you’re thinking: I grew up at a time when pretty girls were fair game. They were submissive and knew how to flirt and how to protest and how to say “no.” And it is not that long ago that signs appeared in the dorm and frat windows of a major Canadian university reading “No means keep trying.” I know all that.

What is missing is not, as Dowd puts it, the macho of Ernest Hemingway, but the charm of sexual jousting; the back-and-forth of suggestion, innuendo, and flirting that characterized a very human exchange between a man and a woman. Both parties knew what the other one was up to. Both were adults. Both were capable of resistance or compliance. It was, admittedly, an uneven playing field.

Many years ago when I was doing features on CBC News I interviewed Germaine Greer. She was the hottest of the hot feminists. She had just published the “Female Eunuch.” She was in no mood for pushy men. I had to try her out. At one point I called her “dear.” I could hear the uproar coming through the control room glass. She pounced on me. But I knew she would. I hoped she would.

I forget, was it Livy or Ovid who wrote “The Art of Love.” For me, all the artistry has gone our of the male-female connection. I do not countenance the degradation of women. But I simply can’t tolerate the decline of that wonderful, sensual, sexual, human encounter that is measured and clever, and represents give-and-take between the sexes. We are, I think, still different.

DRIVE LESS - BREATHE BETTER

2011-05-31T19:55:00.002-04:00

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York will convene a meeting of the world’s 40 biggest cities.

Cities produce 70% of the climate-changing gases. Bloomberg will be joined by Bill Clinton. Together, they will do what their own country has so far failed to do, and what Canada has also, in lockstep with our neighbours, also failed to do – reduce pollution and create measures that will help improve the environment – the air we breathe and the water we drink.

There are many elements to the program – from white roofs which provide better insulation to LED lights which reduce energy consumption.

What looms, if they can get the project off the ground is probably what our mayor would call “a war on cars.” Since Toronto is not among the world’s 40 largest cities (we are fifth in North America) I presume Rob Ford will not be invited to offer his Neanderthal approach to urban transportation.

Six years ago the first meeting was put together to discuss ways that cities could reduce pollution. That meeting was put together by Bill Clinton and Ken Livingstone, then mayor of London,

I can just picture a meeting between Livingstone and Ford. For our mayor the car is still king and he wants to build subways because, to paraphrase his words: “roads are meant for cars.” Ken Livingstone is the man who declared that London could no longer tolerate its gridlocked traffic which made life miserable in the city and produced enormous quantities of pollution. It is now very difficult, if not almost impossible to drive a car in to the centre of London. If you dare to drive it will cost you.

It was and still is an idea whose time has come. If I have occasion to be out and about in my car, using it only because the place I have to reach is seriously inconvenient by public transit. (I take the subway everywhere otherwise) I am always startled by the number of patient commuters who sit, one car-one driver, in traffic waiting to get home. In London they simply wouldn’t be driving downtown.

One of the points about the Bloomberg plan, and he made it plain in a TV interview, is that you can’t simply “give people what they want.” You have to try to explain to them why drastic moves have to be made. You have to have a dialogue that illuminates the problem of urban pollution. You have to persuade by conversion. Once people start to understand that in the long run it will be better, will cost less, and give us clean air and decent water. Bloomberg is evangelical about the responsibility of cities.

Contrast it with the mess we are in my city. Contrast a Bloomberg with a Ford. Go ahead. See who comes out on top.

HERES TO THE END OF "SACRED COWS."

2011-05-29T12:18:00.002-04:00

I define a “sacred cow” as an idea, or an institution, or any long-held “truth.” And with the infinite design of “truth” – not to be tampered with. In other words, we learn to live with what is wrong. (For those who may not put two and two together, it derives from Hindu respect for the cow.)

My Sunday Morning “enlightenment” often begins watching some of the best public service items on TV. This morning I watched Republican House leader Eric Cantor defend the Republican makeover of Medicare. (This whole issue has its counterparts here in the tax-cutting platform of Tim Hudak and the less-government-lower-taxes of the Harper government.) In the U.S. the Republican claim that Medicare is headed for bankruptcy and so the next generation of Medicare user i.e. anyone under the age of 55 now, will have access to medical care through a voucher system. The government will issue vouchers and the seniors who receive them are free to “shop” for the best deal from health insurance providers. Sounds like a great idea, an idea that enshrines at least one sacred cow: the ability of the marketplace to solve all our problems. In this instance, the sacred cow is the insurance industry. The folly of suggesting that private insurance companies will actually “compete” is at the heart of the problem. Witness what happened in California. When “Obama-care” became law, Blue Cross Blue Shield of California raised rates by 40%!

There are other sacred cows that hold back progress in the name, ironically, of progress.

Hudak in Ontario, Harper in Ottawa, and the Republicans of America, are one in their belief that tax cuts improve the economy. The truth is that tax cuts are vote- getters, sadly, among those most critically affected by the failure to raise taxes in the wealthy and big corporations. More sacred cows.

The other pervasive sacred cow continues to be the deficit. In all the “belt-tightening” that is part of deficit reduction; it is the ones who are most vulnerable who are asked to tighten their belts. Paul Martin became our economic saviour when, as Minister of Finance under Chretien, he did enough belt-tightening to eliminate the deficit (but not the national debt) with a series of almost Draconian cuts to services. Martin is still a hero and is a consultant to countries who want to learn about his deficit-reducing magic.

The final sacred cow is of course the tax increase. Republicans literally dine out on their hatred of tax increases. The 2% of the wealthiest Americans will not be hurt by having to pay more. The likes of multi-billionaire Warren Buffet has supported tax increases for the super-rich. Part of that sacred cow is the “assault” on small business.

Resistance to keeping the 35% corporate tax rate is based on the harm it will do to small business. That’s gospel. Except that most small businesses never approached the point where they pay high corporate taxes. In fact, at least in the U.S., many of those so-called small businesses are companies like hedge funds.

But finally, a politician whose summons of obedience to the sacred cows will win, supported by the uninformed who still have the right to vote.

There is hope. In Western New York, a Democrat defeated a Republican in a Congressional election. The “wedge” issue was Medicare. Enough voters woke up and the former Republican stronghold went to the Democrats. While it’s hardly a revolution, it may mean that the light is dawning.

In this country, it is hopeless, at least for now. To pretend the same thing will happen. Perhaps the issue of that sacred cow is what suddenly transport of the NDP from a minor third party to the official opposition. Only time will tell.

MURDER WILL OUT

2011-05-26T18:41:00.002-04:00

On TV news I saw it. I shuddered. Nothing seems to change. “If you have nothing to hide,” said the police officer, “you have nothing to fear.” It was all about collecting voluntary DNA samples from people who might have been involved in the murder of an Orangeville woman, nurse Sonia Varaschin.

That is classic police doggerel. It is an excuse for every kind of surveillance, from phone tapping to opening mail. The police, at least this one, just don’t get it. I would presume that if the police have a reasonable suspicion that someone has committed a crime, they can get a court order which literally suspends someone’s civil liberties in order to pursue a case against him. That’s harsh. But it’s fair.

At the risk of being branded “soft on crime” (I have another blog coming on that one) I have to stand up for civil liberties. We do live in a civil society. We do believe not only in the rule of law, but in the profoundly held doctrine of innocent until proven guilty.

When you ask someone to take a test to prove innocence, you run counter to that profoundly held belief. There are some jurisdictions in some other parts of the world where some accused bear the burden of proving innocence. We do it the other way around. Even though I have heard police officers say “we rarely arrest anyone who is not guilty” I still believe, and they are bound by law to believe that presumed innocence is n absolute right.

If I had somehow been living in the area or had been known as someone who knew the unfortunate victim, I might be approached by the authorities to give them a DNA sample. I would refuse. I do not believe I have an obligation to help the authorities judge my guilt or innocence. Even as an accused, the protection is still there. In a vengeful, sometimes bloodthirsty society, there is a craving for bloody justice. Lynching used to be popular for that very reason. And if I refused the police would consider me a prime suspect. "What does he have to hide," they will ask?

But we no longer lynch. We have courts that will make judgements based on information. An accused has the right not to implicate himself. In America that right is enshrined in the 5th amendment. I know. I know. It all sounds just too bleeding-heart permissive. Do the crime, do the time and all that stuff.

As imperfect as it may be, it is still an obligation we have. Summary conviction or Star Chamber courts are not allowed in a democracy.

If a police officer has a reasonable suspicion that can be backed up with information, he is entitled to ask a court to give him permission to demand evidence.

I am no lawyer. I do resent the now-familiar “lawyering up” accusation that follows someone being charged or even under suspicion. The expression says that the minute you call for legal help you must be guilty. An innocent person would not “lawyer up.” That’s what too many people believe.

The law has limits and justice (as the sculptural renditions show) is blind. Even the most rabid lock-em-up advocate has to realize what the blindfold on the statue of justice means.

Of course I hope, as does everyone else, that the police will find the murderer. Doing it the hard way is difficult, but in a democracy, it is essential.

A LITTLE SPRING FEVER

2011-05-24T19:10:00.001-04:00

“She was walking without a coat and she looked very solid and strong and her belly was flat, like a boy's, under her skirt, and her hips swung boldly because she was a dancer and also because she knew Michael was looking at her.” From “Girls In Their Summer Dresses.”

Perhaps the best thing I have ever read about girl-watching, that short story by Irwin Shaw. In the story, Michael is walking in New York with his wife. She becomes irritated at how he is constantly watching women as they pass in the street. The story is “Girls in Their Summer Dresses.” I love more than the story, and if I can be forgiven for a sexist moment, a throwback to the “male chauvinist” of the 60s – I like nothing better than a well turned out woman. And for the woman, nothing suits her more than that airy cotton spring dress – the style that seemed to arrive about the same time as the first crocus. There is no more compelling sign of spring. (The Shaw story actually is set in November.)

Today, I nearly did to my wife, what Michael was doing to his wife. We were leaving our apartment and crossing the little plaza in front of the building I noticed a pretty 30-something woman sitting next to the fountain. She was wearing a dress! I wanted to go over to her, risking perhaps a charge of sexual harassment, and compliment her. I would have said something like: “How wonderful of you to be wearing a dress in honour of spring.” How wonderful because when spring arrives and with it the sense of spring “fever” – I am always disappointed that so many women have forsaken femininity for feminism. They are almost all wearing slacks or jeans. They do not want to be on display. They do not want to be objectified. I sympathize.

But do they realize that they have deprived people like me of one of the great joys of spring. The summer dress should be as important as the first robin or a bed of tulips or a gentle breeze that is the harbinger of sultry days to come.

Because spring is my favourite season, I want to luxuriate in all its aspects. I don’t think I objectify women. I think I like looking at them, especially well-turned out and fresh and not always eye-popping beauties.

I wonder if she would have had the grace to dimple up, turn a little red, and thank me for the compliment. Or would she call for the cops.

I know this – my wife would not have tolerated it. I am her sole source of male attention. Or else.

P.S. We were on our way to see the movie “Bridesmaids.” It was superb. It was all about women. Don’t miss it.

THE "CON" IN PRO AND CON

2011-05-22T11:23:00.002-04:00

The silly season is back. Americans are being bombarded with political advertising. This morning, watching my favourite “CBS Sunday Morning” – I stopped counting after about half a dozen of these commercials. The Republicans were accusing the Democrat candidates of the usual tax and spend. The Democrats were accusing the Republicans of catering to the interests of Big Business. The same old same old.

But setting aside actual political considerations: who will win and who will lose and why – I come to the main point: “The Con.” I don’t mean “con” as the opposite of “pro” – I mean “con” in the context of using devious means to persuade, e.g. “conning.”

The biggest political con in America, and to some extent here, is that taxes of any kind of fundamentally bad. Anyone who votes for tax increases is the devil incarnate. Heading the “con” list is the totally meaningless statement: “Job-killing tax increases.” There is utterly no logic to the belief that tax increases lead to job losses, but it reads well to people whose attention span is at bumper-sticker level. It makes a good slogan and it plays to the uninformed prejudices of the voter, or as our mayor would say: “The rights of the taxpayer,” whatever that means.

There is the fantasy, and then there are the facts. The fact is, in America at any rate, tax “increases” are leveled at the top one percent of the population who make more than $250,000 a year – and more likely into multi-millions a year. To “penalize” the rich by taking more money from them simply does not cause unemployment. All the extra money the rich save on taxes is not money that would be spent providing jobs. In fact, most of the excess i.e. the difference between what you earn and what it costs you to live is simply stashed away, sometimes in offshore accounts where it can escape the evil eye of the tax collector. There is absolutely no evidence to connect higher taxes for the super-rich to unemployment. We have the same issues here that American corporations have: corporate taxes. Mr. Harper plans to reduce those taxes to attract business. All the evidence so far, and the Globe published this story many months ago, is that corporate tax savings do not find their way into expenditure on either capital goods or hiring more employees. The money is stashed away in the company treasury.

Because it has taken me more than a paragraph to explain the simple realities of taxes and the relationship to jobs, that is far too much to ask some people to absorb. It exceeds bumper sticker length. It probably exceeds the verbiage allowed on Twitter.

The only case that can be made for job loss associated to tax increase is that companies will always, if they can, move their operations to lower tax jurisdictions and with that moving upset the job market in their original home. That’s quite true. But it is also true that those jurisdictions with lower taxes and actually borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, One part of the country suffers, another part seems to prosper. Except that with that lower tax haven, the governments will have less to spend on silly things like education, social services, and health care. If you look at the low tax places you will find that their levels of social services are substantially lower and that their own citizens suffer most from the love affair with lower taxes.

In fact, when the epithet “tax and spend” is used (as it was here during our recent federal election), there is a fatal flaw that few of us seem to notice. It is the “spend” part. If tax revenues are spent much of it goes to pay salaries for people in essential jobs. But America, and to some extent Canada, does not connect the dots. You object to paying taxes but you also object to your neighbour having his home foreclosed on after he loses his job. Sometimes, and I am being excessively cynical. only because it lowers the value of the neighbourhood and with it your own home

You can’t have it both ways. Taxation is part of democracy. Democracy believes that it is obliged to provide services to its citizens, not to protect the rights of the wealthy to bolster their portfolios.

ANOTHER SPRING - ANOTHER HOPE

2011-05-21T17:46:00.003-04:00

Not meaning to sound mawkish I took a deep emotional breath of my favourite season. It did not disappoint. The first leaves have a kind of emerald hue not unlike the colour of the grass in New Zealand. Spring revives me. My senses awaken. I muse about how many more springs I will live to see.

There is an awakening that is difficult to explain. Shirley must have felt it. “Let’s go to the AGO today.” She tends not to lead but this time she did. I’m glad.

I worry about our Art Gallery, made into a world-class destination by the work of Frank Gehry. People have been staying away. But we go, not for the “big name” shows, like the coming Chagall, but for the pure joy of the art. We were lucky. On the fifth floor, where Frank designed very high-ceilinged rooms to accommodate modern (and often large) art pieces, there was an exhibit by the Montreal artist Patterson Ewen. It went through his development from representational “pictures” to Impressionism, and to abstract. If it hadn’t been for the school groups, we were nearly the only people there. It made me sad.

I was lifted a little when we went down a few floors to the breathtaking print and illustrating of David Blackwood. His Newfoundland bristles with vigour and shape. His film about Labrador is warm. My spirits rose a little because there were more people there, perhaps only more school groups.

My mind did strange things. I wondered how often Mayor Ford or Don Cherry visit the gallery. I had just read the startling piece in the Star about Cherry and how his “patriotism” affected Canadians, especially hockey fans. I put the word in brackets, not because I mistrust Cherry (which I do but not about this) but because it is so rah-rah, so jingoistic and to me – fraudulent. But I often feel that way about Canadians who bluster and boom a lot about “our gallant troops in Afghanistan.” It’s almost as if there is a patriotic bandwagon going and they want to be part of it. My own feelings are that we probably shouldn’t be there in the first place, but I salute the bravery of the troops who, given no choice, go and do their duty, sometimes with a fatal outcome.

I wonder where Canadian values really are. I wonder how many people, in their personal rush toward “success” felt the same giving of grace I felt looking at this year’s crop of green leaves. I couldn’t help wondering, as I walked by the paintings, if in fact Don Cherry felt the same was about Canadian art as he does about Canadian military. Or would he disdain it, leaving it to his enemies, the left-wing pinkos.

Alas, we seem to be worlds apart. I think it is because in the rock-em sock-em world there is room only for physical prowess. I fear that we have, at least in the person of Cherry and Ford, entered a world of anti-intellectualism and mistrust of anything that can’t be put on a bumper sticker.

P.S. The day after my visit I had dinner with a friend who is a docent at the AGO. She said the next day was crowded. I hope so.

DON'T DRINK THE WATER

2011-05-18T08:27:00.002-04:00

This whole tirade came from watching one of my favourite chefs on the Food Network. More later.

It was the usual warning when you traveled to say – Mexico – where one drink of their tap water would give you the Aztec Two Step. Mexico got a bad deal probably. I remember Istanbul where tourists fled to bottled water served to them at the desk of their hotel. You were advised not to drink from that bottle if the seal had been broken because of course some clever water-entrepreneur had refilled it from the fetid Istanbul tap water.

I can see that precaution being legitimate in much of the developing world, where potable water is not always available. But here? In this country? And in the United States? Consumption of bottled water has become epidemic. I am always amused seeing a chic 20-something drinking her “pure” bottled water with one hand, while the other hand held a lit cigarette.

I have always loved the water that comes out of the tap in Toronto. Statistically it is a lot more pure than much of the water that is sold bottled.

The other side of the bottled water phenomenon, in fact there are actually two sides: one being that fresh water is being drained away for commercial shipment and the hundreds of thousands of empty non-biodegradable plastic water bottles are coming a close second to decomposable diapers in the landfill sites.

My beef is not with the waste of resources. It is with the fear and anxiety that has propelled millions into not trusting perfectly good tap water. It’s the same fear and anxiety that has been godfather to the development a fear-based food economy.
My favourite sad memory is words spoken by by someone from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture who complained wistfully to me: “You can’t fight CBS AND Meryl Streep.”

He was referring to a victory by the food fascists who are determined to tell us all what we must not eat. He was talking about Alar, a product that allowed apples to stay on the trees longer so they could ripen fully. It was discovered that Alar was a suspected carcinogen (almost anything can e carcinogenic if you take enough of it)
And between Sixty Minutes and the appeals of Meryl Streep (she didn’t want her children to grow up eating poison) the product, a boon to apple orchards, was taken off the market. It was a win for the forces of darkness that have, in my view, turned the food industry into a platform for their own agenda.

I am no scientist, but I see the entire organic, no-additives, no-chemicals crowd as not only misguided, but hysterical and worse, convincing millions of people that processed food and additives are killing the human race.

They are aided by well-meaning people like big-name chefs who make their culinary delights using only the best – e.g. organically grown food. (I’ll never win this one, except that agronomists at major universities have blind-tested people with regular food and organic food side by side. They have not been able to tell the difference. The other day, watching my favourite food show, "French Cooking At Home" with Laura Calder. She was breaking eggs with coloured shells. There is quite mysteriously, some notion that they are better than whiter-shelled eggs. She also made a delightful concoction that included carrots. She did not peel the carrots because she said, they were organic. Such rubbish, and from a real food person. You peel the carrots not because of some mysterious infection of chemicals and fertilizers and insecticides, but because the outer skin is tough and sometimes dirty. (I know, the dirt is clean because it is organic. Tell that to the people who got sick on organic spinach that was Ecoli infected. From “pure” fertilizer I guess. Pure in this case from the feces of organically fed, non-hormone-treated cattle.)

I remember an agronomist commenting about chemical fertilizer being used on vegetables. He said: “The cabbage doesn’t know the difference. It uses the fertilizer to give us a better vegetable.”

One of my other bugbears is the comment, when I confront one of these people with the point about: chemicals, suggesting that there is no harm - the response is “but we don’t know what the long-term effect will be.” That’s always a convenient dodge.

I’ve had it up to here with free range this and organist that and “real” food, not the genetically altered variety which will help feed a world that is slowly running out of the capacity to grow enough to feed everyone,.

My last shit is reserved for the opponent of “irradiated” food. The word is one of those loaded words that connotes death by radiation poisoning; Irradiation has been around for a long time. It inhibits the growth of food-rotting bacteria and makes the shelf life longer – so once again – we can feed more people.

I am indignant. In my last blog I suggested I would by kinder and more mellow. Come to my place for dinner and I’ll be mellow. You’ll be eating food that may not pass all your critical tests. I promise you – it won’t kill you. It might even taste good..

FLASHBACK TO A BETTER (?) TIME

2011-05-09T18:02:00.003-04:00

It’s been a while. I’m still not back to full energy. I spend a lot of time between brooding about not having written anything and wishing the fatigue would come to an end.

I nearly wrote a piece about “productivity.” A piece I read in the Globe and Mail last week set me off. “Productivity” usually means that you have to sweat your workers. But I am more and more coming to realize that everything seems to “set me off.”

Then I walked by an enlargement hanging on the wall in my office. I seldom look at it, but today I did. It made me wonder about myself. It made me wonder, as I did many years ago, about why I seem to thrive on being angry. Nothing wrong with being a critic, but I find myself carping, often about the same things. The election didn’t help. Rob Ford doesn’t help. Trash in the streets doesn’t help.

The photograph is one of a series of painted billboards I paid for in, I think, 1969. I mentioned it in passing in “The Day I Invented Sex,” the story of my fall from grace, In November 1970.

I had turned 40. I was doing a look at myself and at the reputation I had built (a profitable one) by being radio’s reigning curmudgeon. It was not dramatic enough to be an epiphany. It was simply my sense that I might enjoy things more if I reduced the amount of vinegar and replaced it with honey. I was realizing that I had been rude and unyielding to thousands of phone callers for the preceding nearly ten years.

The idea surfaced when I realized that I had become part of the “every-man-for-himself” society. Don’t give an inch. Push and elbow your way to what you believe to be your “place.”

I did a series of programs talking about being “nice.” Nothing was very profound or difficult. You are in line to get on a streetcar so you crowd in to grab your place in line. I said that perhaps we should try stepping back and allowing someone else to go by a welcoming wave of the hand. It cost nothing. I went to easy things like driving in traffic and seeing someone trying to enter the flow from a side street. Slow down and wave them in. I also tried a little more please and thank you. Nothing was very profound, but people started phoning about caring behaviour. The phone lines were full of people who wanted to show some humanity. Who wanted to talk about their own venture into “being nice.”

What came from all this was a campaign. I used my own money. The station did not pay and the call letters of CHUM never appeared. All that appeared were these large painted billboards, yellow with upper case black type “DO SOMETHING NICE"’ and underneath was my signature. I drove around and felt good.

The station then undertook to pay for simple “Do Something Nice” stickers that could be placed in the rear widows of cars. The day I announced it, hundreds of cars drove to the station for their little stickers. Cars all over Toronto were saying “Do Something Nice.”

It was not a total turnaround for me. I enjoyed it but then reality came flooding back and I reverted, at least partially, to my old self.

People were saying: “Larry – you’ve mellowed.” Maybe I did. It sure didn’t stick.
Maybe I ought to revisit it. Maybe I have.

P.S. Several years ago someone wrote about the campaign and attributed it to “some deejay somewhere in the States.” Sic transit gloria mundi.

FITTING END?

2011-05-03T11:26:00.001-04:00

I put this down only minutes after reading that Mr. Ignatieff has resigned. By the time it reaches you that will be old news. Is it right that one man take the blame for the ignominious defeat of his party? Unfortunately, someone has to take the fall.

I’ll try not to make this too politically partisan. He blamed the negative ads for the disaster. Ignatieff was gracious in defeat, as most politicians are. I remember one exception: an American congressman was defeated. In his concession speech he said: “The people have spoken. And they are wrong.”

The blame may be Mr. Ignatieff’s. But for me the blame lies with the Liberal “stalwarts” – the ones who, when they say that Ignatieff was going down in flames, switched to the Conservatives and elected the very man their fallen leader had promised to unseat. I find it duplicitous and downright wrong. As they say – "you leave with the guy what brung you.”

It was a strange twist on strategic voting – where you abandon your favourite because the biggest challenge is to defeat someone else. In this case it is obvious. The centre-right Liberals could not bring themselves, if they were going to move their votes, to do everything they could to keep Harper from winning absolute power, and to take their votes to the N.D.P. The question is: do the entrenched of this country really want the change they keep claimed they do? Or do they simply want to re-arrange things so their party can have its legitimate place in the sun? Like dogs in the manger, they said: “If we can’t win, we’re not going to let them (the N.D.P. ) win. They have sold themselves out. They have revealed themselves to be what Ignatieff would not call them. I won’t bother with the language I thing would be appropriate.

I am sorry that we will be saying goodbye to the likes of Ken Dryden, an honest, stalwart man. I am sorry that the Liberals could not find the kind of leader with the charisma to attract the voters. Iggy is, if I am to believe people who know him, an honest, sincere, caring person. Apparently he is no politician. Because to be a politician, you have to know how to win. He simply did not.

But the saddest part of it is that the people, who stood behind him while he campaigned, deserted him the minute the shadows started appearing. I also feel a little sorry for Jack Layton. Yes, he raised the N.D.P. to a level never seen before, but he will spend the next four years in frustrated impotence as the majority government does what it must do.

My belief is however, that in our traditionally liberal democracy, no one party can upset the country. I don’t Mr. Harper will try to. I’m waiting to see if his in-power budget will be the same as his minority-government budget – conciliatory and socially conscious.

WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME

2011-04-26T13:12:00.003-04:00

I am going to weight in on a subject that will lose me a few friends, the affection of some close family members, and hate mail from some members of the Jewish community. If what I am about to write was written by a non-Jew there would be howls of “anti-Semitism!”

A horrible new kind of reality judgement has descended upon many members of the Jewish community here. They are moving to the Right, not because they are politically conservative, but because they judge Harper by his attitude toward Israel. No matter what, he supports Israel. He is in lockstep with Netenyahu and will reject any suggestion that his government is faulty.

It has always seemed to me that the Jewish community in the Diaspora, not all but most, especially Canadian and American Jews, tend to accept whatever Israel does without question. It is: “right or wrong my country still.” Perhaps it is the sense of being threatened by a hostile world that makes so many of them crawl into a protective pan-Zionist cocoon. So whatever kind of government Israel elects – hawks or doves, conciliators or aggressors, there is no distinction. The world and politics are viewed in the glass of “what is good or bad for the Jews.”

I take heart knowing that the same is not the case in Israel, where strong anti-government attitudes are expressed; where anger over the building of settlements is evident; where many Israelis do not believe that the level of force used in Gaza is appropriate to the danger, or that the incursion into Lebanon was not justified.

Support for Israel has become one of those “wedge” issues. Sadly, and I am ashamed for it, the strategy is working. In the York Centre riding the Liberal incumbent is Ken Dryden. (I always believed he would have been the best choice for leader.) He is not a political hack. He is an honest, dedicated man. He may be defeated by the Conservative candidate. I know – that’s politics. But this is more. The riding contains a large number of ultra-orthodox Chasidic Jews who are the people who in a recent provincial election put up sighs praising Premier Harris for his stand on funding parochial schools, and completely ignoring or indifferent to the ruin Mike brought to our province. In Israel, these people are militant about “the land God promised us.”

Now, I presume that these ultra orthodox flock to the Tories because they have not protested against the building of new settlements in the West Bank. Those settlements are to provide shelter for the burgeoning population of orthodox Jews living in Israel. Add to those zealots, all the moderate Jews, even some secular non-believers, who will vote Conservative because of how good Harper has been for Israel, and how indifferent the other two parties are.

What bothers me about this whole attitude is that we are voting in Canada for the kind of government we need, not for how the government appears to feel about the State of Israel. To me, it is obvious that the Harper government is pandering for votes and using an issue that has no bearing of the future of Canada and its real problems: unemployment, health care, and education.

Israel itself is full of people who dissent just as I have. The fact is that Israel was founded by secular Jews, mostly leaning to the political Left. In recent years, between new immigration from highly orthodox Jewish communities like Morocco and Yemen, and the booming birthrate among the orthodox, that the pendulum has swung. Israel has become a theocracy. Because of proportional representation, the religious parties receive seats proportional to their share of the popular vote. They are a small group, but without them it is difficult to form a working government. They are the “squeaky wheel” that gets the grease.

I still have trouble believing that the Jewish community that was once in the forefront of progressive ideas can be turned into political zombies. By the way, it was the same during the last Presidential election when Obama’s majority threatened by Florida, where a majority of elderly Jewish voters also believed he was not a big supporter of the State of Israel, and that he might be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. (I don’t share that notion. I think the Palestinian “cause” has received attention far out of proportion to the reality on the ground.)

But here in Canada, and often with the Jewish press, there is a slavish devotion to Israel and an unwillingness to be critical of anything Israel does. It’s no way to vote.

P.S. I am not being naïve about the issue. I know that all political parties pander to minorities, many of whom are more interested in what is happening in their country of origin than in the future of this country.

WHAT'S NEXT?

2011-04-24T13:42:00.003-04:00

You know a writer has run out of material when he writes a piece about looking for something to write about. I'm almost there.

I am sorry to say that there may not be anything new in this space for some time. I wrote one piece that I would rather not even try to edit.

No excuses. I have been doing what I tell older people not to do: crawling into bed and waiting to get better. For more than a week I have been recovering from a debilitating bout of pneumonia. The strength isn't there. You know things have taken a sad turn when you cancel piano lessons and haven't the strength or the desire to practice.

So my friends, until I am recovered, you will have to do without my regular-irregular blogs.

Thanks.

PLUS CA CHANGE....

2011-04-18T11:17:00.001-04:00

It was like revisiting my most frustrating memories. The Globe carried a piece called: ”Unlocking The Crime Conundrum.” It was all about “getting tough on crime,” and “Canadians want to feel safe,” and all the pseudo crime-fighting initiatives. What made it sound like old times to me was that no matter what the question, the answer was the same. And when confronted with reality, the response was thick-headed and uncompromising.

I remember callers to my Open Line Radio show voicing an opinion and when I asked what they had to support that information – the response was always something like “That’s what I believe and I’m entitled to my opinion.” Then I would quote Heywood Hale Broun who once said: “Everyone is not entitled to an opinion. They are entitled to a vote.”

The issue of safety in the streets and the fear of crime makes a wonderful “wedge” issue. That’s an issue you can insert into a campaign, and even though it may only affect a small percentage of voters, you take ownership of the issue and with it – the votes.

I was dismayed during the recent “debate” that when Harper got into his “tough on crime” point, the other leaders lined up to profess that they too were tough on crime. Not one told him he was playing politics with misplaced human opinions and fear. Not one told him we didn’t need American style “justice” here – with their minimum sentencing and mandatory terms. The American way, which handcuffs judges (but makes excellent politics), has resulted in absolutely nothing when it comes to fighting crime.

That’s what the Globe piece was all about. Quoting from that piece: “Why do you want the government to get tough on crime when the crime rate’s already down?”
“But the violent crimes are going up.”
“Actually they’re not.”

The facts are that every statistic on crime, including violent crime, shows rates are steadily going down. But that won’t matter to the voters who want to believe that criminals are getting away with it. That punishments are a slap on the wrist. And that dangerous felons are sent to “Club Fed.”

That last one was always my favourite. I would ask the called if he/she thought inmates should be kept in isolation, hard labour, and bread and water. Any suggestion I might make that it was easier and more productive to treat convicts with humanity. Every criminologist will tell you that harsh and severe treatment only results in an even more hardened criminal mind.

The final blow would always be that the caller, disgusted with my opinions would accuse me of being a bleeding heart.

No politician has ever lost an election by telling people something they want to hear.

UNINVOLVED - THE YOUNG VOTER

2011-04-06T10:01:00.003-04:00

Every election brings it up. The same old story about how young voters don’t vote. In the last several elections, voters 20-24 stayed away to the tune of something like 4 million. We are determined to keep asking them why – even though the answer is always the same: politicians don’t speak to our needs. My question: how would you know if you aren’t paying attention?

One editorial comment, it doesn’t matter where it was because I forget, commented about youth “cocooned in a world of text messages and ear buds.” It’s something I have uncharitably said in the past. It labels me an old fogy who does not understand what the “kids” are all about. Oh yes I do. They are, for the most part, so self-absorbed, so caught up in their own worlds, that they don’t know anything else. Even worse, they don’t care. Our youth has abandoned us.

In this campaign, if they are listening. Michael Ignatieff has pledged a program that would help pay for college tuition – a subject that, if you ask them, is important. The young always bring up. Let’s face it – they are concerned about the world they live in, and that world excludes irritating things like Federal elections.

So we go on again and again – fulminating about how the young don’t care or won’t care.

What is – is. Get over it. They may not know who is running in their riding, but they know Charlie Sheen is coming to Massey Hall.

On the larger issue of youthful indifference there was a salutory event in the U.S. in 2008: Obama, using social networking and everything else in the internet, rallied about him an astonishing number of young voters. He was like a rock star. There was a bandwagon and no one between the ages of 18 and 25 wanted to miss it. That is not to say that it was the youth vote alone that propelled the Obama revolution, but it sure helped. The point can be made that the off-year shellacking that the Democrats suffered was because those devoted fans didn’t both to go to the polls. The almost hysterical Obama supporters didn’t see it as “cool” to care who got elected to Congress in a year when the president was not running. So they stayed home with their faithful ear buds.

I am really sorry that I feel compelled to write like old-fogy-attacking-the-young. I think I’m as upset that we keep going back to the same questions and getting same answers, yet we still try to fathom the mystery of youthful political indifference. Forget it. Hope they grow up. Hope they don’t become frightened conservative suburbanites clinging to a precious shred of respectability, and trying to carry the burden of a needless mortgage. The answer to the “why” is that this is not the radical 60s. Stop whining about it and get involved yourself.

DEMOCRACY IS TOUGH ON "FREEDOM"

2011-04-05T09:52:00.002-04:00

One of my blog readers sent me an Email soliciting my support for opposition to
removing the word “god” from our national anthem because, he said, only 14% of respondents wanted the reference omitted, we had no “right” to allow the other 86% to be pushed around. (I am paraphrasing.)

I responded this way: “I have wanted to write another piece on what John Stewart Mill called "The tyranny of the majority." Essentially it is an argument against depriving people of their rights simply because they are in a minority. Do you believe that the majority, who believe in God, should have the right to impose that on other people? I have long ago given up on the "imploring the divine" process that has become such a part of our thinking. I neither thank nor praise. It is an opinion I hold dear. However, I also have no right to impose that on other people, no matter how flawed and mystical their belief happens to be. But in what we call public space, there should be no room for dogmas, however widely held they may be. The majority tends to want to oppress the minority. Didn’t most people believe the earth was flat? Didn’t the ancients believe that thunderstorms were the wrath of the gods? Didn’t people justify slavery by Scripture?”

He may have been surprised, not expecting that I would represent the dissenting 14%. It isn’t that their argument is more cogent, legitimate or persuasive. That’s not the issue. And the issue is certainly not to so enfranchise the majority that they have the right to trample of basic rights.

Like it or not, and to look at how the Tea Party sees intervention – as an assault on Law and Order, civilized democracies have one or both of the traditional safeguards: Supreme Courts and a Constitution (and Bill of Rights.) We have a notion here that “Parliament is supreme.” And perhaps it should be. Except that without a high court to rule on the innate justice of an issue, we could have a steamroller majority pushing through legislation that, while it may be appropriate, is often not democratic. It is why in this country we have appeals “under the Charter.” If any law violates the rights of anyone, that person is entitled to make representation before the courts. It does not mean, as many on the political right believe, that we are co-opting government. In the U.S. there is continuous whining about the “liberal” members of the Supreme Court who would overturn the “will of the people.’ The irony is that it is always these people who insist that the Constitution be served. (I wonder how many have read it, or have read the even more important document, the Amendments which represent the Bill of Rights.)

Democracy is not convenient. It is not easy. It can even be clumsy at times. But it is what separates us from dictatorship. An oppressive government majority can be dictatorial. In this country, and I am no jurist, Parliament is still supposed to be supreme and no court should be allowed to thwart government. Or should they??

You may have been struck by the recent preposterous extension of the First Amendment in the U.S. A demented pastor in Florida burned the Quran. No one could stop him. He was exercising his “freedom.” America has no hate laws which would allow prosecution of a group or individual that inspires anger and hatred. The law has an old slogan that should be applied: “Many evils are subsumed under the rubric of free speech.”
So, to my loyal reader, I will not join your crusade to keep "god” in our national anthem, but I will not oppose your right to voice the opinion. I just happen to think you are wrong.

CORPORATE BOTTOM-FEEDING

2011-04-02T08:26:00.002-04:00

It is appropriate and legitimate that major corporations, for all their protestations about being “good corporate citizens,” should look for the best deal they can get. If corporate planning is all about profits, then they have no alternative.

But, if corporate planning is also about “stakeholders” i.e. the government of the country where they make their living, and the citizens who work for them, and the customers who come to them, - then there is more to corporate management than short-terms gains.

I had never heard of Zug until I watched a recent 60 Minutes. It is a little town in Switzerland that is host to hundreds of head offices of corporations, many of them American. They are in Zug, for the same reason they moved to the “Celtic Tiger” Ireland. (And look where that one has gone.) They are there for a lower corporate tax rate which saves them billions. In the U.S. the corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world: 35%. In Canada there is a plan to lower the corporate tax rate. The government says it is to attract business. On the other side, a high corporate tax rate loses jobs.

Dare I evoke the old “he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind?” The Swiss don’t rely on a lower corporate tax rate any more than remote places like Lichtenstein or some sandbar of a Caribbean island. Bermuda, a very prosperous place, has for generations housed thousands of corporate “head offices.” All of this is companies taking their money offshore to avoid paying taxes in the place where they make their money in the first place! The joker is that they have to spend that tax gain offshore. The moment they repatriate those profits to the U.S (or to Canada I guess) they will be taxed. President Obama, during his campaign, vowed to end the practice of American corporations taking their money offshore. We’re still waiting for fulfillment of that empty promise.

There is nothing new about competition for corporate head offices and factories. In the U.S. despite its having some kind of national imperative, has states warring against each other to attract offices and factories. When BMW went looking for a place to locate in America, they were coaxed and seduced and lured by the state offering the best tax holidays and the lowest taxes.(Not to mention indifference to unions.) It’s called “bottom feeding.” The irony is that the minute some other jurisdiction offers and even better deal, they pick up and leave. It was not that many years ago that Harley Davidson was rescued from bankruptcy by federal funds. And it was only recently that they decided to vacate their historic home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (There was a lot more to it, with takeovers and corporate changes.)

The other irony, and this is the “whirlwind” comment – is that Ireland finds itself reduced from Celtic Tiger to fish bait. They have had to be bailed out by the E.U. Their largest bank could not survive a stress test. Ireland is proof, if you need it after what the U.S. meltdown proved, that if you overheat your economy and let the “invisible hand” of the marketplace take over, you run a risk. Ireland, with its lower tax rates suddenly found itself overwhelmed with major companies setting up shop.(Long before that they gave tax-free benefits to celebrities who would buy homes and come to live in Ireland.) There were thousands of jobs created. Prosperity was raising the cost of everything, especially real estate. Giving lower taxes meant companies suffering under the burden of that 35% American tax could save billions. It was another of those “win-win” situations. Except that in the same way that an advancing army lengthens its lines of communications, the economy lengthened the hazards of overheating. Just imagine the forgone revenues. The irony of coursed is that without those low corporate tax rates, there would have been no taxes to forego.

And because there is more than one direction an economy will go, “up” suddenly evaporates. The world financial crisis hammered businesses in a country that had already sold the farm on corporate taxes.

Who is to blame? Certainly not the corporations whose imperative is to show profits. Certainly not the consumer who drools at the thought of more jobs and high priced real estate and a building boom and all the other familiar “bursting bubble” stuff.

It is hard to assign blame. In Canada the Conservatives are determined to get in the race with the other tax-cutting countries. High corporate taxation is not good for business, or so they say. But where do you stop? There can be no international agreement about rates. It would be like a cartel operating in restraint of trade.

Come to think of it….

THE STORY THAT NEVER DIES - WATER WARS

2011-03-31T14:03:00.002-04:00

There is nothing new about the battle over water. The story of the Newfoundland developer who wanted to ship water in bulk from a pristine lake in Newfoundland came up again. This time it was at a little-noticed water conference held in Toronto. It echoed the national sentiment: Canadians are very protective of our water. But the story has “legs” that go back generations.

Remember the brilliant movie “Chinatown” with Jack Nicholson? It was based On the reality of cities versus farmers in California. The Imperial Valley is the biggest single vegetable patch in the world. It exists only because farmers were allowed to pump millions of gallons of underground and reservoir water to irrigate what had been an arid valley. (That they still irrigate spraying water wastefully in the air is another story.)

The people of Los Angeles were thirsty for water. The farmers were even thirstier.It was a tawdry story of gangsters and crooked politicians. The majority of fresh water in California goes to agriculture. Today, because so much ground water has been pumped out, sea water has seeped into the aquifer making the water brackish. The other aquifer, the Ogallala, that made the plans of Kansas and Oklahoma the corn basket of the world, is also running dry. Still they pump. Water may be in short supply but the rush to populate the desert with places like Las Vegas and Phoenix has put a huge strain on water supply. No one seems to want to close golf courses. In Florida, where rainfall was never huge, the Everglades are being pumped dry. Now there is trouble brewing between Egypt and Ethiopia. The Nile, which runs through Ethiopia before it gets to Egypt, is being threatened. Ethiopia wants to build huge dam. The Egyptians, who have already built the Aswan dam, are furious. In Israel there has always been tension between Jordan and Israel over the water that flows in the Jordan River to the Sea of Galilee.

Something’s gotta give! Conservation doesn’t work, at least not in Canada or the U.S. Some European countries have primary water filtration systems in homes so that the lawns can be watered, the toilets flushed, and cars washed with “used” water. Here we have no such facility. We have the Great Lakes. But has anyone noticed that the water levels keep going down?

There must be other solutions, I am not an expert in Hydrology, but it seems to me that we miss a chance to recover water. I have always wondered why we do not excavate enormous lake-sized cachement basins into which floodwaters could be routed, instead of having them ravage the countryside then flow into the sea. The principle of flood diversion is not new. Winnipeg has deep canals that are supposed to accommodate the high water levels that come to the Red River every spring. Israel, which battles constantly with Jordan over Jordan River water has confronted the shortage with massive desalination plants. However, I don’t know what that will do to ocean levels. Given that we are experiencing serious climate change (in spite of the Tea Party naysayers) and there may soon be enough melted ocean water to flood coastlines everywhere, maybe we should be using more seawater.

There used to be a wild idea to create a new sea in the middle of the arid Egyptian/Libyan desert in a place called the Qatara Depression. A canal could be built from the Mediterranean Sea and water would flow into this empty space, a space of nearly twenty thousand square kilometers. It would be salty and unfit for agriculture, but what if at the same time a huge desalinization plant were to be set up? There are already swamps there which contain some brackish water.

As I said, I am not expert, but it seems to me that we are not exploring water supply ideas beyond exporting the stuff that is easy to get to. Therein lies the answer. We do it cheaply, even though the gains are short-sighted. In an age when the marketplace tells us how to live, no one likes to suggest (horrors!) spending public money to create potable water where there is a shortage.

LEFTOVER. A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS

2011-03-30T16:06:00.002-04:00

None of these items is big enough for a whole blog. Like the latest on the august CBC News. A news reporter on the CBC Evening News did a “stand-up on the new and renovated Bloor Street West sidewalk. It’s wider and there are hot dog wagons. And the surface is made of “granite.” Except she pronounced it as if she had never seen it written before: “Gran-Eyt” I suppose she was thinking of other "ite" words like lucite and calcite. Almost as good as the other reporter who referred to the river that runs through Budapest as the Dah-Noob. (Accent on the first syllable.)Accent on the first syllable.

Maybe this next thing is worth a blog. I have to explain. I left the tender embrace of the NDP several years ago. I didn’t abandon my left-leaning social, political, and financial ideas. I left because they were in lockstep over issues. They were stuck in an ideological straight jacket. Every position had to “fit” the ideology.

I think it is fair to assume that the official Left takes the position, in support of all those environmentalists who say they are part of the Left, that nuclear power is bad. It is bad because of Chernobyl and bad because no one knows what to do with the accumulation of spent fuel rods. So the Japanese disaster offered a perfect chance for the ant-nukes to come flooding out of the woodwork. Everyone from the President of Germany to Ontario Power Generation went on high alert after the still unresolved nuclear power problem hit Japan. We are pushing the panic button. Instead of learning from the mistakes the Japanese made, and who could have predicted the horrible tsunami, we have pressed the emergency signal.

I still believe in the future of clean power from nuclear. I also believe in wind and biomass power. But for now, nothing does it like nuclear. Many of those who have risen up against the nukes have always opposed them, The Japanese crisis adds fuel.

As for the spent fuel rods, I understand the Chinese are very close to finding a way to use those “spent” rods to create more energy. In the face of opposition, do not curl up and die.

I went to a fabulous concert with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin. I so love music that unless it is very obviously badly performed, I am enraptured. Hamelin gave it to me. Sitting in front of me was a woman who, the last time I saw her at a concert, literally did not applaud. On leaving, she commented that the performance was “dilettantish.” How she managed to sit through it I don't know. I suspected that she had reservations about Hamelin. I wanted to say to her” Why don’t you save yourself the misery and not go to concerts?”

I was reminded of my father and his brother, the once-eminent Maurice Solway, who never went to a concert they liked, unless it was Heifetz of Horowitz. They carped and complained. I have notice that classical musicians tend to be less than generous to some of their colleagues. It isn’t that was with jazz.

A few random items.

ANYBODY? I NEED ANSWERS

2011-03-26T12:08:00.002-04:00

I have promised (well at least I have tried) not to sound like an old fogy who simply refuses to understand that yesterday is over and what matters is today. O.K. I need some answers. I want to try to better understand today’s “culture.”

Why do hundreds of otherwise sane people start lining up at 3 a.m. to buy the newest IPad? What is the compulsion to be first? Do these people know something I don’t know? Is the IPad a prestige symbol? Is anyone waiting to see what the new pad from RIM will be like? Will IPad buyers stay faithful as if they are cheering for the home team or something?

Can anyone tell me why tattooing has become rampant? I have a certain bias about it being the domain of a certain class of people. My closest friend’s grandson, a math teacher in Florida, and apparently wildly popular among his students, is tattooed from wrist to armpit. I asked him why? He just looked at me. Watching the Food Network (a passion of mine) I heard a really good chef describe how he dressed to suit himself – jeans, Tshirts – all the stuff that made him the individual he wanted to be. But he too had joined the tattoo herd – covering his forearms with what the Druids called Woad. Maybe that’s the answer. It’s some kind of atavistic desire to return to pre-Christian roots?

Can anyone tell me why hundreds, probably thousands of people are, right this minute, walking along the sidewalk with their heads down as they read all their “important’ text messages? Can anyone explain the madness of a young woman I saw recently so intent on the contents of her smart phone that she stepped off the curb against a red light narrowly missing the fender of a turning car. She jumped back. Did she lose her text message?

Can anyone tell me why so many women still put their purses in the shopping cart as they cruise a supermarket? It was years ago that someone reached into my wife’s purse and made off with money.

Can someone please explain, and this is about my most boring topic: cell phones – what seems to draw people to the screen? A few weeks ago I sat in a hospital waiting room readying my EBook. Next to me a young man was vigourously working at something on his Smart Phone. What could it be? His thumb was flicking back and forth as the images spun madly across the screen. I was tempted to ask him to tell me what the attraction was. I’d have received the same blank look I got from my friend’s grandson when I asked him about his tattoos.

Finally, and I have asked this before in different ways: why does anyone who is 20-something or 30-somthing always seem amazed that my wife and I continue to be active? Have they never known anyone over the age of 40? How are they with their own parents? Grandparents?

Can anyone tell me why, given the rising price of gasoline and the continuous griping about it, do so many (maybe most) drivers pull away from stoplights like frightened rabbits? Drive way over the speed limit on highways? I ask again: do they know that slowing down will more than make up for the increase in the price of fuel, and it’s kinder to the environment.

So many questions? So few answers. But in my life, especially when I was more in the public eye, I always said that the most important thing was not the answers – it was the ability to develop questions.

Anyone???

A GENERATIONAL ABYSS

2011-03-25T10:02:00.002-04:00

This is a story of the gulf between a young and helpful physiotherapist and an elderly woman who is determined to walk. The young therapist, I don’t think she’s even thirty, comes to our house once a week to supervise Shirley’s recovery from her hip replacement operation. She is startled and amazed by the speed of her recovery! And we see what the generation gap means. Sadly, it reflects the notions of the young about the ailments of the old. (By the way, Shirley is home recovering because she hated the thought of spending a week in a rehab hospital.)

“It has been only two weeks and you’re walking.”
“She was walking the day after the surgery.”
“But this is unusual for anyone who had had a hip replacement, especially for a woman who is over 80.”
“Well that’s the secret of being old.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when you get older you can expect to have aches and pains. You can choose to crawl into bed and hope it will all get better. It rarely does. All you get is older. Then there is the futility and frustration of thinking magically you will wake up and be thirty years younger.

This was more or less the conversation I had with a wide-eyed twenty-something, a physiotherapist who works with many cranky elderly people who moan about getting older and letting it turn them inwards. She says she has never come across anyone like Shirley. I assure her that we have many friends who are as old as we are, and they work and play through whatever pains and slowing down occurs naturally, One thing we, and most of them do not do, is complain about getting older. She tells me that if she asks what many of her patients want it is always – with a long self-pitying sigh: “To be twenty years younger,” or advice: “Don’t ever get old.”

She has been seeing old people and hearing their laments. Her own father, she says, who is only in his 60s, is already heading for the ash heap. He has no interest in going, in doing, and perhaps in being. Maybe he simply doesn’t know how. Maybe this young physiotherapist has more to teach than body-healing exercise.

She told me she had never heard this approach to aging before. She has never heard anyone tell her that people like Shirley look forward, not to a sedentary life, but to more going and doing and being – more traveling, walking the streets of strange cities, seeing new sights, reading new books, enjoying big fat books of Sunday Times crossword puzzles. (By the way, has anyone visited “Cricklers.” Log on. It’s better than television.)

She is completely surprised. She wishes she could have more of this for many of her older patients. Then she had to leave and as she left she said: “You’re young at heart.” I said: “That’s an ageist comment. My heart is not young. It is the same age as the creaking. aching rest of me. What you have just said is that somehow you can only enjoy life if you are young, or persuade yourself that you feel young. I hate all the platitudes like: “Age is just a state of mind,” The hell it is! The fact is that ageism prevails among the elderly because they don’t know how to square getting older with continuing to enjoy life. I am also getting a little tired of all those ads promoting “assisted living” where people who are descending into their so-called “Golden Years” can still be active, even if it is just semi-somnolent exercise and wheelchair athletics. I am not against “retirement living” but first everyone should try adventurous living. If not adventurous, at least more than the sedentary resignation that seems to come with aging. By this I don’t mean you have to go sky-diving for your 90th birthday.

She was startled by my words. But I meant them. For them (the rising generation) to share our lives they have to learn understand us. We also have to learn to understand ourselves. There is a huge gap, an abyss that separates us from the young. It is real and I for one don’t regret it. I have things to do and places to go, and “miles to walk….”

P.S. I told Shirley about writing this piece. I told her I also thought that unconsciously she was willing herself to walk without assistance so that we can get our lives back.

LOOKING BACKWARD

2011-03-23T14:42:00.002-04:00

There is always going to be a yearning for the past. I know, this blog is supposed to be about “Looking Ahead” and not wallowing in what used to be. This is not just a lament for what used to be – it is a warning that we are becoming something I don’t think we should become: a timid copy of someone else.

I remember doing a program on my old radio talk show about pronunciations. I wondered (as I still do today) how much Canadians seem ready to replace our speech with more popular Americanisms. I started simply. A question: do you pronounce the final letter of the alphabet “zed” or “zee.” I was astonished ant the number who responded with “zee.” I felt then, and I still do, that our identity as Canadians rests on some pretty shaky foundations. The principal problem is that there are thousands of Canadians who would rather be American; who would rather identify with the majority culture; would want to sound less parochial and more “with it.” (The exception of course is French-Canada, where they are passionate about their own special culture, and fight against having it diluted by the presence of the world’s biggest economy.

I come down on the side of the Quebecois, except for the fact that in “protecting” their culture, they seem determined to eliminate the competition. I would prefer to have the competition and to survive in spite of it.

It’s a battle we are losing. I have lamented before, not that I am opposed to progress, but that the source of much learning seems to come from media, which is this country (the English-speaking part) is American. The songs are American. The movies are American. And most of TV is American. So the urge to sound like them translates in Canadian TV announcers talking about the “pre-meer” of a new TV show. (Soon we’ll start calling the head of our provincial government “pre-meer.”) I think it’s because thousands of people never heard the word pronounced until they heard it on TV – which would be American TV. I also do not know where America has derived some of its pronunciations and syntax. I have carped about this before, and this time it is all in the interests of preserving what is still uniquely Canadian. I would not go back to early Anglo-centric schooldays when we were taught to pronounce “clerk” as “clark.” But in that long-gone learning time my English teachers were adamant that people “lie,” and hens “lay.” Canadians now say “I was laying down.” Saying it makes it right, unless you want to have something to preserve.

The Brits are perhaps even more idiosyncratic in their pronunciations. Why they pronounce the city “Los-Ange-lees” is beyond me. Why does “Jag-war becomes “jag-you-ar.

They won’t change it because it is neither right nor wrong; it is “them.”

So what I want to do is preserve what is “us.” Watching our CBC TV evening news a few nights ago I heard the male news-reader refer to “thuh urge.” Americans, rightly or wrongly, do not use what we grew up using: “the” pronounced “thee” when it precedes a vowel. I think that habit kind of crept up on the Americans. It sounds more like something that comes from the inner city not from schools. But I can’t object. If that’s what they want – good for them. But I don’t think they should be exporting it as the definitive way to speak the language.

I still want to be Canadian, and to use the English language the way Canadians do. We have so little to set us apart, it is a shame to see what is left withering because of indifference.

And if that is “looking backward” I do not apologize.

VAST WASTELAND.

2011-03-21T11:35:00.002-04:00

Three days ago I started writing this piece to praise Oprah for her thoughtfulness and innovation. I quoted Newton Minnow, former head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who said, and this was in 1960, that television was a “vast wasteland.”

After I had written all this I found room for adjustment – like the practice of not publishing the first thing you write, but “sleeping on it” before you let it out. Glad I did.

Minnow is still around. In fact he’s in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly, revisiting his old statement. He is still preaching about the obligation of broadcasters who have been given access to the public domain of the airwaves, and commenting about how much has happened in the intervening 50 years. Technology has changed. The internet now offers a wide range of choices, making the free press really free. The question of course may still be: is yesterday’s “wasteland” any worse than what we have today? Perhaps the TV of the 50s and 60s with Howdy Doody and Milton Berle was a wasteland. Even with the likes of Sid Caesar and the “Show of Shows” or the live dramatic productions. it was mass media at its ugliest. Language like “Idiot Box” defined it. But while we deplored the rise of the pervasive new medium, we were also creating Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. In Canada we were daring the medium with “This Hour Has Seven Days.” It was not all bad at all.

The other intervening factor was that I had more time to check what “OWN” - the Oprah Winfrey Network, was up to. Many of my hopes and dreams vanished.

After the first exposure I was lyrical. Here’s what I wrote then.

If Minnow were around today to see the arrival of “reality” television, and of The Bachelor and Charlie Sheen, he would have a lot to say. But there has also been PBS and its attempts to bring culture and quality. For me, by and large, TV has become a place to watch the news, live baseball and hockey, sometimes a good movie, and once in a while a documentary. Lest I sound too snobbish, I can find myself wasting hours watching what can only be described as pure trash. And even some of the so-called trash once had pretension of quality. TLC (which most people still think stands for Tender Loving Care, actually was “The Learning Channel.” It was full of science and history. Today it is just another mass-market purveyor of schlock. Do you remember when a Winnipeg group of determined feminists applied for got the license to create a cable TV station that spoke to the needs of women? The “W” channel now subsists on an almost steady diet of “chick” flicks.

My first exposure to Oprah’s new network was a bright light. It was what could be, if not the re-invention of mass-market TV, at least an attempt to raise it above some of the trash. I believed that perhaps America’s richest woman had risked it all on the hope that she could bring more quality into the living rooms of North Americans. If “Master Class” was any example she is on her way. Of course we will have to put up with more Dr. Phil and a few other pop psych shows. But last night Saturday past) was a documentary about “Saturday Night Live,” or to put it more accurately, a documentary about the life of Lorne Michaels (nee Leibowitz – and I wondered why if Annie could keep the name why didn’t Lorne? I’m just carping.) Except for his remarkably inaccurate comment comparing the lack of political satire in his former country and about how Americans were not afraid of political satire. Lorne – you have been away too long. America has never produced the likes of Royal Air Farce. America, even with Tina Faye’s “take” on Sarah Plain, has not topped Luba Goy’s portrayal of The Queen, or Ferguson’s Stephen Harper. But that is another argument.

(Just a sidelight. In 1975 I interviewed Lorne on my talk show from L.A. He asked me what I thought about SNL. I told him I found it juvenile, collegiate. I was pretty pompous.)

Oprah herself cut into the show as a kind of M.C. The commercials did not overpower. I am guessing that she wants a stricter control over the amount and quality of commercials.

Following the hour with Lorne Michaels there was a show about two women who make cupcakes. Oh-oh I thought. He we go – back into the dreaded afternoon rubbish designed for the stay at home women by men who have no idea what the stay-at-home woman is really like. Turned out to be an interesting half hour as these two close friends negotiated for a space in a shopping mall while baby sitting her brother’s two squalling children. It promised nothing. It did not try to be a “reality” show. It just “was.” It was, if this is possible, an acceptable “fluff” piece.

Maybe Oprah will be able to put some quality back, and not with the usual striving toward a kind of elitism programming but being real.

Two days later and I am not so sure. The “network” is nothing more than an expansion of the Oprah Show. It seems that the daily hour has burst its own seams and needs more room. But more room for the same-old-same-old. The “feel good” pop psych stuff was back with a vengeance. Not just Dr. Phil, but a show about a woman looking for her birth mother. Then another show with a therapist dealing with a woman who hoarded everything that represented a memory of her family. There was a “real” whodunit about a murder in Hamilton. I needed more of this? More of the insecurity? More of the soul-baring angst? It was Oprah redux.

There is consolation. The only other person to make a late entry into TV is Rupert Murdoch. He has prospered. His product is abominable. Fox News is not news, it is Murdoch propaganda. To compare his lust for power to Oprah’s dedication to viewers, would be a mistake.

I may be hoping for the same brighter future I hoped for when cable TV told us there would be hundreds of new programs and more than enough quality. What happened was the big mainstream media companies took over cable, buying out struggling operators and imposing mediocrity (to make it sound better than it is) on all of us. Saddest reflection on this is that the media companies who made all those promises would come back a year later with hat-in-hand and ask for permission to make some changes because the station was losing money. Strange, the CRTC is supposed to examine the pro forma submitted with the application and make a decision based on economic viability. The schemes of the wealthy media moguls win every time.

But back to “OWN.” Having sunk millions into her latest venture, has Oprah finally over-stepped? She is not the same Oprah who arrived on the scene with what I remember as a radical feminist position and the ability to make women feel better about themselves. I seems to me that she has run out of ideas. I hope I am wrong.

NEGATIVE ADS TAR ALL POLITICIANS

2011-03-17T19:32:00.002-04:00

“Ignatieff – he didn’t come back for you.” A current Tory ad heaps poisonous invective on Michael Ignatieff. Once things really get going there will be smear commercials in all directions, from all parties. You can’t legislate against negative campaign advertising. You can't make it stop. The great manipulators like Karl Rove have turned campaign advertising into an art form. Hit ‘em hard. Hit ‘em often. Dredge up whatever gossip you can. Tar your opponents with the brushes of deceit, disgrace, and evil. The Left hammers at the Right calling them friends of big business and Wall street. The Right hammers back calling the Left “tax and spend” or held captive by Big Labour. Very little of what is said is totally wrong – it is taken out of context and misused.

Some go even farther. Rove may have been the inventor of “push” polling. This is about as sinister as it gets. My favourite (if that word can be used to describe a tactic so disgusting) was his use of phone push-polling during the 2000 Republican Presidential primaries. McCain had won – I think - New Hampshire. The next big test was South Carolina. Bush had to win. Rove struck, South Carolinians got survey questions on the phone like” “If you believed that McCain had fathered a child illegitimately with a black woman, would it matter to your vote?” Another big Rove question during the run for Governor in Texas. “If you heard that Ann Richards (The incumbent Democratic governor) was a lesbian – would that affect your vote?”

All’s fair…etc. But beyond the sleaze, there is another reality. My son and I were talking about it the other day. He made the point that negative advertising, no matter who it attacks, helps persuade the voters that all politicians are not to be trusted. The negative ad guys get hoist on their own petard.

Several years ago, on my boat, where I had always been the epitome of hospitable welcome, I was at the helm. Sitting next to me a man and a woman, guests of a friend of mine, were in a heavy-duty discussion about politics. It was after the Ontario election (where I ran unsuccessfully) and they carried on in a way we have come to accept as typical. “All politicians are out for what they can get,” “Yeah - they tell us one thing just to get elected then they don't deliver.” “Yeah, you can’t trust them. They’re all in it for what they can get out of it for themselves.”

The conversation went on for a few minutes as these two experts tore politics and politicians to shreds. I couldn’t bear another second. I never did this to guests but I exploded. “Do you have any idea why people run for office? Do you know how hard we have to work and give up everything just to win an election? Do you know that five people may run in one riding and four go home disappointed. I suggest you try running sometime and see how you feel!” Phew.

They were flabbergasted and embarrassed. But they were talking the way so many voters talk. We have ourselves to blame. The continuing barrage of negative advertising has created an atmosphere that supports the prejudices of many voters. Politicians are held in low esteem.

It is almost axiomatic as well that some time after a once wildly popular politician is elected, people campaign for his fall. Pericles created the Golden Age of Greece. After a few years the citizens of Athens were reviling him.

It takes a lot of nerve, not to mention money, and continuing absence from your job to run in an election. John Kennedy called politics the greatest calling of them all. No one really listened and only his tragic death saved him from the inevitable ignominy that follows success. (In fact the body was hardly cold when the gossip about his sexual behaviour became water-cooler conversation.)

It’s a tough life. If you lose you get nothing. If you win – sometimes it’s even worse.

WILL TEACHERS BE THE TARGET AGAIN?

2011-03-16T08:47:00.002-04:00

Sometimes populist politics (translation: good old boys know better than damned left-wing politicians) can get in the way of reasonable and accurate debate. Mike Harris was, regardless of what you think of him, a great tactician. He knew the buttons to press to win votes. He attacked the most vulnerable which made him the people’s choice. In Toronto, our new mayor has risen to the top with his tireless repetition of the word “taxpayer.”

Just a few weeks ago, in his rather limp State of The Union address President Obama urged more people to become teachers. It’s a fair-to-middling populist issue because everyone seems to recognize that the race for technological success begins with a good education, so they pay it lip service – until it starts to cost money. America has struggled with the issue of a “good” education for years. There is a constant struggle between the Federal government and the States – the latter believing that education is their bailiwick. So what has resulted is a hodge-podge of testing that means nothing, merit-based promotions, charter schools, and even school vouchers. What is missing there, and perhaps here in Ontario as we welcome the coming of a new government come the Fall election, is the political will to make education a high priority, not just pious talk about it being a priority.

In today’s Times (March 16th) a very good piece about education. This one excerpt sums it up for me: ““Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”

If all that sounds familiar, it should. Teachers make a wonderful target for the “taxpayer” who believes (always) that he/she is getting a raw deal from the damned government. The added comment often is that people who won’t work and live in luxury on welfare are sucking up taxpayer money. Next come the teachers who are not only protected by union agreements so that it becomes almost impossible to fire an incompetent teacher, to the notion (as in the Times article) that they have it easy: short hours, long holidays and good money. That is usually followed by something like: “Let them get into the real world where I work and see what a real day’s work is all about.” I know – it sounds absurd, but it seduces voters. Any politician who takes that route seems to be hailed as a hero fighting for the rights of ordinary “hard-working” people.

The trick is transparent: praise the “ordinary” voter and blast the elite. It simply works.

HOMO THE SAP

2011-03-15T21:01:00.001-04:00

When I was doing news features at the CBC my executive producer pronounced that “war is good for business.” I staggered back. Where did this Neanderthal piece of economics come from? It is true that there always was a notion that the depression came to an end when we went to war. There were jobs for everyone. Business, even with rationing and price controls, was booming.

Back in the middle 40s a UofT professor named Morgan (I don’t remember what faculty or even his first name) wrote a piece called “Homo the Sap.” It was all about that precious notion that war brings prosperity. He torpedoed the idea. You need only look at the state of the British economy in 1945. Britain had not even paid of it’s debt from the firth world war. The only country that seemed to prosper was America, which was the arsenal of democracy and which managed to become the world’s leading economic power as a result of WW2.

Quick jump to the last few days. Japan is suffering more from social and economic dislocation than any country since the war. They will be looking at billions, maybe more, in rebuilding costs. However, it occurred to me that there was a benefit to come from all that misery: reconstruction. I thought it was a bit callous of me to write it until, watching the Lang-O’Leary report on CBC News I heard O’Leary say, as everyone knew he would, that the catastrophic events of the last few days do have a silver lining. Billions will be spent to build new cities and create new better infrastructure. It will be the ultimate “stimulus” campaign that will dwarf the half-hearted stimulus that first Bush (to bail out the banks) then Obama (to bail out the whole country) put into motion. The only problem with the program was that it was stopped before it could get the job done. But that is a question to be debated later.

I think O’Leary is right. The Japanese, who are among the world's great savers, have a gargantuan task ahead of them. The must rebuild an entire section of the country north of Tokyo.

Professor Morgan might have said that we were being truly “Homo the Sap” to believe that prosperity can grow from this chaos. The difference is that when the money is spent there will be something to show for it. There will be new buildings, houses, roads, whole cities. In war, the money is spent of stuff that gets blown to smithereens or become useless in time of peace.

Not so for Japan. They are about to embark on a rebuilding program the likes of which we have not seen since the Marshall Plan rebuilt from the ruins of Europe.

I never though I’d agree with O’Leary. As for Professor Morgan, he said war was not an economic growth machine. It wasted resources. It bankrupted economies. Strange, what seemed to me at the time to be a seminal piece o work could not be tracked down. I tried to Google every possible name and book title. Nothing came up. Sic transit gloria mundi!

I FIND MYSELF CARING ABOUT -= WHAT???

2011-03-13T15:05:00.002-04:00

He is standing over a putt of about 6 feet. The commentator speaks: “He needs this birdie putt to help get his confidence back.” Everyone is a psychological authority. Everyone has an opinion. My favourite golf writer opines that his problem is not with his swing. It’s in his head. The golf world is “all Tiger all the time.” And I, not a huge gold fan, find myself caring. Why?

I often wish that I had some decent grounding in the workings of the mind. I can only be an armchair psychologist at best. Perhaps I have had a lot of experience listening to people talk and trying to understand why they say what they do. I did it for a living for many years. But Tiger has me buffaloed. He’s the greatest golfer of all time, although some would still argue that that label belongs to Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, or Jack Nicklaus. But no one brought more charisma to the game. No one in the past was able to raise the ratings for golf on TV to the heights that Tiger has. And no one has ever fallen so far.

The commentator who said:”He has to sink that putt to regain some of his confidence” is dead wrong. Tiger’s demise is not about confidence because all he would need to fix that is to tweak his swing and make it the deadly weapon it once was.

Whether we were golf fans or not, we marveled at his virtuosity. I remember him as a five year old appearing, with his doting (did he dote too much?) father on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Many of us remember his as an amateur playing out of Stanford University. My most vivid memory was his monumental win at his first Master’s as a pro. He simply ran away from the rest of the field. I could look it up I suppose to be certain of the number. I think he won it by something prodigious, like 12 strokes. The golf world became Tiger’s and the fight was on to see who would come in second. He was beyond human. I was not fond of his theatrics, either when he sank a big putt and pumped his arm, or when he missed something he alone should always sink and cursed, not always under his breath. He was, as the poets say, the cynosure of all eyes.

His “confidence” left him the day he was publicly shamed. His hubris could not survive the fall. He needed adoration and adulation. He gets it now, but more out of sympathy for his fall from lofty heights. He has become something that does not suit his personality: an underdog.

I watched him today. Under par but still about ten strokes off the lead. I know what’s missing. It’s the headlong pursuit of excellence and the spoils of war that go with that excellence. I watched him and realized that there is, to borrow from Gertrude Stein, “No there there.” He has no focus because all his focus was derived from being idolized. His success bred material success. It bred a magnetic attraction to and from women, many of them unattainable except to the elite. His wife was a picture of the front page of “Elle: magazine. She was a trophy. He needed trophies. His choices sexually were indiscriminate and promiscuous. But the fact was that whatever wanted he could get made him larger than life. So his swing prospered along with his swinging life style.

I think that if Tiger is ever to become the unconquerable hero of golf again, He will have to forget all the nonsense about humility and sexual temperance. He has to go back to taking what he has coming to him. He has to go back to deserving cheers and sexual prowess. Never mind all that rubbish about treatment for “sexual addiction.” He is and will always be a narcissist. That is where his talent rises. That is where his need for constant self-gratification originates. Once he understands that he can’t be what people think he should be, and rediscovers the child of fortune that he deserves to be – he’ll get his confidence back He’ll be what every 20 handicap hacker would like to be. Get back to being an idol, - in his own mind.

In a world where so many people enjoy heroes falling off pedestals, there is little hope that Tiger can truly be himself again. He has been told he has to be ashamed. It doesn’t fit.

MURDER INC.

2011-03-11T15:33:00.002-05:00

The Federal government has weighed in on the rise of violence in our national sport. Columnists everywhere seem to be roused from their deep slumber over Don Cherry’s
”Canadian game” played by good old boys from little hamlets across the country – and all that other hype and mythology. Hockey is hockey. And the N.H.L is an organized business that sells hockey. It’s as simple as that.

But amidst all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth is finally perhaps, some recognition that the game has gotten out of hand. (I hate the word “gotten.”)

Zdeno Chara.is a huge defenseman. He is a lot more than an oversized goon. He is a good hockey player. But he as been hired for his size and his daunting presence – first by Ottawa and now by Boston. We have to be naive not to believe that someone must be telling him to go out there and get aggressive. His skills as a hockey player should allow him to make his presence felt without resorting to maiming his opponents. It was only a few weeks ago when he took Toronto’s Mikhail Grabovski into the boards, not once but twice. Grabovski staggered to his feet, fell once, then his head still reeling, stumbled off the ice. Chara slammed him into the boards far more viciously than would be required simply to take him out of the play.

Now the arguments are flying as fans, writers, and hockey executives look at the result of another Chara bomb, this time on Montreal Canadiens’ Max Pacioretty. The question seems to be: did he deliberately try to injure? When you are Chara’s size you don’t have to be deliberate, you just have to be there. It was unfortunate some might say, that his heavy boarding body check was made worse by coincidence not by intent. The Montreal player was skating along the boards by the player’s bench. He was hit just at the point where the bench ends and a stanchion supporting the glass is set. He went into that stanchion head first. He collapsed in a heap, out of hockey for the season, perhaps for life.

Hockey is a slam-bang game. But so is basketball. If the body contact that is permitted in hockey were to happen in basketball, the offending player would be heavily penalized and perhaps suspended. But basketball is a game of balletic skills. Hockey should be, but it is not. The league debates “head shots” but only after the best player in hockey, Sidney Crosby, was put out of action for the season with a concussion.

No one wants to tamper with the game and its speed or its body contact. But the most recent acts of hooliganism (sanctioned by the league) demonstrate finally, that the sport has become explicitly too violent. The hits are too aggressive. The contact is designed to injure.

It must stop. Hockey may be the last major spectator sport to become civilized, but the time has come. I know, Don Cherry would probably call me a bleeding heart left winger who wants to destroy the essential character of the game. But I even have to give Cherry his due. For years he has campaigned fruitlessly to have the league call ”icing” the instant the puck crosses the red line instead of waiting until a player has touched it. The player who is first on the puck is rewarded with a crushing and totally unnecessary blow into the boards.

I’m a fan. I go back to Syl Apps and Gordie Drillon. I’ve seen fights. But there has never been such a dramatic increase in the level of speed and physical condition. I remember Howie Meeker preaching to “finish your check.” What he meant was that while of course you had to bring the body in when checking someone who has the puck, but what Meeker was talking about was that second or two after a player has released the puck, you have to crash into him, to take him out of the play. There was even more of that before the league put in rules about interference. You couldn’t apply the body to someone who did not have the puck, nor could you wait and crash the original puck carrier. Most of the violence I have seen has been the attack that follows a player releasing the puck. The Chara bodycheck looks to me as if he was simply trying to take the Montreal player out of the game. He sure did.

Someone is going to be killed. The game deserves better.

A WORD TO THE TAX AVERSE

2011-03-05T09:18:00.002-05:00

The quickest way for a politician to get whacked is to suggest, in any way, however intelligent or well-meaning, that taxes do go up. Fritz Mondale won only his home state and was soundly trounced by Reagan when he suggested that higher taxes were here to stay. Kim Campbell had the colossal nerve to suggest that there might be more taxes. She lost of course and the caucus was reduced to two members, one of them now the Liberal premier of Quebec with a rating somewhere in the dungeon below the basement. (Footnote to the Reagan era: once he was President he pushed the deficit to record highs and declared that" There is no such thing as a free ride.")

The principal aide to Toronto’s new mayor Rob Ford and architect of his victory has left the mayor’s office and will work to create a Canadian version of the tax-averse Tea Party. If it was his idea to tell the mayor that his campaign should use the word “taxpayer” as often as possible in his campaign, he deserves a medal. Not from me, but from the powers of the tax-averse right wing.

Want to be elected? Promise lower taxes. Keep making pronouncements about the “hard-working” taxpayer. Keep telling people that government has no place in their wallets. It’s all rhetoric, all rubbish, all the time. But it works. There is, in the heads of so many voters, the notion that somehow governments are feasting on their hard-earned money. For what purpose? Greed? Tax and spend. (on who?) The Tories are hanging that one on Iggy even though the poor guy has two chances in the coming Federal election: slim and none.

In America the voters have swallowed all the propaganda about the deficit and vote for the tax cutters. At the same time, in the insane world of political paradox, surveys show differently: that unemployment, not the deficit, is the country’s biggest problem.

The “hard-working taxpayers” have stopped thinking. Long ago.

If you are watching the Toronto mayor’s climb in popularity (now at 60% - and he only got 47% of the vote) you know that he continues to harp on taxes. He has already rescinded some unpopular taxes plunging the city further into debt. (All taxes are unpopular.) No one, except the chattering classes of pundits, has noticed the contradictions in his statements. It was only a few weeks ago that he deplored going to the province for money, saying that that too was taxpayer’s money. So he froze property taxes (and will increase users fees) and is going to the Province for many millions of dollars that the Province doesn’t have. He needs it for stuff like road fixing. The province is being blackmailed with the promise that if no money is forthcoming he will lead Toronto voters to vote for the Conservatives. That one already looks like a shoo-in and a return to the teacher-bashing and welfare thrashing of the Harris Tories.

But the effect of the “promise to taxpayers” has been prodigious. It is the greatest hoax in modern politics today. Voters and politicians are equally to blame.

I remember when people in search of wealth would declare: “I’d be happy to pay a million dollars in taxes. It would mean I’d made a lot of money.” Now, even the super-wealthy groan over their tax- “burden” as they build McMansions with five car garages.

In am happy to pay my taxes. I love this country and I echo a remark made several years ago by Brian Tobin (it may have been Frank McKenna) that “It costs money to be a Canadian.” We are blessed. I can still live well enough after meeting my obligations. I also, and I know this will sound self-righteous, get furious when someone offers to forgive the HST if I pay cash. I show them the door. I want to pay my fair share. I live in a country where we (most of us) have a decent standard. The tax-haters curl up at the edges when anyone dares to suggest that government services should be extended fully to those in need. “My tax dollars are going to lazy bums,” is the cry.

Even more stupid is the notion that there is a “gravy train” and that greedy politicians are living it up on the taxes that should be going to public services. The mayor struck the mother lode when the THC was found to be spending taxpayer’s money on pedicures and parties. What a political bonanza for the tax-hating mayor.

Look out. We’re heading to the Right. The Tea Party is contagious. Ford is the second mayor in the last twenty years to put on a tax freeze while our roads and services succumb to potholes and neglect. Remember the guy who said he was worried about going to Africa and finding himself in a pot of boiling water. Like Ford, he was the most popular guy on the block.

We all have to pay for a better life. If some of that “better life” goes to the helpless, so be it. My final stab at the past “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” It may sound Marxist to you, so what. The reality, not the ideology, is what counts. It does cost money to be a Canadian.

BEWILDERED OLD MEN

2011-03-04T18:09:00.002-05:00

I prize my intellect and I value my insights. I’m not bragging, I’m just telling you how I feel about my continuing ability to cope – to cope with new realities, to experience new ideas, and to live in the 21st century. I have tried to express some of this feeling in my "Looking Ahead" blog. I do look ahead. I plan for the future, even though I understand the reality that I don’t have the same “future” as a thirty year old. Never mind all that. I am furious! I am disgusted! I have just seen one too many of those tasteless, ageist, insulting commercials on TV for TD Canada Trust.

You know the ones. Two borderline senile old guys sit on a bench trying to decide literally – which end is up. They aren’t stupid. They are just totally out of touch with to-day. They exemplify, in the opinion of TD or their advertising agency, the enormous gap between the hip, cool, with-it younger people, and the doddering old men who sit on a park bench and are totally incredulous that a bank will stay open on Sunday. The commercial has these two dodderers comparing what their watches say. “I think my watch is not working. What day does your watch say it is?"
"My watch says it’s Sunday." Aside from the fact that a date and time dial does not, at least I have not seen it, tell you what day it is because, obviously from year to year the date falls on a different day. Or is it just that I also am too old and feeble to know the difference.

I’ll admit that I don't own an IPad or a Smart Phone. I do not send text messages. I do send Email and I am reasonably computer literate. I, not having been born on the far side of the moon, which is where these two old farts seem to reside, do know my way around. I am presumably aware of what is going on around me. I read the newspapers. I watch TV news. I am au courant when it comes to ordinary and extraordinary daily events.

So I am insulted. I am, as a reasonably sapient man in his early eighties, upset that these two men, perhaps contemporaries of mine. Are so blindly and blithely out of touch with everyday reality.

From the earliest commercials with the two of them sitting on a park bench, to the one where a daughter appears and reminds her father that he doesn’t know how to give her financial advice, it has been sickening. Why there has not been greater outrage from the community of seniors – I just don’t know.

But wait, maybe there has been outrage Maybe I was looking the other way. Maybe those two old guys are really me and it makes me shiver to realize it all may be true.

Seriously. The commercial is all about poking fun at two elderly men. The saddest part is that is with their permission, in fact, given the talent fees they are getting (I hope their agent is “sticking it” to the client) maybe it’s all worth while. If you don’t mind selling out that is.

WE DESERVE THE BLAME FOR ANTI-ARABISM

2011-02-28T11:47:00.003-05:00

If you want to read the most articulate, most long-awaited reality column about democracy in the Middle East, I recommend that you access the New York Times of February 27th for the column by Nicholas Kristoff. He was on the ground in Egypt and he saw first-hand what the word democracy means to these people, and how wrong we have all been with our “idees fixes” about the Arab/Muslim world. In fact, we have been very wrong and it is time to make amends.

Kristoff cites British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is no screaming radical: “he forthrightly acknowledged that for too long Britain had backed authoritarian regimes to achieve stability. He acknowledged that his country had bought into the bigoted notion “that Arabs or Muslims can’t do democracy.” And he added: “For me, that’s a prejudice that borders on racism. It’s offensive and wrong, and it’s simply not true.” The light has finally shone.

I have been trying myself to square my notions of Arab intellectual poverty and backwardness and radical Islamism, with the faces of thousands of young Tunisians, then Egyptians, then Bahrainis, who are the farthest thing from rabid jihadists. It seems to suit our personal purposes to label them all as suicide bombers, Islamist militants and America-haters. Far too easy because it gets us off the hook. We have always known and have been complicit in maintaining all of it, that there is literally no democracy anywhere in the Arab world. From Morocco to Yemen, from Syria to Saudi Arabia, despotic rule is the norm. Kings and Emirs and Ayatollahs, and in the case of Iran, the despotism of the Revolutionary Guard, abetted by the Ayatollahs... There is enough blame to go around, with oil-needy first world countries so perilously in need that they want only one thing: stability.

But one man’s stability is another man’s tyranny. We must not continue to believe that everyone in the Arab world is a compliant, willing servant of his non-elected masters. To believe that there are great masses of illiterates who are easily governed by dictators is to ignore the reality that has been exposed by these utterly spontaneous revolutions. Maybe the arrival of Facebook and Twitter has demonstrated to all of us that these people are aware and ready for change.

Obama seems to have decided in favour of the new realism. He trod carefully with Mubarak until that man relieved himself of the presidency. Now he is openly calling for the removal of Khaddaffi. Will there be more? Can the Saudis possibly maintain their feudal hold on their 15th century Wahabbi country? They are already dishing out goodies to their people and hinting at reform. Until the rest of the Western World says publicly what David Cameron has said, there will be tension. Worse, without western support the tide of the new Arab democracy could turn in a hostile direction.

I do not believe that the radicals will benefit from democracy. Hamas and Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood will be dispatched to the trash bin of obsolescence, because these new revolutionaries know the old ways are self-destructive. We worry too, and I wrote about it several weeks ago, that a power vacuum would leave these countries vulnerable to even more authoritarian government. Maybe I was too quick to judge. They seem ready and able and are forming their own provisional councils and are starting to construct the kind of democracy they believe they deserve.

I am cautioning myself not to let my hopes rise too high. Revolution can beget many sinister children. But if you read back into Kristoff’s insightful peace you will see that he invokes history, reminding readers that it took more than six years from the end of the American Revolution to establish a stable government.

What is needed most is encouragement. A new day is dawning and the oil moguls had better reconsider their strategy. Reconsider or get done like dinner.

MUSIC TO MY EARS

2011-02-25T08:16:00.002-05:00

Part of my “Looking Ahead” idea is that I continue to look for new things to do, new places to learn, and new ventures. It’s one reason why, a few years ago, I returned to the piano. I am still taking weekly lessons and if I live to be 150 will be appearing at local night clubs doing an imitation of Bill Evans.

All this is just to let me tell you about kids and music. I don’t mean garage head-banger bands. I mean kids who represent the reality that classical music, or more particularly, the virtuosity required to play it, is still alive and well.

For me there is an interesting paradox. I love learning to play jazz. I enjoy learning the harmonies, the “voicings” and the rhythms. The paradox is that what I enjoy playing and what I prefer listening to, are not the same. Aside from my awe when I see “You Tube” clips of the greats like the aforementioned Bill Evans, or the legendary Art Tatum or my favourite – Teddy Wilson – my preference for listening goes to classical music. All of it, although I lean away from opera. (That’s another story.)

Like many of my contemporaries, I observe the audience for music. Go to where jazz is being played. Notice how many people in the audience are older. Go to a classical concert and you are sure that, with a few exceptions, it is a geriatric gathering. But all is not lost. There are kids learning serious music. There are more than I would have believed.

A few nights ago I went to a concert at the Royal Conservatory’s exquisite Koerner Hall. The orchestra was the Royal Conservatory symphony orchestra, made up entirely (with perhaps one or two exceptions) of music students. I inveigled my sister into coming along because they were going to be playing Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, one of her favourites. She asked me of course, what it would be like to hear students playing. She was worried that it would be “A for effort” but not ready for prime time. At the opening bars of Smetana’s Bartered Bride overture, I heard a gasp from the seat next to me. She could not believe her ears. Sixty or so young people were sounding like the best symphony orchestra. They were lead from the podium by Julian Kuerti, virtuoso son of renowned pianist Anton Kuerti. Next on the program came a lanky kid who had won a competition at the conservatory. He played the Bartok Viola concerto. He got and deserved a standing ovation. (Afterwards I learned that it was his first playing of the piece with an orchestra, and it was Kuerti’s first conducting of it.)

Finally came the coup de grace. Petrouchka. It was spellbinding. The zest, the vigour, the musicality – it was all there. One forgives an occasional slip from musicians reaching high. It was memorable. I came away believing I had heard this piece for the first time.

Just down the street from the Conservatory and Koerner Hall is the University of Toronto Music department, a sort of “dueling banjos” arrangement. Again the orchestra is kids. A few weeks ago I heard their wind orchestra play. The highlight was a new concerto for percussion and orchestra by Christos Hotzis. His wife, Beverly Johnson, was the percussionist, the rest of the crowd on stage were students. They played with all the zest and enthusiasm of musicians not yet jaded by the competition of finding work, or the notion that ensemble playing is boring. A flautist friend of mine says a major orchestra is where you play what the way the conductor tells you to play. It becomes trying. But not for kids with their whole musical life ahead of them.

For me it is a revelation. For me it says that all the doomsayers who believe classical music has no place in the 21st century, and even more, that the rising generation had no interest in that kind of music, vindication. It’s all still there.

The rising generation will save us from that feared oblivion. They will continue to create great treasures. Even though there are thousands of kids who believe that playing guitar or drums or air guitar or air drums, is the way to go, and is the road to what they really want - celebrity, here are kids who play violins and flutes and bassoons and trumpets. Not only are they keeping a tradition alive, but their skills make it possible for a whole new generation of composers to strut their musical stuff.

Nowhere does the future more truly “belong” to youth. I applaud.

THE HOME OF THE BRAVE

2011-02-24T15:13:00.002-05:00

America congratulates and reveres its fighting men. They must. They keep saying it over and over again. Even during a play-by-play sports telecast the commentator will say, somewhat unctuously I think, “this is for all those brave men who are fighting for our way of life etc…” Don Cherry likes to do the same. Whenever he seems to be short of something to say he invokes his patriotism and makes reference to our men in uniform. It’s all part of an ongoing rant. Not that it is without merit. There are men fighting and dying. Whether or not the cause is worth fighting and dying for is quite another discussion.

You would think, with all this reverence for them, that returning servicemen would be granted the rewards they deserve. In olden times, as recently perhaps as the Great War, returning veterans, some of them badly damaged, would be given very short shrift. My favourite was the man who occupied a spot outside an office building at Bay and Adelaide. He sold pencils. He was legless. Earlier, perhaps during the Napoleonic Wars crippled soldiers would return home and be given absolutely nothing.

That is all supposed to have changed. But in the last few years, in the U.S. there has been considerable criticism of the way VA (Veterans Affairs) deals with disabled veterans.

Now there is an organization called “RepForVets.” It seems that even heroes need an advocate. In their publicity the organization says: “The VA works for the government. The Rep For Vets works for you.”

Am I getting this right? Is this organization saying that Veterans Affairs (this is in the U.S. remember) is like some kind of insurance company? Insurance companies are famous for exploring every avenue of escape before paying a claim. It’s their business. They want to minimize outlay and maximize profits. But the VA??

After readying about this organization I look with jaundiced eyes at the scenes often seen on TV, of how the returning guys are all heroes and how nothing is too good for them.

Obviously there is a shortfall between intentions and reality. It may be true that there are returning veterans who will try to use the system to make gains to which they are not entitled. But having put their lives at risk, I wonder who can be so cynical about their need for assistance, real or imagined.

I will find myself watching scenes which could only be described a pious hypocrisy. Flag waving is easy, until it starts costing the “hard-working” (don’t you love that description?) taxpayer.

An ironic sidebar to the story: The VA health services are supplied by the government. Their post-battle care, along with care for people like Senators and Congressman is paid for by the taxpayer and administered by bureaucrats. Somehow, this single-pay system actually works. Which makes you wonder why the Republicans describe “Obama-care” as a “job-killer.”

GREATER GOOD FOR THE GREATER NUMBER

2011-02-24T12:46:00.003-05:00

I continue to weigh in one more events of the past week. You know where I will be coming from on the issue of the Wisconsin ‘budget” problem.

I start with an economic truth: the prosperity of the middle class is the most important element in a healthy economy. Agreed?

No force has been greater in expanding that middle class than trade unions. Historically, we had the upper classes, the owners of industry and resources, and the “working class” struggling millions who worked long hours for low pay. The arrival of collective bargaining allowed millions to share in the prosperity. It was good for everyone. Henry Ford, never a friend of labour unions, realized that his workers had to earn enough to buy the cars they made. He may have been paternalistic, but he made sense – just this once. His move also was to thwart the organization of unions in his company by keeping ahead of the demand. In Canada we had a perfect example of how a non-union company remained clear of labour disruptions. Dofasco Steel in Hamilton was always a little ahead of the curve. When Stelco went on strike Dofasco waited until after the settlement and gave its workers a comparable, even a touch higher, increase. Do you believe that the Japanese non-union car makers actually survive by paying low wages? Certainly not. They, for the most part, try to keep up with industry standards, standards that have been set by the unions.

The U.S. is, among industrialized countries, one of the least unionized. The Taft-Hartley Act and all the “Right to work” legislation” has seen to that. What’s more, companies upset by finicky unions simply moved to a state where unions were not supported by government. Unfortunately even those “right to work” states have felt the same pinch as bottom-feeding industries go offshore to where wages are controlled totally by the companies with the support of industry-favourable government.

The latest figures coming out of the Wisconsin standoff demonstrate again that more that half of the American public does not support unions. (I’m sure a similar, if smaller number, would apply to this country.) The anti-union people complain that people are being paid too much. They will always mutter the same silly stuff: I’m not making as much as they are” or “In a time of unemployment, why should they be exempted?” That’s just bad-mouthing. Would they be happier if working people were all punished for having the nerve to actually try to work for better wages, working conditions and benefits?” They would be. They are. There is almost no stopping the rush to unreality by the union-haters.

They characterize unions as corrupt. (There have been corrupt union leaders like Hoffa, and unions controlled by organized crime. There have also been corrupt companies and management.) People claim that unions are “always going on strike.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. Statistically the great majority of labour disputes end up being amicably settled without a strike. But the work stoppages are the best remembered. In fact, in Toronto we have a mayor whose popularity is based in part on his anti-union stance. Take away collective bargaining rights from transit workers. Privatize garbage collection. On the latter I have to weigh in with a comment: “The private company that takes over will only take over the service if they can make a profit.” Here again, too many people are angry that anyone as lowly as a garbage collector can earn enough money to own his own home or a car, or anything that makes him part of the even the lower end of the middle class.

The governor of Wisconsin is being disingenuous. Everyone knows it – even the Tea Party nut-bars. The public service unions have all told the governor that they will make the concessions he needs to balance the budget. He says his move to deny collective-bargaining rights, effectively busting the unions, is simply to balance the budget. He is bending to public sentiment. Several other state governors are on the same path. They simply hate unions. And for that they are getting a great deal of applause.

But to disregard the whole issue of unions, what benefit can there possibly be to impoverishing your fellow citizens? The word for that is “schadenfreude” which literally means pleasure at the suffering of others.

Alright, you say, there is no denying that historically unions were good for society. Everything has changed. Industry can go offshore for cheaper labour. More and more entrepreneurs are creating wealth. Most of all, the Industrial Revolution is over and has long since been replaced by the world of service innovation.

Everyone remembers Alvin Toffler for his book “Future Shock” published more than 50 years ago. Not as well remembered, but for me, more important, was “The Third Wave” published in 1980. He joined most of the other futurists and economists in declaring that the Industrial Revolution was over and we have entered the Information Age. And it is true that from virtually nothing twenty years ago, new wealth-makers have arrived. Silicon Valley in California and around Boston, our own in the Ottawa area (and don’t forget Research in Motion is Waterloo) have created new billionaires. In Austin Texas there are ordinary hi-tech workers who became what they call Dell-ionaires. Ordinary folks at Dell in Austin became rich from their share of the piece. (Countless millions have also gone broke, especially when the dot-com bubble burst and sent the NASDAQ Index from over 6,000 to less than 2,000.)

But even in with the arrival of high tech prosperity, companies add to their bottom line by outsourcing to countries where salaries are low and skills high – notably India. The evidence for most of us is in the call centres where you call for technical assistance and the phone is answered by someone in Manila or Mumbai.

The entire issue of union survival sparked by the Wisconsin crisis is best commented on by Nobel laureate economic Paul Krugman: “anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side. You don’t have to love unions; you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy.”

It’s not about unions and collective bargaining – it’s about social justice.
I am not against entrepreneurism. I value people who will put themselves at risk to climb toward success. But that is not everyone. We are simply not all the same. Is it wrong to look for safety and security? Is it wrong to want to bargain for your own future? I know, it is not the same kind of risk-taking, but it also does not come with the same potential rewards. To each his own.

What do all these people have against the principle of a collective agreement? The idea is, or should be, enshrined in the fabric of American life. There is implicitly a collective agreement between business and the people. Without Americans as customers – who buys their goods? Without Americans as workers, who creates their wealth? Of course, most of that has gone out the window as “entrepreneurism” (translation: every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost) captures hearts and minds. Most people are not entrepreneurial. They bring their skills, some of them primitive, to the marketplace and hope that someone will engage them. They have no product, no inventory – just ability, or brains, or willingness. Does that reduce them to second class citizens, unworthy of being able to bargain?

Business and industry does not have to go to a bargaining table to raise prices or pay extravagant bonuses to senior executives. But wait, I DO understand that business people are essentially risk-takers. They are betting that their risk will be worth the returns. Some go broke. Some prosper. But it is their choice. Most people are risk-averse. They have skills that can be used. That should never put them in the position of having to fight for their rights, their rights to join together and present a united front. Hey, I’m talking about schoolteachers, policemen, people essential to the well-being of the community.

I hope this blog has not made you too angry to at least – think about it.

PIRACY VS EVANGELISM

2011-02-23T09:35:00.002-05:00

In the next few days I am finally going to weigh in on some events and issues that have been percolating in my fertile brain. Like the Wisconsin “showdown” and the latest from the pirates of the Indian ocean. They seem undeterred by the menacing presence of warships. They seem not afraid to “duke it out” with the biggest navy in the world, - To a tragic ending: four people killed, two pirates dead, and the question: will they learn the lesson that the world will not tolerate these random, careless and stupid acts of terror? That's the party line. There's more.

Look at the previous high-jacking of a 54 foot private yacht with four people aboard. Those hostages are now somewhere in the anarchy of Somalia, and the U.S. State department is making noises of outrage, as if that will daunt these outlaws. But, is it possible that the hijacking of that yacht, speaks to more than anarchy and chaos.

I have no time for the pirates who kidnap helpless people and hold them for ransom, sometimes torturing, even killing them. You try to understand the genesis of the piracy. It began as a revolt against world indifference. It began because the already marginal fisherman who worked the coast of Somalia found their fish stock poisoned. Thousands of tons of toxic garbage has for many year been dropped in the sea off the coast of Somalia. The Somalis having no working government and not much concern from the rest of the world, were powerless to stop rogue contractors who carted tons of toxic waste from "developed" countries and dumped it in their waters. The countries and companies who turned a blind eye to what was happening to their garbage are very much to blame. The world community is very much to blame. Doing what has been done to Somalia and letting it happen would be like not noticing that BP was ruining the G7ulf of Mexico and depriving thousands of fisherman of a living. (Remember too that BP already has terrible safety record. Remember the chemical explosion just a couple of years back?)

It took acts of blatant terror, high-seas piracy, to mobilize resources to do what? To stop the reckless disposal of toxic trash off the coast of a country with no government to defend it? No. They mobilized naval vessels to attack the pirates. The U.S. State Department will be very much involved in the repatriation of this unfortunate couple.

The “righteous” pirates have turned into thugs. I am sure that most of them have no memory of what started it all. They are not fighting for justice, they are criminals.

There is another side to this latest story. It is a tale of religious hubris. It is a couple, well-intentioned perhaps, who see it as their mission to “civilize” the non-believers. Their “mission” was not to travel the world in search of peace and some adventure for themselves. It was to preach the gospel to the “un-saved.” The gratuitous and thoughtless propagation of a religion that is not only foreign, but detested by the very people who are being given these Bibles. And you can be sure that the Bibles are not simply the Old Testament, but the New Testament, with its salvation through Jesus.

Believe what you will, but stop the missionary work. You insult people. You degrade their beliefs as unworthy. You are a throwback to the old colonial days where the new Masters confronted the pagan savages with the “Book” in one hand, and the rifle in the other.

There is no longer any legitimacy to Somali piracy. Just as there is no longer legitimacy to the wanton preaching of a gospel that is alien to millions of people.

SPELLCHECK STRIKES AGAIN

2011-02-20T07:46:00.002-05:00

I feel a little better about my plague of errata this morning. The Toronto Star, reporting on the sad story of a man who was promised home care and is still waiting.
The Star, maybe spell check is at it again, reported that the man had his "prostrate" removed. Does that mean he is now erect? Of does it also mean - you're gonna love this - that he has beaten his erectile dysfunction?

One of my most dedicated readers, who happens also to be an academic, scolded me for my misuse of the word "decimate." Strangely, she is a historian (or should that be AN historian?) never enjoyed the study of English. She was quite right, if you are a strict purist, decimate does not mean "ravage" - as I used it to describe the drop in consumer buying power - but means to reduce by one tenth. In spite of sending her a copy of the dictionary definition, she argued that I should know better. She also suggested that I write a blog about language misuse.

People who write books about grammar and solecisms and misplaced modifiers and redundancies, are not boring only to a small group of language hairsplitters. The only exceptions I can think of are Bill Safire, the ex-Nixon speech-writer who wrote for the New York Times, and the hilarious book about punctuation "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.

There was one other. The title escapes me but she wrote with wit about people who "talk fancy." It was all about absurd embellishments. Problem is: no one seems to read them except people who want confirmation of their own impeccable English. I have yet to hear anyone who says "at this point in time" retract and apologize.

In my own family there is at least one dissenter. I commented about the pronunciation of a word and his response was: "Who cares." A pragmatist, he insists that communication is more important than accuracy. He's right of course.

Except I confess that I do value language. Just as I enjoy music that is elegantly constructed, and played with musical fluency, I find that language has an innate elegance that should not be destroyed by bowdlerizing words or "evolving" to the point where we will find "I ain't got no nothing" becomes acceptable.

Grimly fighting to the last morsel of utter boredom, I carry on.

Solecists of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your illiteracy!

2011-02-19T23:11:00.001-05:00

Forgive me. I keep mis-typing. It must be late or I', getting too old.

BLAME IT ON "SPELL CHECK"

2011-02-19T23:04:00.001-05:00

I never should rely on Spellcheck. Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader who spotted this gaffe: "Farmers in Alberta are delighted to know that they will not be able to buy local diesel fuel for their farm equipment." Of course, it should read "Farmers in Alberta with NOW be able to buy....

GOVERNMENT CAN'T GET ANYTHING RIGHT???

2011-02-19T15:41:00.002-05:00

The “true believers” always insist that "private" is best. Their doctrine, their dogma, includes one specific “truth” that: “governments should keep out of business and let the real world do what it does best.” Just let Free Enterprise take over. Just let business and industry do what it does best. Just let private business control the economy and everything will work out. Nonsense! Haven’t the events starting with the 2008 economic meltdown banished all those cherished notions? No – it’s still the mantra of everyone from the hard-right conservatives in Canada and of course the Tea-party-influenced Republican economics wizards in the U.S.

Now - of all places in Canada to have government involved in business, the last should be Alberta. At least that’s part of our mythology. Albertans have been all over the map on economic policy. From the old Social Credit nonsense of a Scottish religious fanatic named C.H. Douglas, espoused by Bible Bill Aberhart who combined his job as premier of Alberta with a revivalist hellfire and brimstone weekly radio program. He would have, if the Supreme Court had not stepped in, started printing money for free distribution to all Albertans. (Interesting that it was the successors to Bible Bill, the Mannings, father and son, who created the Reform Party which led to the Conservatives we have now.)

Earlier, before enterprise madness had taken over, there was the failed attempt by that dastardly “red” Tory Peter Lougheed to try to industrialize Alberta. (Alberta still depends on resources: grains, beef, and oil for its financial health.) Lougheed wanted to try to introduce some variety into the Alberta economy. He thought it would be a good idea to do what economists refer to as “value adding” to the economy. Simply said, you took raw commodities, and processed them and increased their value ten-fold. In fact, further processing, say to a finished consumer product, would add another ten-fold increase. (No economist but I think I got the number right. By why quibble?)

Lougheed, recognizing that Alberta was exporting oil-seed grains for processing, wanted do it at home and keep the profits for themselves. He opened seed-crushing facilities. Soon Alberta was heavily into the production of edible oils. The problem however was that the edible oil market took a nosedive and the Lougheed venture failed. Nice try but no cigar.

Now once again, those die-hard private-does-it-best guys are getting into the oil processing business. I have long complained that the whole country, not just Alberta, is a huge exporter of raw commodities. (Like my favourite hobby horse: Saskatchewan produces the majority of the world; mustard seed but produces little or no finished mustard. In fact, when I was in Dijon, one of our guides told us proudly that their mustard was made from locally grown seed, while all the other used seed from Saskatchewan.)

We all know that Canada is America’s best and most secure source of petroleum products. To that end were had developed a process to turn raw bitumen from the Oil Sands into a slurry to be shipped south via pipeline where is it processed in American refineries.

Turnaround! The Alberta government sees that the price of oil is rising again, Quoting from a recent G&M Report on Business: “Alberta said it will supply the proposed upgrader with 37,500 barrels of bitumen per day provided by production royalties that government will collect from oil sands companies.” What it all boils down to is that Alberta will process more of its own bitumen into diesel fuel. Farmers in Alberta are delighted to know that they will not be able to buy local diesel fuel for their farm equipment. It’s a step.

If Alberta, probably the county’s most right-leaning jurisdiction, can show that a private-public company can work to improve the economy. The plant will generate thousands of jobs. It’s “government to the rescue” and I for one am cheering!

WHAT GOES AROUND- COMES AROUND

2011-02-17T09:56:00.002-05:00

I’m a huge fan of poetic justice, retribution, or whatever you choose to call it. Although I am pretty short-tempered, I enjoy hearing the admonition “Don’t get angry – get even.”

The latest bittersweet vindication for me is the bankruptcy of Borders, America’s second largest book chain after Barnes and Noble. Of course I hate to see the wreckage that follows: the inevitable downsizing, the closing of stores, and the layoff of thousands of employees. In the movie “You’ve Got Mail” Meg Ryan is the proprietor of a neighbourhood children’s book store that is put out of business by the “big box” book store created by Tom Hanks. Everything works out Hollywood-well in the end of course. But that’s Hollywood. The reality is that the big box book stores, which themselves suffered some huge setbacks - remember the near failure of Indigo and its rescue by Chapters and a very deep-pocketed owner? It was these book supermarkets that devastated the “real” bookstores, you know, the ones where you could actually talk to book lovers. The big box stores have it all of course, but the people behind the counter only have to know how to access their computers. My favourite fantasy is that I go to a computer-driven information station and ask for – say - “A Tale of Two Cities” and tell them to look under Dickens. The person at the computer would ask:” “And how would you be spelling that name?” I’m exaggerating of course.

Payback almost always happens where the winners who cared nothing for the destruction of their smaller competition, are themselves open to the same kind of annihilation.

One of the classic examples is how the textile industry in America kept migrating to new cheap labour locations. Small towns throughout New England were the centre of America’s thriving textile industry. There were cotton mills everywhere. There were garment factories all over. New York was the garment capital of America. (Just as Spadina Avenue in Toronto was, along with Montreal, our own clothing hub.) In the U.S., under “right to work” legislation enacted during the Truman years, the factories moved to the Old South where they didn’t have to put up with troublesome unions and other barriers to capital success. The irony of course is that because many industries are bottom-feeders, and chase after the lowest possible wage levels, they quit Carolina and headed for Central America. Even there, they left El Salvador for Honduras where they could pay even lower wages. The delicious but tragic irony was magnified during John Edwards failed run for the Presidential nomination. He promised to revive the battered textile industry. Of course, it was too late. Technology and corporate greed made it impossible to get that toothpaste back into the tube.(An interesting sidebar is that statistically, about 20 years ago about 50% of the clothing bought by Americans was made in America. Now the number is down to 2%.)

So now, Borders, which, along with the other big box book stores, devastated the small book stores, is now feeling the pain as E-Books take over. They were already in trouble because Amazon could outsell them and Amazon had no real estate to worry about. All they needed was to be the back-end to an interment order system and to run warehouses. And warehouses don’t need expensive Big Mall addresses. You may be saying that times change and those who can’t keep up will fall by the wayside. Agreed. But in the case of Borders, “he who lives by the sword etc….”

Who’s to blame? People like me I guess. Having access to book review sections in the Globe and Mail and New York Times, why would I do anything else but download books to my E-Reader? For the dinosaurs who insist that there is still nothing like the feel of a “real” book as you cuddle up to your favourite author, I thought so myself, until I discovered the wonderful portability (especially for travel) and absolute convenience of having Kobo do all the work.

As they say – it’s a jungle out there. Ordinary people get chewed up by the machinery. I’m just as ordinary as the next person and my taste in reading can be handled best by my portable electronic system. So there goes Borders. And who will be next?

IT'S BECOMING AN OBSESSION

2011-02-16T10:15:00.002-05:00

Watching ABC News a few nights ago I was startled but not surprised, when the newsreader said something like: “Americans are worried most about the deficit.” I suppose that ABC, who were the first to jump on the “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” line that all that stuff was concealed in portable trailers which could move to avoid detection, should also swallow and perpetuate the dogma, beloved of conservatives, all the Republicans and many Democrats, that the deficit is the big villain in the America recovery.

First of all, it is not. Secondly, every survey that I have seen shows that “unemployment” is far and away number one in the American consciousness and the deficit lags quite far behind. Simply because the orthodoxy of deficit fighting has the upper hand politically, does not mean it should have. It’s the same in Canada. In the U.S. they go on and on about how borrowing to sustain the deficit makes America a debtor nation, putting a huge burden on the public purse and, as they always like to say: “On our children and grandchildren.” That is simply a lot of rubbish. It was not such rubbish that voters didn’t stream to the polls to elect the “no-more-Big-Government” members to Congress. Not so big that they didn’t accuse the Democrats of being “tax-and-spend.” The Harper gang uses the same dogma against our Liberals.

I know that I am obsessed with this. I know that many readers disagree. But I do believe devoutly, that the worst thing that can happen to an economy is to have unemployment that decimates the ability of the consumers to consume. The ridiculous irony is that while voters seem to be voting for deficit reduction, every poll says they want more jobs. And as far as “Big Government?” is concerned, who else but government should be installed to make decision that affects all of us? Those decisions ideally, are not made for selfish or self-serving reasons, but with an honest understanding of what is good for a country and its people. It is always sad to realize that so many people believe politicians are a lower form of life. For heaven’s sakes – they are the ones charged with the responsibility to make this a better place to live and work!! That's why we have elections!

So I’m back at my old hobby-horse: it would be better I am sure not to continue to grow the deficit, but unless government steps in, who is going to spend money. Certainly not business and industry who will not spend, will not hire, and will not make capital investments, until the economy improves. That’s Catch 22. It should be obvious even to the likes of Jim, Flaherty or Tony Clement, or for that matter Boemer and his gang in Congress.

Poor Obama. He has retreated so far from his election promises that they are nothing but a hazy memory, Even when he tries to spend money, like 55 billion (over many years to be sure) to build high speed rail, the opposition (and some of his own party) curse him for raising the deficit. Do I have to remind you that the same deficit fighters are the ones who voted against increasing taxes to the top 2%?

For me there is political irony right here at home. When Bob Rae was the N.D.P. premier on Ontario, he grew the deficit to provide jobs. Building was at a standstill. Paper mills were closing. Only government action could save them. And of course, the Citizen’s Coalition, led (remember?) by Stephen Harper was screaming that “you can’t spend your way out of recession.” May I humbly point out that that is precisely what Harper and Flaherty have been doing? And it has worked. The only part that will be missing, is that when times are good again and everyone is making money, taxes will have to rise to reduce the deficit. The irony is obvious: no party gets elected on a platform that includes raising taxes. No one seems to remember that “there is no free lunch.”

CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR.

2011-02-11T12:30:00.002-05:00

For a few minutes today (Friday) I sat glued to my TV. There is a wonderful breathlessness about all the commentators as they probe the realities behind the resignation of Mubarak. The networks – CBC Newsworld, CNN, MSNBC ( I didn’t bother with Fox) seem to be in a battle to be first and fastest with the latest word from the streets of Cairo. Suddenly everyone is an expert ion Egypt.

In a recent OpEd piece in the Times, the writer observed that two weeks ago most Americans wouldn’t be able to pick Mubarak out of a police line-up. Suddenly we have all grown wise. Suddenly we all have opinions about Egypt and the effect this “revolution” will have on the future of the Middle East and its relationship with the rest of the world, especially America. Recently I, another expert, wrote that I worried about the power vacuum that might be left if Mubarak quit. Now he has and everyone is signing on with their opinions. Carl Bernstein, a very good journalist worries that the “new” Egypt will not be the friend to America that Mubarak was. He also worried that the new regime may be less friendly to Israel. Everyone speculates. No one knows.

I know that Egypt is referred to officially as “The Arab Republic of Egypt.” I find that very strange. When Syria and Egypt made a political union they called it the U.A.R – the United Arab Republic, almost everyone who knew anything about the Middle East commented that the name was a misnomer because Egypt was not an Arab country. But now, all the commentators during the crisis refer to it as an Arab country and that Cairo is the centre of the Arab World. That definition comes easily to western pundits, but Cairo, while it may be the largest Muslim City (and I’m not sure about Jakarta in Indonesia) it is not the centre of the Arab world. Historically that centre is where the anointed Caliphs ruled: Baghdad. (“Anointed” is what has led to the outrageous and deadly battle between Shia and Sunni over the succession of Mohammed’s grandson Ali to the throne of Caliph. Twelve hundred years later and they are still k8illing each other.)

I presume that if you asked the same people who couldn’t pick Mubarak out of a police lineup, to name Arab countries, they would be all over the place. I would guess that many of them believe that Iran is an Arab country. It is not, Just as Pakistan and Indonesia are not Arab countries.

I enjoy splitting hairs. Not because I think it really matters, but because it is a reflection of how little so many people with so many opinions, really know.

I am no expert of course. I do not pretend to be. But I worry that power has passed to the army in Egypt. It was the army that was behind Nasser and Sadat and Mubarak. I suggest that even if there are to be elections that the winner will govern with the approval of the army. I suggest that if a radical Islamist movement should come out on top in an Egyptian election that the Constitution will be compromised and the army will step in. It will all be in the interests of “stability.” Which takes us right back to the last thirty years in Egypt. Mubarak declared martial law. It has never been lifted. It kept the country “secure.” The irony is that in his struggle to maintain control, Mubarak offered to “gradually loosen the martial law.”

They have a long way to go. I wish them well.

#2 - MYTH OF EXCEPTIONALISM

2011-02-09T11:21:00.002-05:00

America is still, indisputably, the world’s biggest economic power with the biggest consumer market and, while it is sagging, an outstanding industrial infrastructure.
But they can’t or won’t get it right! Stubbornness? Intractability? Conservatism? All are to blame. But the biggest blame can be laid on self-delusion. If they were as “exceptional" as they keep saying they are, the country would not be lagging so far behind the rest of the world in transportation infrastructure.

I’ve been here before. It has been years since I suggested that a government/private consortium could build the world’s most comprehensive high-speed rail network. When $150 a barrel oil and 9/11 crippled the airline industry, I said this is the chance America has been waiting for. It’s again the old “When you get lemons make lemonade.” Turn disaster into opportunity. I suggested then that government should propose to the airline industry that they join in a massive overhaul of transportation. Airports would become, as they are in major European cities, terminals for high speed rail. But of course, that would mean the dreaded “public enterprise,” and the echoes of the spectre of (ugh) socialism! Run for your lives, the Russians are coming, and old stuff like that.

So Obama, who has dithered on the edges of mass transit reform, has said he wants to spend $53 billion to develop high speed rail networks. Of course, the Republican House says it’s a “luxury” the country cannot afford in this time of growing deficits. Calling high speed rail a luxury is like calling food an indulgence. Bound by the toxic combination of right-wing orthodoxy and fear of government involvement, the opposition continues.

I am not a transportation expert, so I am not sure whether or not the rail system functioned during the horrible weather of the last few weeks; weather that strangled commerce and shut down airlines. (There was also a precious irony in the thousands of cancellations. To speed up airline service, new regulations say that every passenger must be paid for having to wait for a flight after a spoecific period of delay. The result is that instead of postponing flights and paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, everything was cancelled.) I know there were delays with commuter rail, but maybe a lot of that was because commuters couldn’t get to the station to catch the train. Their cars were stuck in the snow, as if the car was the only way to get anywhere.

We Canadians are not doing any better. For more years than I can remember, I have deplored the fact that rail travel to our country’s capital is mired in the 40s. Just as America will, if Obama can ram it through, build new lines especially for high speed, Canada should have long ago created a new high speed route from Toronto and Montreal to Ottawa. Leave the existing rail lines to carry local and freight. Come staggering into the 21st century.

Just to rub a little salt into the wounds of inaction or stubbornness, China will lead even Europe, in high speed electric transit. While America continues to delude itself with the belief in greatness, lesser countries are taking the lead. I can hardly wait for Brazil to get into the act.

MORE: MY CONSCIENCE - MY GUIDE

2011-02-08T13:00:00.002-05:00

I’m not sure there are many altruists left on Earth. Cynics, looking at modern society suggest that just about everything we do is based on self-interest; that underneath even the most selfless, caring response to social needs, is the imperative to be self-aggrandizing. You could even argue that Mother Theresa had nothing material to gain by being caring about the poor, but even she was preparing her place in heaven.

Recently I received a lengthy booklet telling me about the future of commodities. It had nothing at all to do with feeding the world’s hungry, stopping the spread of greenhouse gases, or trying to stem the tide of exploitation of non-renewable resources. It was not meant to be that kind of document. It was solely for the benefit of people like me, who have money invested in securities based on commodities, not just steel and coal, but food and fertilizer – things that should be associated with human survival, not with making a buck. But I live on the income generated by investments. I can speak as if I were altruistic, and at times I have chosen principle over practicality, but when it comes to the money that keeps a roof over our heads and food in 0ur bellies, I am about as self-serving as they come. I’m not even sure that all my ideals that were wrapped up in my on-air opinions were in the service of telling what I believed to be truth, whatever the cost, and more about keeping my spot in the local pantheon of celebrities.

The financial meltdown that nearly took America down began in 2008 with the sudden realization that there were billions of dollars of “toxic” securities based on mortgages given to people who couldn’t afford them. Financial institutions were out of control. CEOs of money-losing companies were being given millions in bonuses and stock options. Hirings were made on the basis of how quickly you could enhance the bottom line, with there almost never being a long view of the ultimate results of runaway speculation. The first casualty was Lehman Brothers. They had accumulated so much in worthless assets that their stock plunged and took investors and employees with it. Bear Stearns, whose big “players” were famous for thousand dollar bottles of champagne consumed with hundred dollar cigars, was saved from extinction when it was bought for a fraction of its former value. In fact, if the Stock Exchange had not interfered and demanded more, they would have been bought for $2 a share

Merrill Lynch was about to be the next to go, bring with it ruin to more than 60,000 employees.

The book “Fall of The Titans” is the best thing I have read about how America went to the brink and narrowly escaped falling into something even worse than the Great Depression. The story of how the rating companies, Standard and Poors and Moody’s said those toxic securities were triple A even though most of the mortgages were “sub-prime. It has become a legend of despair. But to me, the most significant part is the completely self-serving attitude of some of the players. The architect of Merrill’s near ruin was Stan O’Neal, who ruled this venerable company like a dictator, brooking no interference and loading his executive with people who would march to his drumbeat. As the disaster became obvious, O’Neal’s future was on the line. (A friend of mine, a member of Merrill’s “Thundering Herd” said if he met O’Neal he would punch him in the face.) What author Greg Farrell observes is that with chaos threatening O’Neal thought only of his own survival. Everything he did was to advance or protect himself. I’m not going to jump from the particular to the general and say that all the financial moguls implicated in the great 2008 disaster were looking out only for number 1. I do wonder though. How many people involved in the securities business always act in the best interests of their clients, their fellow employees, and the larger health of the society? Profits come first.

In the last few months, the most venerable and successful of all the investment bankers Goldman Sachs paid an enormous fine for improper dealings. It was also said that Goldman actually bet against its own clients, hedging with short sales on the securities they had sold their clients. In other firms there were allegations of “front loading” a total violation of trust between broker and client. The securities department would receive a huge order from a client. Before they would fill the order they would invest their own cash in the stock, riding the coattails of what would predictably be a rise in price.

During those hectic times when companies were falling, when government would bail out those “too big to fail” there were panicked mergers. Of course, those mergers would result in the loss of thousands of jobs as companies “rationalized” their operations. But that’s business isn’t it?

There were a lot of bad guys and a few good guys. The good guys actually wanted, like the president of Merrill and number 2 in the pecking order, to save this venerable company and the jobs of thousands. I can’t look into his head to discover how much was honest altruism and how much was self-preservation.

“Looking after number one” is an integral part of our culture. But even the greediest should know that without goodwill there will ultimately be a shadow over the profits.

I have spoken like the perfect hypocrite whose continuing survival depends on the price of oil (it should go up) and the rising cost of food, and the next political crisis. Do I have any choice?

MY CONSCIENCE - MY GUIDE

2011-02-06T15:07:00.003-05:00

With apologies to Mark Kolke: some musings. (Mark's Blog is called Mark’s Musings. He trudges through the morning snow in Calgary with his dog and examinees the state of the world.) My musing started as my wife and I drove north on the Don Valley Parkway on this Sunday morning. It was not crowded so I wondered why a driver would, for more than a mile, tailgate a delivery van. There was plenty of room to pass on either side.

At the same time I found myself wondering about a recent story saying that drivers were flouting Ontario’s new law forbidding hands-on cell phone use or texting while driving. Aside from the clear danger to themselves and others on the road, there is the even more compelling reason not to: it is against the law!

My musing continued as I remembered the timeless quote by Oliver Goldsmith: “The true judge of a man’s character is what he will do if he knows he can get away with it.”

From there it is less than a quantum leap to why we behave the way we do, Often in defiance, not only of the law, but of any kind of reasonable human moral judgement. In other words, it is against the law to “follow to closely” in a car. But even more, it is contrary to decent behaviour, notwithstanding the law. The question then arises: is our behaviour circumscribed by law or by our own consciences, by our native sense of what it acceptable or unacceptable behaviour? Do we need a “code” of behaviour to be published, or do we know that it isn’t decent to kill or steal or burn down someone’s house.

In my earlier years I taught at a Reform Temple in Toronto. (I severed my relationship with it, and any house of worship partly because the rabbi was “re-mystifying liberal Judaism, and because my already shaky beliefs were seriously eroded.)

I taught a class in Bible study. I tried to “secularize” what is essentially a religious document while at the same time trying to justify some kind of "divine” interference, in the codification (not the creation!) of a moral standard. It was of course, epitomized by the Ten Commandments. I tried to tell my class that these edicts were a symbol of our sense of the Divine. I was also notorious for my “bible-burning” the act immortalized in a book by Rick Salutin. This class was my last stab at trying to reconcile humanism with the bible. I have since given up.

I have seen and heard, with amusement, the debates between theologians and atheists over the issue of where morality is based. The theologians believe that it is scripturally-based and that without the “civilizing” effect of the divinely-inspired writing, we would be morally rudderless. Of course, I side with the atheists who insist that moral judgements are part of civilized humanity and need no push from any notions of a divine power. The Existentialists do know right from wrong. In fact, right and wrong are challenged philosophically since we cannot judge behaviour by absolute standards. I prefer to use the word “appropriate” signifying that any kind of behaviour or moral decision is made pragmatically and is weighed in terms of how appropriate it may be to the circumstance. At its simplest: it may be a sin to kill but if there is a war with human survival at stake there will be killing. (Simple Philosophy 101.)

Bill Maher in his movie “Religulous” asks why, there is nothing new in the Ten Commandments, like amendments to the Constitution I guess. There should be “Thou shallt not kill innocent people with suicide bombing.” If the great mass of believers were brought into the 21st century with commandments like: “Thou shallt not tailgate your neighbour’s car,” or “Speed ye not on public highways,” or “Chain smoking will kill your neighbours." Would they, guided by the super-conscience of the divine, stop behaving anti-socially?

Millions still subscribe to the dogma of the old colonializing world that by taking over a country run by savages, we “civilizes” them by putting them in touch with a body of law, or according to the missionaries, with the “word of God.”

Because I am a non-believer I would not subscribe to it, but might there be a better standard of behaviour for people who won’t obey secular laws enacted by legitimate governments, if those laws were enshrined in a holy book?

The fact that I even consider it is an insult to one’s intelligence. But on the other hand….

FREE AT LAST??

2011-02-04T10:22:00.002-05:00

The Arab world is trembling on the brink of a new freedom, a freedom they have never had, a freedom that doesn't fit into the Realpolitik of power balance and petroleum. Make no mistake about it: the old Bismark Realpolitik is very much alive and well in the world of the ayatollahs, the emirs, the pashas and the kings. But it might be coming to an end, and the end will not be pretty. It will not be pretty because people who finally rise against oppression have never learned what it means to be a part of government, a part of public consensus, a part of political freedom and of choice.

Russia, when the Romanovs were finally toppled, found itself in the grip of another autocrat. At least this new power that emerged in 1917 represented itself as being on the side of the oppressed. But then they too became, and perhaps in the era of Putin, still oppressors. Democracy simply doesn’t happen. It evolves. It rises from the culture, the thought, the writings, and the strivings toward a better life. In fact, the seminal work on the subject of authoritarianism is probably still Erich Fromm’s “Escape From Freedom.” He posits that people who have lived under autocratic rule end up with more of the same – because it is what they are used to.

Enough high-blown rhetoric! The facts in Egypt are simple: Mubarak has had twenty years to turn Egypt into a democracy, but he has, in the name of public order, a convenient haven for dictators, kept the country under the yoke of martial law. What’s more, he has been supported by America which gives billions of dollars in aid, billions without which the country might be in an ever worse state of poverty and need.

I have no time for Mubarak. That’s easy to say because I live in a comfortable apartment on downtown Toronto, where I can speak freely, and where I can enjoy peace, culture, and good food. So, as they say: “It’s easy for me to say.”

However horrid Mubarak has been, his sudden departure would be a catastrophe. Yes, it is true, that finally, in the face of spontaneous and apparently universal revolution, he has announced that he will step down and an election will be called. Yes, it is true that he seemed not to want to upset the peaceful demonstrators, until he decided to bring in paid goons and thugs who, for a price, would declare themselves to be his supporters. Of course, not all Mubarak supporters are thugs. Many are hard-working business and professional people who want the only thing that works: stability. Now the stability has vanished.

But it will become profoundly worse if Mubarak caves in and leaves tomorrow. There will be a political vacuum. The disparate parties jockeying for positions will proclaim themselves in charge. Those parties include the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
You can't elect a government in the streets. You can’t riot a country into democracy. When you do, the opportunists will arrive and power will devolve to a new tyrant. Washington, which does not have much of a record at nation-building, proposes that Mubarak step down, be replaced by the vice-president (whom the freedom-seekers detest) and have him chair a committee which will include the Muslim Brotherhood, and present a new constitution.

It is obvious that the “revolutionaries” are an amorphous, leaderless crowd. They share a common wish but they had better be careful what they wish for. Without leadership there can be no stability. But without a measured, legal rise to power, there will be little hope for the aspirations of millions to be fulfilled. However difficult it may be, they must pull back and begin a serious dialogue with the existing government. They cannot rely on edicts from the President. He must make contact with them, and they with him. There must be order or there will be chaos. Egypt cannot endure chaos on top of oppression,

MY BOYHOOD IN HISTORY

2011-02-01T08:50:00.003-05:00

I don’t remember exactly when my love affair with history began. Perhaps it was because I was a growing boy when the world was changing; when Hitler was rising; when chaos was looming. I don’t know. I do know that when I was nine or ten years old I was “up" on current events. I remember the Spanish Civil War. I remember an Italian family who lived on Brunswick Avenue when I was a seven year old. They seemed to cheer for Mussolini and his venture into Ethiopia. I remember Chamberlain going to Munich and returning full of futile hope. I remember Anschluss with Austria and the occupation of Sudetenland, followed by the complete occupation of Czechoslovakia. I remember being a “lefty” when the Soviet Union seemed to be the only country that took sides with the “Loyalists” in the Spanish War and the only country ready to fight on behalf of the Czechs. I was shocked when they signed a non-aggression treaty with the Nazis. I knew even then that it was a defensive ploy, and that the Nazis and the Reds shared no common ground except mutual hatred.

Even today I find myself attracted to documentary film that appears on the Military Channel and retells the stories of the “Great” War and the misery in the trenches and of the rise of Hitler.

I was, as were millions of others, swept along by the Lanny Budd series by Upton Sinclair, a panoramic view of Europe from the beginning of the 20th century. I read with sadness and incredulity this item in Wickipedea: “The series covers in sequence much of the political history of the Western world, particularly Europe and America, in the first half of the twentieth century. Out of print and almost totally forgotten today, the novels were all bestsellers upon publication and were published in 21 countries. The third book in the series, Dragon's Teeth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943.

I was carried along with Lanny Budd who seemed to be present at every critical point in history. I started to lose interest with Sinclair became tangled up in spiritualism to the extent that communication with the “other side” was part of his last books.

But Sinclair put me there when Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson were waging their battle of futility against the entrenched anger of Clemenceau. He was brilliant with the invention of the classic “Beauty Budd” – Lanny’s mother, who seemed always to be the socialite who hobnobbed with everyone.

Now the pleasure of re-visiting that history has been renewed. I have just finished “Fall of Giants” the first in a trilogy by Ken Follett. It is difficult not to enjoy Follett’s painstaking look at history, woven, as Upton Sinclair did, into the lives of fictitious characters who were always present when the world was changing.

Missing were Sinclair characters like Basil Zaharoff, the international arms dealer who Sinclair inserted into all the historic intrigue of the period between the two wars. But Follett gave me a coal-mining town in Wales and the brother and sister team of Billy and Ethel Williams pitted against the Tory Lord Earl Fitzhugh. He gave me a German I could love and the Junker mentality that underlay the rise of Pan-Germanism. He gave me two brothers growing up in Russia and the most dramatic replay of the 1905 massacre in St, Petersburg.

The first book ends tantalizingly as Ethel Williams confronts Lord Fitzhugh. It is the twenties and Ramsay MacDonald is the Labour Prime Minister in a coalition with the Liberals.

Please Mr. Follett – more of the same. I have been there many times, but each time I take the trip is better than the last.

ALL ABOUT "EXCEPTIONALISM."

2011-01-31T10:36:00.003-05:00

I’ve been absent in the sometimes sunny state of Texas. Austin is like no other city in Texas. But it is also wonderfully American. There are many enormous flags flying. There is almost no public transit, except in the downtown where buses take the lower form of proletariat to their menial jobs. It is also a landscape peppered with malls, big box stores and the usual suburban litter. It is also a vibrant American example of what can be done with a little thinking. It is the American capital of music, especially country. It is chic, it is clever. It posts bumper stickers saying “Keep Austin Weird.” It is also something of a Democratic outpost in a state where the governor is still fighting the Alamo.

It was against this background of America that I watched the State of The Union speech by the President. He seems to have abandoned all pretense of transformative change and has launched his campaign for re-election in 2012, an event less than two years away. He is flying high, straddling the very centre of American politics. He continues to evoke the spectre of Ronald Reagan whose only asset was really that he resonated with his audience. His performance as President was a woeful mess: tax cuts, runaway spending, and a lot of spine-tingling rhetoric as in”Tear down that wall Mr. Gorbachev!

Obama has taken his cue from the Great Communicator. He has, with some exceptions, tried to make Americans feel good about themselves. He indulged profusely in what they call “exceptionalism.” That is the constant praise of American productivity, ingenuity, hard-work, and an abiding love for democracy, all far ahead of any other country in the world. Whether or not any of these fulsome words have any basis in fact is irrelevant. It is what people want to hear. There was a lot of criticism of the President for his failure to be brave and to demand from his Congress a path toward recovery. Instead, after lavishing praise, he spoke of how more people were in higher education institutions than any place else in the world. He did cast a shadow by reminding Americans that they ranked low in comparison to the intellectual, especially science and math, accomplishments of many other countries. But that lament is tired. It has been proclaimed by every President since they country was stunned by sputnik. Obama used that old rhetorical lever to make the point that America needed more teachers.

Clearly he has focused on November 2012. And he is on a roll. The beginning was tragic but serendipitous: the massacre at Tucson. His ratings were climbing. And America seems not to have examined what he said in State of The Union, but how good it made them feel.

I noted, with some grim satisfaction that David Axelrod has left the presidential picture. The last few times I saw him on TV he was the king of political boilerplate. He said nothing. He didn’t even say it well. Like the Obama speech, Axelrod praised American superiority, the work ethic, and the pursuit of the American Dream. All of it full of sound and fury (and you know the rest of the quote.)

America succeeds because it believes in success. That they are 27th in academic achievement is pure slander. “Exceptionalism” means they are number one in everything. No other country has been so successful at the apparent creation of wealth. I won’t go into all the economic disparities, that’s been done to death. But when it comes to vocations they go where the money is. Obama wants teachers. The people want material success measured in possessions and money. The American Dream is not to be great. It is to be rich. Obama knows it. He is marching on and victory is coming closer as the Republicans stumble about trying to get some traction with their “fight the deficit” and “less government” catchwords. Polls show that neither one is an issue. They were lucky that last November the Democrats seemed to be looking the other way.

Still, it is one of my favourite places – if for no other reason than national ‘chutzpah.”

WHAT PRICE POLITICAL ADVANTAGE?

2011-01-14T11:49:00.002-05:00

Obama was good, I mean really good, at the podium in Tucson. Before a packed house, with the overflow in a football stadium, the President got back his mojo. Do I sound like I’m making politics out of tragedy? I sure am. So is the White House, although in all fairness, I don’t believe for a moment that that was their intent. The tragedy gave Obama the chance of his presidential lifetime. Finally, people are cheering for his message of cooperation and a return to civility in politics.

That it took a shocking episode at the hands of an unbalanced man with an automatic pistol should not matter. But it does. In one fell swoop the president has managed to upstage the Tea {Party, who after all, are the ones most responsible for the loss of civility.) He has trumped all the Glen Becks and Rush Limbaugh and Sara Palins.

America looked at itself in the mirror. It did not like what it saw. It felt shame and it felt remorse. And, I have to be cynical; I am betting that the popularity poll on the day of Obama’s speech in Tucson is way up. It was already climbing up at 50%. In the next few days the new numbers will be in.

It is still obvious, judging by the mouthings of the Fox news ranters, that the solid Right had no good words for their enemy. But above it all, the man was utterly presidential. He rose above politics and perhaps even upstaged that upstart, that grossly misunderstood “Great Communicator.” (I say “grossly misunderstood, because he got nothing but credit while his record was abysmal.)

To compound the misery for the extreme Right, Palin, instead of calling for civility, blamed “blood libel.” In one fell swoop she put herself back close to political oblivion, while at the same time losing whatever Jewish vote she might have had. That she reinforced herself with her core supporter is beyond question. Some people cling hopelessly to disgraced dogmas.

Most Republicans are red-faced. They should be. The event, which of course was beyond reason, has put them on the defensive. It is they who have fostered the new political un-civility, if for no other reason than their embrace of the Tea Party people.

Just go back for TV clips of the signs those people took to rallies. Read the epithets, the slanders, the insults, and the stupidity. It has now come back to haunt them.

I am not optimistic enough to predict a nationwide Epiphany. The passion and grief will recede. It will be business as usual. The Republican leadership will go back to declaring that they want to beat Obama in 2012, and that that is their central focus. They won’t be able to hide behind the political fiction that they “listened to the voters.” The voters were confused. They were angry because millions were without jobs and the country seemed to be going nowhere.

One cataclysmic event has changed the political texture of American life. Not forever, but at least for now.

JUST WHO IS "GUILTY AFTER ALL?

2011-01-12T11:49:00.003-05:00

I subscribe to one of the axioms of lawmaking: “extreme cases make bad laws.” So as I join the thousands of pundits weighing in on the Tucson tragedy. I am reminded of this fundamental. There is always, after any kind of extreme criminal event, an outcry that “there oughta be a law!" The killing by a probable psychopath is an “extreme case.” Sarah Palin, for whom I have utterly no sympathy, also goes too far, labeling the ones who blame toxic politics as “blood libel.” In making that statement she solidifies her ideological position among the creators and supporters of toxic politics; among the kinds of people who were photographed bringing automatic weapons to last year’s Town Meetings. Instead of cooling the irrational reactions, it does what Palin does best: excites the excitable.

If what I perceive to be political reasons, there is a line-up of blame-layers who want to “send a message” or some other such admonition. It is a sop to many of the public who are, with justification, angry, but it does not make good logic. And it is the kind of blind attitude that leads to repressive and unfair laws.

To adjust that thinking to the killing of six people outside a supermarket in Tucson, we are led by anger not logic. No less a person than the sheriff of the county blamed the toxic political atmosphere. Debate rages. On PBS, New York Times Op Ed journalist David Brooks declared that we can’t draw the conclusion that a mentally disturbed man did the shooting as a consequence of political ranting. It is true that the aforementioned Sarah Palin was one of the ones leading the charge: re-arm, take aim, and created those cross-hairs that aimed at congressional seats where she wanted to defeat the incumbent, including Democrat Gabrielle Gifford.

There are so many examples of “extreme cases making bad laws,” or more specifically – forcing extreme conclusions. At the risk of offended a few million women, the horrible systematic, methodical machine gunning of 14 women in Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnic institute was the act of a madman. Women’s leaders have used it, very successfully, as a springboard to highlight the plight of women as victims. It is true that society has so undervalued women for so many years that it would appear we give tacit “permission” for someone to run riot over them, to the point of murdering 14 of them. Every year there are vigils and rallies to remind us that women are victims and that a male-centred society is to blame. I recall that at the time of the mourning for those women, men were not welcome to share the demonstrations of grief.

Yes it is true that society seems to create an atmosphere of tolerance to extremes. It is true that political rhetoric has gone beyond democratic or constitutional fairness. It is true that millions of people have learned to hate their opponents. Hate is not an appropriate weapon. It is mindless and removes from the hater the responsibility to think.

In the same way that laws based on extreme cases remove the responsibility of judges to “judge” and impose on them a law that turns them into robots following orders. Can anyone show me that the “three strikes and you’re out” policy has in any way reduced crime by chronic wrongdoers? It is political The politicians who enact these draconian laws are perceived to "be on our side" while opponents appear to be “soft on crime.”

Yes, it is in a way legitimate to examine the actions of a madman in the context of the prevailing social and political atmosphere. Social boundaries have been altered. Behaviour restraints have been weakened; Compound it with the ravings of Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck and the alarmingly weak gun laws that in Arizona (and other places) allow the sale of an automatic pistol with a cartridge chamber whose size is beyond any real need. And to sell it to someone who couldn’t pass a sanity test and is further protected by his right to carry that lethal weapon concealed from public view.

But is all that the “cause” of the mass k8illing? Or is it just a concomitant of it? The man is crazy. He should have been apprehended as a threat to society and to himself.

But in a democracy, we really have no choice but to allow things to happen. The fact is that a dictatorship works better when it comes to public safety. But at what price?

I’d prefer a nutcase on the loose over cops at my doorway.

REFORMATION AND REPENTANCE REALLY WORK

2011-01-09T11:03:00.002-05:00

The late Johnny Wayne, in spite of his wonderful sense of comedy and his and Frank Shuster’s success – all the way to the Ed Sullivan Show, was a prickly and combative character. His tantrums in rehearsal were well known. His proclamations were many. One of my favourites was after some showbiz character made a comeback after fighting addiction. Johnny said to me: “If I were a ref0ormed alcoholic or drug addict, I would go right to the top.” We know what he meant. He was not being unkind to people who conquered the self destruction of a career. He was noting simply that there is a positive public reaction to repentance and reform. No one does better that someone who renounces his ugly past and promises to do better. It is part of the biblical allegory in Genesis of the Fall and Redemption. A redeemed sinner is better that someone who never needed redemption!

So what is it that makes a homeless, once truly wacked-out guy named Ted Williams, one of today’s heroes. He was “discovered” by a Columbus Ohio reporter. He was standing at an intersection where he was panhandling passing cars. He was delighting his audience with a deep, mellow, radio-announcer voice. If the Enquirer reporter hadn’t told the story, he might still be on the corner pretending to be an announcer. Instead he has been offered work by the Cleveland Cavaliers. He has done a voice-over commercial for a major company. He has been re-united with his mother. He has guested on the big network morning shows out of New York. Why? All because he is repentant and has reformed.

I don’t begrudge him the work. But after a lifetime in broadcasting, including many years when I listened to audition tapes and hired on-air people, I am amused by the sudden eruption into stardom of this unlikely character.

He does have a good voice. It is resonant. It is deep. But he is no better that hundreds of radio people working hard all over America and Canada. The same mellow voice. The same announcer-ish cadence when he mouths the broadcast clichés like “coming up next on our show…”

I am glad he has reformed. I am glad he has dried out. I am glad for anyone who puts a wrecked life behind him and tries again. Nothing wrong with that.

What amuses me is the level of publicity the man is getting. It’s as if no one had ever heard a voice like his on the radio. Scan up and down the dial. The broadcast band is full of them. They are what we used to call, with apologies to Max Ferguson “Marvin Mellowbell.” He’s just a good announcer. He’s not a saint.

Maybe I should start drinking heavily. At 82, It would make a perfect picture – fighting the ravages of age and coming out from under alcoholism. That and my still resonant (I think) pipes, and I’d become the next resurrected radio voice. What an idea!

AFTER ALL THE RHETORIC - A LITTLE LIGHT

2011-01-08T19:12:00.002-05:00

Slowly the worm may be turning. Incrementally there may still be change. Historically, even the winners in a populist-based election come face to face with reality. Cynically I suggest that even Rob Ford, the colourful new mayor of Toronto, maybe has more smarts and a better sense of realism that I gave him credit for. True, he did ice the winning night cake with Don Cherry, who has about as much political savvy as a turnip, laying it on thickly to the “bike riding left wing kooks.”

Politics is for show. Reality demands action. We’ve had the show. Is it now too much to believe that this man will accept new realities? Case in point: one city councillor, a right-wing Ford supporter is suggesting a new network of east-west and north south bike lanes with a curb separating them from the road.What happened to “the war on the car is over!?” Perhaps my optimism is premature. But I am convinced that Rob Ford uses other people to float his ideas. I said it before when I called Don Cherry a"stalking horse" for Ford's ideas.

Current local papers are full of stories about the success of the dedicated streetcar lines. The Globe and Mail says Rob Ford is wrong about dedicated light-rail transit. Remember the hullabaloo from the merchants along St. Clair west while the city (and it did take far too long) disrupted traffic to put in the dedicated line. The dust has settled. Surprise! It works. Everyone is happy! This from the Globe: “TTC reports that a streetcar comes every three minutes in rush hour on average. Now that the streetcars don’t have to compete with motorists for road space, the average trip takes eight minutes less than before. Streetcars arrive more regularly, so riders face fewer of those annoying long waits. The number of riders is up 15 per cent since before the project began. Far from showing how crazy it is to put rail transit above ground, St. Clair shows how effective it can be.”

Of course, I don’t live in that part of Toronto West, but the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth sounded like the same uproar when Chinatown was going to be “destroyed” by the dedicated link from Union station, up Spadina and all the way to Bloor. See for yourself. Business is booming. Cars and trolleys are no longer in conflict.

On the bandwagon too is the Toronto Star. “Transit City light-rail lines would deliver more than twice as much service for every dollar invested than would the subway expansions proposed by Mayor Rob Ford. That’s according to a study by the Pembina Institute, a green energy think-tank. Light-rail lines would put rapid transit within a six-minute walk for about 290,000 residents; new subways would similarly serve just 60,000. Low-income people, in particular, would benefit from the proposed light-rail routes.

Opposition to these changes helped get Ford elected. Now that part is over.I believe that Rob Ford will be listening. He can get what he wants without putting the city back 50 years into the heyday of the car and the ensuing gridlock. I think there will be a compromise. I believe that Ford really, underneath all the populist bombast, wants everyone to have a better city, and above all, doesn’t want to spend money on high ticket extravagances.

I go back to the other reality: what is happening in other parts of the world. Perhaps the most savvy country when it comes to transit – is France. Witness the world’s best subway system. But now, Paris and many major French cities, are in the process of building dedicated surface light rail urban transit. Do they know something we don’t? I think we may be on a different learning curve, but I think the good sense will prevail.