The blame game

I don’t know if you’re having as much fun as I am watching and listening to the analysis of the hockey riots in Vancouver. It’s like a pathetic game of musical chairs as various agencies try to shift responsibility.

The police say it wouldn’t have happened if they had been given more financial resources; the city government says it will call an inquiry but it’s not responsible; bar owners say they had a business to run so couldn’t shut down. The list is endless. The rallying cry is that “the system let us down”.

Nope.

The blame needs to be bound to the individual who chose to participate in the riot and destroy and steal property. The “system” was NOT responsible for what happened on those Vancouver streets.

Consider the case of Nathan Kotylak, the teenaged water polo player who had hopes of becoming an Olympic athlete. He was caught on camera apparently trying to set a police car on fire. His father made him go to the police and issue an apology. Now, there are people saying it was an important lesson for him and he should be given a chance to continue with his sports career. LESSON?

Is this someone we want representing Canada on ANY stage? This wasn’t a childish prank. This was wanton destruction of public property worth thousands of dollars.

It’s the same with all the others who were caught on camera destroying and looting. Once they’re identified, they start with the apologies – about how they got “caught up” in the fever. About they’re so sorry for what they did. The crocodile tears are flowing faster than the Red River in Manitoba. Bullshit.

They made a choice to do what they did and no one else is responsible for their actions. They did the crime, now they pay the time. It’s too bad if you made a stupid decision to set a police car on fire. Don’t come crying and pleading for lenience now you’ve been caught.

What it does is expose the dark underbelly of a self-centered, immature and irresponsible generation who are so adept at shifting responsibility that it has become the norm. The child destroys a classroom because the teacher made her angry. The upper class teenagers beat up a homeless man because he insulted them by asking for money. Pop stars can beat up their girlfriends and then sanitize it by blaming it on anger management issues. A kid shoplifts expensive merchandise for the thrill of it. A student cheats on an exam because she was stressed. The excuses are supposed to make it all somehow “right”.

I keep thinking of the video of the young woman who stepped out in front of the crowd and single handedly stopped them from breaking the windows in a store. The video showed her standing in front of the store pleading with the crowd not to do more destruction. It was several long minutes before other people joined her in front of the store, but she was the one who deserves the credit. Interestingly, in that video, there were no signs of police.

Rejection slip to a Publisher

Those of us who practice the unpredictable art of writing are more than familiar with the rejection slip – some of them carefully constructed to let you down in the most gentle way; others written by a robot programmed with an auto pen. Fellow blogger Kathy-Diane Leveille presented this example from an anonymous author …

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Dear Publisher,

Thank you for your rejection of my short story “Rain” dated October 22. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to publish my short story at this time.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite your literary magazines outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting submissions, I find that your rejection isn’t quite right for my needs at this time. Therefore, “Rain” will be published in your next edition. Please keep in mind that this is a subjective process and that my opinion does not reflect the opinion of all writers.

Best of luck in rejecting future submissions.

Sincerely,
Writer Extraordinaire

Federal inspectors can’t stop dangerous food imports

This article by Bob Kingston, President of the Agriculture Union-PSAC which represents federal food inspectors, appeared earlier this week in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.  It's a wake-up call for people who take food safety in this country for granted.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency might be trying hard to protect Canadian consumers from unsafe imported food. But, the simple fact is the agency is too broke to keep such products from store shelves.

Canada’s import food inspection is a patchwork that ignores some products, while others are examined, with little apparent logic to explain why. For Canadians watching daily reports about Germans falling ill and dying from food contaminated with a new variation of the E. coli bacteria, this knowledge will be cold comfort.

Proactive testing and inspection, other than trend monitoring or project work, is beyond the scope of CFIA’s current front line inspection resources. In fact, the inspection of food imports in Canada is one of the weakest components of the CFIA’s work.

There are only a handful of inspectors assigned to imports for food safety purposes. CFIA can afford to only temporarily assign inspectors to monitor imported food products. While one-off projects such as the Food Import Surveillance Team (FIST) are welcome, FIST has a small complement of inspectors and funding is temporary – for one year only.  The only inspectors dedicated to food imports are wholly funded by industry and their purpose is purely commercial, to determine the quality and grade of imported products, and therefore their market value – not to identify threats to public health and safety.

CFIA inspectors are responsible for the inspection of both import and export food products. But inspectors have no latitude when it comes to export products. Where certification is required, a CFIA certificate for food exports is 100-percent mandatory.  When it comes to inspection of food imports, however, the CFIA has wide discretion to allow items onto grocery store shelves uninspected. This creates an impossible balancing act for inspectors and the CFIA who are subject to heavy pressure from the Canadian food industry to certify their shipments for export.

Everyone knows the unofficial priority is export certification.  In the present resource-starved circumstances, CFIA and its inspectors are too often faced with a situation in which the inspection of imported products always takes a back seat to export certifications.  Stopping unsafe food from reaching grocery shelves is not the purpose of import inspection and less than two per cent of food imported into Canada is inspected. And the vast majority of import inspections are conducted to protect plant and animal health, not to protect human health.

Inspections of products intended for human consumption are conducted primarily to monitor trends and not to prevent dangerous goods from reaching store shelves. For example, in the unlikely event that the CFIA inspects a shipment of fresh produce that is observed to be contaminated by an insecticide or fungicide (because it is covered with a coat of white powder, for example), results from laboratory tests would not be available until long after that product had reached the dining room table.  Inspectors and consumers have no way of knowing what treatments have been applied to imported raw products such as fruits and veggies. Importers of raw fruits and vegetables must declare only those treatments required by Canadian import regulations; any other chemical treatments not required to gain access to Canadian consumers do not have to be declared.

Knowing this, CFIA inspectors take appropriate precautions, such as wearing protective clothing and/ or breathing apparatus, when inspecting these kinds of imports because they have no way of knowing what poisonous or dangerous chemicals have been applied to the products they are handling. Unfortunately, downstream food handlers and consumers are unaware that such precautions may be necessary.  CFIA is not able to ensure equivalency with Canadian standards in the food safety systems of countries that export food to Canada. Since 2007, for example, CFIA has not been able to conduct an audit to ensure that food safety systems in China measure up to Canadian standards. To our knowledge, the only foreign country equivalency assessments conducted in 2010 took place in the United States.

But, it’s not just food imports where the CFIA is not able to meet its mandate to safeguard Canadians. Every CFIA program, apart from processed meat inspection, is under tremendous resource pressure. For example, vacant positions in all programs except meat hygiene are not being filled.

Against this backdrop, the government plans to invest with one hand and cut with the other.  In the next two years, the federal government plans to invest an additional $18 million in food safety inspection. At the same time, the controversial program spending review that Ottawa is conducting could end up cutting more than $70 million from the CFIA’s budget.  The CFIA plans to regulate food imports. This is a good idea in principle, but who will enforce the regulations?

So, regulating and licensing food importers may improve appearances only. Meanwhile, our food safety regulator will continue to lack the resources to inspect imported foods, leaving Canadian consumers exposed to potentially dangerous products.

Source: http://www.foodsafetyfirst.ca/2011/06/14/our-inspectors-cant-stop-dangerous-food-imports

Federal tories have moral deficit

If there’s one thing consistent about Stephen Harper and his band of majority tories, it is their complete and utter contempt of Parliament. That was the issue that brought down the tory government and precipitated the election and they are continuing to show how little they care for the notion of responsible government. It will get worse.

One of the best examples continues to be the enormous sums of money misspent on hosting the G8/G20 meetings in Ontario. Federal cabinet ministers Tony Clement and John Baird signed off on $50million worth of pork barrel projects for Clement’s riding and continue to get away with it because of Harper’s moral and ethics deficit.

MP Charlie Angus tried to embarrass the government into accountability in the House of Commons yesterday, but he's fighting a losing battle with federal cabinet ministers who care nothing for Canadians and out reputation for integrity; instead, they continue to worship at the altar of big business.  “If we look at how the President of the Treasury Board blew through $50-million on glow sticks and gazebos, it is as if the three amigos – the mayor, the hotel manager and the minister – stuff the largest porcine piñata ever conceived and then whacked all those baubles and booty over the hills of Muskoka,”.

There is little doubt but that the pork barrelling that went on in Tony Clement’s riding is merely the tip of an enormous abuse iceberg that it may take years for us to discover. Harper’s approach is to silence his critics by manipulation, innuendo and media manipulation. Stay tuned for the next chapter in that regard.

Harper’s decision to close the SAR centre shows his complete disregard for the people of this province who make their living from the sea. The centre, which answers hundreds of calls for help annually, operates out of the coast guard station on the south side of St. John's harbour. The voice of the so-called activist and new cabinet minister Peter Penashue is strangely silent on the issue. Perhaps it’s time he EARNS that “Honourable” designation before he becomes a joke like the rest of the Harper cabinet.

Boston wins the cup with 4-0 drubbing of Canucks

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Thomas leads Bruins to Stanley Cup title
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A car burns in the fan zone in Vancouver following the Canucks loss in the Stanley Cup final

Sheer 'effing stupidity!

Music For The Soul ....

I was talking to a friend of mine a few days ago and she mentioned that she had been watching a live concert recording by The Nylons in Japan in 1986. We remember when the guys came back from that tour, having won a major award over there and they were so pumped. It hit us both at the same time that that was 25-years ago this year. Hard to believe! 

The band came together in Toronto in 1979 when four guys who were unemployed actors (any other kind?) got together to sing and only sing because Claude Morrison (guy with the mustache)  was the only one who played a musical instrument, a piano, and they didn’t have/couldn't afford one. But they had powerful voices, honed on stage and they instinctively understood a cappella harmonies. They signed with Attic Records in 1981, just two years after forming, and released many albums over the years with various record companies.

Morrison is the only one of the four still with the group. Marc Connors from Ottawa, who was the driving force in the early days and worked out a lot of the high energy choreography, died in 1991 and Denis Simpson who went on to a successful career in TV, died about a year ago. Paul Cooper, the good ole Tennessee boy, who did most of the early writing and arrangements, retired two or three years after that Japan concert.  Arnold Robinson replaced Simpson as the bass before the Japan tour.

Their background in theatre provided some important skills. The dramatic use of lighting, costumes, sets, staging, and choreography brought the sizzle to their shows. They use only percussion for accompaniment – either a tambourine, shakers or hand clapping and finger snapping. As Cooper once said, it’s all natural, man!  (They experimented with instrumental accompaniment a few times but it never become a standard)

Music lifts the spirits, so I’ve included an excerpt from that Japan concert at the bottom of this page … The Lion Sleeps Tonight. As you watch Connors and Morrison trade falsetto leads, I’d be surprised if your foot’s not tapping in time.
Enjoy!

The new world order

A headline caught my attention the other day, “Family angry over woman's $250,000 donation to doomsday preacher”.

The family of a New York City woman is angry after she left nearly a quarter of a million dollars in her will to the preacher who predicted the end of the world May 21. Doris Schmitt left about $250,000 of her $300,000 in savings to the Family Radio ministry. A family member said the family went public because it is angry about ads that the ministry runs urging people to donate their entire estates to his ministry.

Bullshit. The real story is that they were pissed that they didn’t get more of the $300k. Greed. Short and sweet.

Similar situation with Leona Helmsley who was a billionaire New York City hotel operator and real estate investor. She left $12million to her dog who was her constant companion. She cut half of her family out of her will completely, obviously because she didn’t want them to get the money. It was her money and she had every right to do whatever she wanted with it, including burning it if that was her choice.  But as soon as she was dead, they challenged her will in court and a judge who didn’t know her or her situation decided that she had made a mistake and cut the award to the dog and gave a couple of her grandkids several million dollars. Greed.

An old friend of mine died  not long ago. Everyone knew she had some cash in the bank because she had been a successful businesswoman and had invested wisely. She often told me that she rarely, if ever, saw most members of her family. And yet, when she was on her deathbed, the attention some of them pretended to pay to her would have sickened you. Greed.

Same deal with the pension plan for Canadian members of parliament. A new report says the MPs’ pension plan on hook for $804-million which means that taxpayers (thee and me) are now paying $5.50 for every $1 that MPs and Senators contribute to the gold-plated pension plan for Parliamentarians. The plan will pay an estimated $111.5-million in benefits, on top of $4.3-million in severance cheques to the 113 MPs who either retired prior to the May 2 election or who were defeated. For the 12 months the report covered, 503 former MPs and Senators were collecting the pension benefits, with 117 of them receiving more than $70,000 a year.

In an article in the Hill Times, Tim Naumetz points out that, as an example, former Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe left with a pension that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation estimated at $140,765 a year, before taxes. This is the guy who wanted to break up Canada and sneered at us. He’s getting in pension almost as much as recycled senator Fabian Manning will take home in base pay. Of course, Fabian will get all those bonuses like free air fare so his actual compensation package will be considerably more.

So, is it time to have a look at the gold-plated pensions these people have voted for themselves time after time? MPs quickly rejected any suggestion Parliament should again review the pay and pension plans for MPs AND senators; instead, they offered platitudes about how hard they work, how they have no protection should they be rejected at the polls (well except for Fabian’s senate parachute courtesy of Stephen Harper) and how they need to work to ensure all Canadians have access to pensions. Uh-huh. And Santa Claus is real too.

Bottom line: when you can vote your own compensation, there’s one primary factor that kicks in: GREED. About the only ones who can do that in our system are elected officials which means that we pay for what they say. And now they want to expand the number of seats in the House of Commons. More gravy train.

How do we define "human rights"?

Having access to the Internet is important for me – there are times when it’s a crucial part of my communications inventory, especially as the job search continues, but do I consider it a human right? That’s the question being posed by a new report from the United Nations.

Entitled “Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression”, the report says that Internet access is a human right and puts it in the context of freedom of expression.

"Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states," said the report from Frank La Rue, a special rapporteur to the United Nations.

A Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. This position is honorary and the expert is not United Nations staff nor paid for his/her work.

La Rue says the Internet is one of the most powerful instruments of the 21st century for increasing transparency in the conduct of the powerful, access to information, and for facilitating active citizen participation in building democratic societies. Among his many observations in the report is the tendency of some countries, especially those with totalitarian governments to restrict Internet access either in whole or part for its citizens. Think about China, Cuba, Russia and other countries where Internet access is purely at the whim of the Politburo.

For me, the real question is whether defining Internet access in terms of a human right somehow diminishes other more tangible rights, such as those adopted and proclaimed on December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here are just a few.

• the right to life, liberty and security of person;
• no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms;
• no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
• the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law;
• equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law;
• no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile;
• everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his/her rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him/her

Does adding access to the Internet to that list seem reasonable?

For example, in an interview today, La Rue said that he feels the fact that some Canadian northern communities do not have access to Internet services is a violation of their basic rights. I wonder if he really understands the standard of living in some of our northern communities?

As I said, I consider the Internet to be important to my current lifestyle, but I don’t think it’s anywhere close to those other rights.

If you’re interested, you can read the entire report by clicking here.

Do you think Internet access should be considered a human right?

Wanted: good vibes

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit a family member who means a great deal to me. She’s one of my few living relatives and, over the last 20-years or so, has become very important to me. It was so good to see her and spend a few days with her, to share some family memories, have some great meals and just “be” with family.

Throughout it all though, there was the spectre of a black dog hanging over us. For you see, she’s a manic-depressive, so sick that she has been on disability leave for at least two years now and has recently taken retirement because there was no prospect of her returning to work. She is on large doses of medication, sees a psychiatrist and a psychologist and other professionals routinely. Some days she is barely functional; on a few other days she prepares meals, bakes cookies and is the way I used to remember her. It’s the pendulum between the manic and the depressive. I love her dearly, but there are times when I feel like I have to escape.

In part maybe because of the mirror. When I look closely at her, I see much of me. I see the lethargy, the disinterest, the desire to just stay in bed and keep the drapes closed and the doors locked. There are days when it is a challenge to get out of bed and get something to eat. Why bother?

Recent events in my life have helped to precipitate this phase and I recognize it. There were some circumstances beyond my control and others within my control. Trying to measure up to others’ expectations professionally when the target keeps shifting can leave you physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Finally, there needed to be a separation, a parting of the ways in order for some semblance of sanity to return and that parting brings with it its own pain amid the realization that this adventure is over and another must be found.

Fellow blogger WiseWebWoman recently wrote a post about the black dog entitled “Act As If”. You can read it here. It forced me to realize that my coping skills have just about hit the bottom of the barrel and I realize that with a move coming up in two weeks, packing is proceeding at a snail’s pace … and I think the snail is winning. I’m looking forward to the move because it will put me physically in a better place where I have friends who care. But as a mid-range baby boomer, I also recognize the liabilities of age. The animus and the anima.

There are so very many of us out here who are fighting this beast of depression – sometimes winning, sometimes losing but constantly in the struggle. When you have a minute, send some positive thoughts in our direction. We can use all the good vibes we can get.

Thanks WWW. You have courage.

Weiner’s weiner is THE weiner

If nothing else, American politics is better than any late night reality TV show.
Consider the latest developments … Donald Trump won’t compete for the US Presidency because it would interfere with his TV show … Sarah Palin not only doesn’t know U.S. history but when challenged on her, ahem, “knowledge” tries to rewrite history and sends her minions to edit Wikipedia.

And then, there’s Anthony Weiner. Turns out that Weiner’s weiner is THE weiner in the picture that everyone’s talking about in the States. Weiner held a long news conference in New York yesterday afternoon to announce that he had lied, manipulated the truth and yes, did send the picture of his clothed penis to a woman via his Twitter account. Understandably, the world reacted with shock and horror to the news as the reality finally sunk in that this fine upstanding young, married, Congressman had done what seems to be the norm for many people these days … sending clothed and unclothed pictures of themselves and various body parts over the Internet.

In the midst of all of Weiner’s denials when he was saying that he wasn’t sure if the picture was of his penis, I enjoyed comedian Jon Stewart’s response: “There are few things I’m certain about. That The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie, that OJ killed those two people, and what my [penis] looks like.”

Next political controversy in the USA: Does Obama wear boxers or briefs?   (And we wonder why THEY see US as being boring!)

57% of Canadian diabetics cannot afford supplies

As a valued member of the Canadian Diabetes Association, we thought you would like to know about our Compassionate Use Program, which launches on June 6.

With more than 9 million Canadians living with diabetes or prediabetes, the importance of diabetes management through self-monitoring and blood glucose management has never been greater.

Unfortunately, approximately 57% of all people living with diabetes in Canada cannot afford their prescribed diabetes management routine, due to the costs associated with blood glucose testing supplies.

As a result, many of these people end up developing serious life-threatening complications, which lead to poor health, increased mortality and significantly increased costs to the health system and our overall economy.

Starting June 6, the Canadian Diabetes Association is launching a Compassionate Use Program aimed at economically challenged Canadians who are unable to afford the out-of-pocket costs for monitoring their blood glucose levels.

Through this program, the Association is looking to distribute 4,901 free blood glucose monitoring kits across Canada, consisting of:

1 OneTouch® UltraMini® System Kit
300 OneTouch® Ultra® Blue Test Strips
300 OneTouch® Delica® Lancets

If you or someone you know can benefit from this program, please visit www.diabetes.ca/meter to learn more or to apply online. You can also call 1-800-BANTING (1-800-226-8464), option 7, for more information.

Sincerely,
The Canadian Diabetes Association

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