Hell just froze over...

I agree with Kate McMillan.

Here's how one Ontario school uncovers child abuse:

Leduc rushed back to the school. She and Victoria entered a room where they were met by the principal, the vice-principal and the teacher.

Leduc said they advised her that Victoria's educational assistant (EA) had visited a psychic, who said a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old. Leduc was also handed a list of recent behaviours exhibited by her daughter.

School principal Brian Tremain -- who referred phone calls seeking comment to the board -- advised Leduc that the CAS had been contacted.

WTF??

Here.

In Canada.

I wish to hell I were making this up.














UPDATE: Commenter John B draws our attention to this National Post story. The money quote:

"The principal looks at me and says, 'We've called CAS.' Then I got sick to my stomach.

"I challenged them and asked if the other children in the class with autism exhibited these behaviours. They said, 'Oh yes, all the time.' But they were not reported to the CAS because they didn't have the psychic's tip."

Soundings

This morning, just a few bits and pieces from people who go to bed later and are up even earlier than I.

The Blackwater mercenaries embrace Shariah.

Murder in captivity: and we thought prisoners in the hands of Afghans was a problem.

Some choice words for Associated Press: bring it on!

Footprints in the sand, and a missed opportunity.

Obama's image--you decide.

Happy anniversary, Rev. (and Mrs.) Paperboy at Galloping Beaver*--and a great soundtrack to help us celebrate it!

___________
*See comments

The worm in the apple

Hey, I sold the farm but didn't sell all the tools and such. I have an absolutely first rate elastrator and a full plastic bag of the little green rubber rings. One woman should be able to hold down a male child from, say, size infant to size oh, twelve years but after that we'll likely need to form up in pairs or even teams, with one woman handling the elastrator and however-many others doing the holding down...--Anne Cameron

I first encountered the charming Anne Cameron some time ago, when I had the temerity to suggest that Elizabeth May's stance on abortion was not a "pro-life" one. I don't want to re-live that rapidly-degenerating debate, if such it can be called. Suffice it to say that, for rigidly binary thinkers, the very suggestion that one could be uncompromisingly pro-choice but personally opposed to abortion, which I believe is May's position, was an affront. And my defence of her led to an orgy of vicious vituperation that really has to be read to be believed.*

Why, then, am I raising this now? Because a few days ago, in a whimsical mood, I posted an article, "Left-wing aposematism," announcing that I had been accredited as a blogger to the upcoming Conservative convention, and wondering what the hell I ought to wear. One commenter took the piece as a grave insult to the Conservative Party--I'm still shaking my head over that one--but another, a friend, read it primarily as a personal statement involving my late partner. I don't read it that way, but I'm big on the plurality of meanings of texts, and took no issue with her gentle comment in the ensuing thread.

But the topic was then raised on a Bread and Roses forum, where, thankfully, the subject morphed into wardrobe concerns that are no business, or interest, of mine. The sweet Anne Cameron showed up, however, to accuse me of "wallowing in misery." I have to admit that I wasn't aware I had been doing so. I had been scrambling around for some ideas that morning, found an article on disappearing amphibians in the Globe and Mail, and, pursuing the matter on the Internet, I fetched up against a reef of words I'd never seen before. "Aposematism" was one; and the inveterate punster in me thought, "Oh, yeah, left-wing aposematism."

But how to use it? The convention came to mind, and the rest is posted.

I eventually checked out some of the commentary about the post, intrigued by the bizarre reading of it from the first of my commenters--"puerile, condescending sarcasm" was the way he put it, making me think ESL, or maybe Asperger's. And when I came across the BandR forum, and found that venomous little comment from Cameron, I guess I started what is commonly known as a slow burn. Her personal attacks during the May imbroglio came back. "As for Dr. Dawg, well....he has fleas. You lie down with dawgs, you get up with fleas. " That kind of thing. Puellile? Is that a word? Yup. Let's hear it for equal-opportunity dictionaries.

And then this latest little flick of hatred. I began to reflect: every transformative movement for social change known to humanity has contained within its ranks those with personal issues who use politics as an extended metaphor for acting out. Speaking as a former labour leader, I can tell such people almost at a glance. It's all bitterness, antagonism, hatred, and a matrix of dogmatism to keep it in place. The humane aspect of the cause is conspicuously missing.

These are the people, however, whose sheer drive and determination allow them all too often to prosper in the ranks and obtain positions of authority, and sometimes leadership. They are not to be confused with that other group of self-seekers, even more successful, who are motivated merely by material ambition. Skilled at manipulation and with an eye for detail, the latter learn to play the system to their own advantage, and they sometimes profit handsomely thereby. The former--and this is what makes them so dangerous--aren't personally ambitious at all, at least in that respect. The usufructs of power mean nothing to them. The mission--their mission--is everything.

I think of St. Paul, the zealot convert who turned Christ's simple message into endless finger-wagging instructions, injunctions and denunciations. I think of Stalin, the bureaucrat who dotted the "i's" and crossed the "t's," and who, in 1922, became the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a position that he himself created. I think of comrades who keep the flame of humanity alive in their personal and political lives; but I think of others, inflexible, single-minded, intolerant, for whom any new idea is deviation, and any appeal to the humane is bourgeois sentimentality.

And I think of feminists, embracing one of the most important historical movements of all time, and who, with an unprecedented weather-eye on process, and an insistence on inclusiveness, have managed to keep so much of that evil nonsense at bay.

But not entirely.

What, then, do we activists do about the worm in the apple--those in our own ranks who share the anger but not the vision, the conviction but not the caring, the passion but not the humanity? Pace W.B. Yeats, my favourite 20th century poet, both the best and the worst are "full of passionate intensity." So how do we practically address the problem of the worst?

Comments are welcome. I hasten to add, however, for my more conservative readers, that feminism (in this case) is not the issue, and its assault on civilization as we know it is not the way I'd prefer to frame the discussion. (I'm all for the latter, but that's another debate.) You have your problems, too--pas d'ennemis à droite, if I can put it that way. There is no intent here to give aid and comfort to the enemy. I would prefer that we stick to discussing the correct handling of contradictions among the people, and what is to be done.

_____________
*And it's still going on, as the lies and slander posted just last month by "unionist" here will attest.

A parable

In a small village in Romania called Voinesti, the people voted for a mayor this past Monday. The incumbent was a member of the National Liberal Party, and had been the mayor for 18 years. His challenger, from the Social Democratic Party, lost the election--even though the incumbent died before the election took place.

"I know he died but I don't want change," one resident told Romanian TV.

Another classy Tory

Meet Vic Toews, M.P. (Provencher), President of the Treasury Board and all-round boor. His spiteful attack on former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, due to retire shortly as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, shames us all.

Her offence, it appears, was to have warned both sides during the Israel-Lebanon War in 2006 that attacks on civilians could be considered war crimes. This offended the Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd, including Toews, despite the lop-sided comparative civilian death toll--or perhaps because of it.

Toews is an ideologically conservative straight arrow: a law-'n'-order type, with impeccable anti-union credentials, a homophobe who opposed protecting gays and lesbians from hate crimes, and who vociferously opposed same-sex marriage. Toews is yet another one of those "family values" social conservative moralizers who is somehow incapable of applying the same moral standards to himself.

As federal Minister of Justice, Toews wanted to stack judicial appointments committees with cops. He abolished the Law Commission of Canada, a widely-respected independent legal research agency, in 2006. (Why do you suppose he did that?) One gets the sense that these and other initiatives as justice minister were too much even for Stephen Harper, busy trying to sell his party as moderate. In any case, he was rusticated to the presidency of the Treasury Board in 2007.

But even by his own dismal standards, this latest display of gross discourtesy stands out. What business has this vulgar hypocrite calling Louise Arbour, a person whose accomplishments make his own paltry resume look like that of a dead centipede in comparison, a "disgrace?" He should take a good, hard look in the mirror to see one of those, if he can stand the view. So should his constituents.

And so should the Prime Minister, if he cared one whit about House of Commons decorum, let alone the Canadian values of common courtesy and decency--values obviously not shared by his government, and least of all by the uncivil bumpkin parading his bad manners on the floor of the Commons for all of Canada to see.

US politics and the ghost of Willie Horton

"Can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?" screeches a TV attack ad in North Carolina, sponsored by ExposeObama.com, a site that has to be seen to be believed.

Floyd Brown is back, and it's gonna get ugly. Comparatively speaking, of course, because it's already an ugly campaign.

Floyd Brown was the gentleman who gave us the race-baiting Willie Horton ad twenty years ago that helped to seal the fate of Democratic presidential contender Michael Dukakis. Sidney Blumenthal, in his book on the 1988 presidential campaign, quoted one gleeful member of Bush père's team: "Willie Horton has star quality. Willie's going to be politically furloughed to terrorize again. It's a wonderful mix of liberalism and a big black rapist."

The elder Bush's campaign manager at the time was Lee Atwater, a man who almost singlehandedly managed to lower the tone and substance of American political discourse to the disgraceful, negative, demeaning caricature that it is today. He was Karl Rove's mentor, which kind of says it all. He always claimed (publicly) that the Horton ad wasn't meant to be racist (cough), but he clearly thought along precisely those lines:

Atwater slipped in a speech he gave to southern Republicans right before that year's Democratic convention:

"There is a story about a fellow named Willie Horton who for all I know may end up to be Dukakis' running mate. Dukakis is making Hamlet look like the rock of Gibraltar in the way he's acted on this.[This was a reference to Dukakis' search for a vice-presidential candidate.] The guy was on TV about a month ago and he said you'll never see me standing in the driveway of my house talking to these candidates. And guess what, on Monday, I saw in the driveway of his house? Jesse Jackson. So anyway, maybe he'll put this Willie Horton guy on the ticket after all is said and done."

As was noted at the time by Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post and others, Atwater was pretty clearly equating Jesse Jackson with Willie Horton because both happened to be black.

But the hitman here, as noted, was Floyd Brown, whose mentor (when he turned his malign attention to trashing the Clintons) was Southern arch-segregationist Jim Johnson. Officially disavowed by the Republicans, Brown has always seemed to work comfortably enough with them behind the scenes, operating in semi-underground fashion through an "independent expenditures" loophole.

The racialization of the 2008 US presidential campaign continues. There is no end in sight, either, and apparently no depths to which the political opponents of Barack Obama will not sink.

"Fizzicks - another leftwing plot to steal our munnies!"

Commenter Chris at CC's place sums up the latest desperate salvo from the global warming deniers. Kate McMillan, who enjoys posting graphs and charts on climate change as though she knew something about science, has been exposed as Ms Gullible 2008. Needless to say, her acolyte Kathy Shaidle has taken a goodly swig of the Kool-Aid herself. From a Thermos, one assumes.

*Usenet moment*

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Now, with apologies to my readers, back to regular programming.

The Bridgewater mother: Trial? Why?

Martin: Even in this godforsaken country, I've got a right to a trial.
Tetley: You're getting a trial with 28 of the only kind of judges murderers and rustlers get in what you call this god-forsaken country.
Cowboy: (while forming a noose from a rope in his hands) So far, the jury don't like your story.
Martin: I'm not gonna say another word without a proper hearing.
Ma Grier: Suit yourself, son, but this is all the hearin' you're likely to get short of the Last Judgment.
--The Ox-Bow Incident

Fast-forward to Bridgewater, NS, where the good townspeople have already decided that Penny Boudreau murdered her daughter.

Ms. Boudreau -- who did not have a lawyer with her and will be back in court next week -- sobbed during the brief proceeding. But her distress did little to prevent an angry reaction from some of the onlookers lining a sidewalk near the crowded courthouse.

Yells of "Child killer!" and "Murderer" and "Kill some more kids" could be heard from some spectators.

Tammy Gray, 35, of Bridgewater, was in the crowd.

"I'm mad, upset. I don't know what else to say....It's shocking to hear," she said. "There's also relief. We now know that Karissa can rest in peace."

Vox populi, vox dei...right? But the phrase that screams the loudest for attention in the above is the last sentence: "We now know that..."

Epistemology is one of my interests. How do we know? And in this case, how did Tammy Gray know? There's that seemingly intractable age-old problem of the relation between knowledge and belief, rising up before us yet again. How do we know that the schoolroom floor will hold our weight? We believe in engineers. Sorry, China. How do we know there's a God? A nice man in a robe, holding a leather-bound book, told my parents, and they told me. For too many, knowledge is all about authority: the ascribed right to utter something called the truth, and be taken seriously, without the need for independent evidence. And about faith--the virtue of believing something without any evidence at all.

How do the folks in Bridgewater know Penny Boudreau is guilty? Because she was arrested. Because she was charged. Because the Crown is prosecuting her. They have faith in the RCMP. They believe in the authority of both the police and the Crown. They haven't seen, as yet, a scintilla of evidence. But they don't have to. Mobs don't need no steenkin' evidence. Mobs are their own authority, driven by their own certainties--which are generated by the very authority now keeping them at bay. A paradox.

For a mob, a trial is simply a waste of time and money. But Penny Boudreau will get her day in court--as the law obtusely demands in the face of the mob's knowledge. Anyone for a change of venue?

UPDATE: (January 30, 2009) Looks like οἱ πολλοί, on this occasion, were right.

Canadian crimes against humanity in Afghanistan?

The Toronto Star today carries a disturbing report that Canadian soldiers have been ordered to ignore sexual assaults against civilians committed by Afghan soldiers.

Given that our troops are allied with Afghan forces, would this not appear to constitute a deliberate omission as defined in Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (2000) and as incorporated by reference in the Criminal Code (Section 183 [e] 1)?

The former defines a "crime against humanity" as follows:

"crime against humanity" means murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution or any other inhumane act or omission that is committed against any civilian population or any identifiable group and that, at the time and in the place of its commission, constitutes a crime against humanity according to customary international law or conventional international law or by virtue of its being criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations, whether or not it constitutes a contravention of the law in force at the time and in the place of its commission. [emphases added]

It wasn't a great day for Canada when it turned out that we were routinely handing prisoners over to the Afghan authorities to be tortured. Now we have this dreadful revelation of passive complicity in sexual assaults on Afghan civilians by allied soldiers. If the Star report holds water, an immediate investigation has to be held without delay, and the guilty brought to justice. This isn't simply a Canadian matter. It's an international obligation.

There are times, particularly under our hawkish Harper government, that I have felt ashamed to be a Canadian. Today, I simply feel horrified. Have we really come to this? And if so, where do we go from here?

H/t Mound of Sound

UPDATE: (June 18) General Rick Hillier calls for intervention by our troops.
H/t Buckdog

Alleged attack on Native grandmothers by OPP

Breaking news: no doubt there will be more details about this incident coming out eventually.

I am posting this entire message, as received, other than the names and identifiers of specific individual(s) against whom serious allegations have been made, which have been redacted. I should offer the caveat that, at this point, I do not have sufficient information to determine what actually took place, but obviously something serious happened this past weekend at Akwesasne. If readers can add anything material, I would be grateful.

Note that the Canada-US border running through the traditional Six Nations territory of Akwesasne has been a bone of contention for some time.

From: "Mrs. Stanley"
To: kittoh@storm.ca
Subject: URGENT - ACTION ALERT RE KAHENTINETHA
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:07:24 -0400

ONE ELDER SAVED BY A HEART ATTACK - ANOTHER ELDER MISSING IN ACTION: MOHAWK GRANDMOTHERS ATTACKED AT CANADA-US BORDER CROSSING ON UNCEDED HAUDENOSAUNEE LAND

Monday, June 16, 2008

Mohawk Elder and Grandmother, Kahentinetha Horn suffered a heart attack, Saturday, June 14, 2008 during a vicious, unprovoked assault by OPP and border agents at Cornwall, in Akwesasne community. She had been beaten and handcuffed when she collapsed. Earlier when she was pulled over, Kahentinetha immediately contacted her brother, a lawyer, on her cellphone. The entire incident was being filmed as her brother rushed to the scene just in time to call an ambulance for her.

Meanwhile, Elder and Grandmother Katenies of Akwesasne was beaten and taken prisoner to an as yet undisclosed location. We are very concerned about her safety. We demand to know of her whereabouts and that she be released immediately.

A few months ago, Julian Fantino put out the word, warning Kahentinetha not to set foot in Ontario or else... She is the publisher of MNN and regular internet reports that are very critical of police and government actions toward Indigenous people. Her articles often clearly state the legalities/realities of the situation that Canada is a corporation plundering unceded Turtle Island. The land and resources belong to the Ongwehoneh people. Canada's huge debt to us will bankrupt them forever.

The other day, while Stephen Harper was making a public apology to Indigenous for the crimes of the residential schools, he was also preparing to send the army in at 6 nations. Brantford city mayor has requested it, stating his city police cannot handle another "Mohawk uprising", in other words, peaceful protests against housing development where non resident, nonNatives attack the protesters while the police watch. The Ontario Conservatives call for military intervention every day.

On Saturday, border agents were pulling over every Native person. Kahentinetha and Katenies were traveling in Akwesasne in the course of their regular activities and were caught up in the dragnet. Did [redacted] set up a trap for the two outspoken, Mohawk grandmothers? We suspect that Kahentinetha would have been killed at a secret location had she not had a heart attack and been taken to hospital.

Immediately following this incident, many Mohawks and supporters started to gather at Akwesasne.

Kahentinetha and Katenies' attackers want them to accept being Canadian or else they will kill them and anyone else who resists colonization. This low level warfare is playing out on the "border" between Canada and the US, an imaginary line drawn right through the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and through Haudenosaunee territory which is a vast area on BOTH sides of the Great Lakes.

This Great Lakes area is also a proposed center for the NWO. Many military plans are underway including nuclear submarines in the Great Lakes and JTF2, Aerospace Warfare Center and NATO FOB (Forward Operating Base) at a new base being built at Trenton, near Tyendinaga
Mohawk community. Tyendinaga was attacked by OPP/SWAT in April when Mohawks protested housing development there.

If Canadians are so damned sorry about the abuse of Native people, why is this still happening? Why do people remain silent when Mohawk elders and grandmothers are attacked like this? We are under constant surveillance and threats and attacks while our land continues to be plundered and pillaged. Was this a failed assassination attempt ordered by [redacted] head of the biggest gang in the area?

We must demand answers and get answers. This attempted genocide must cease. We will never give up.

Call or write to politicians, media, action lists including
international. Get the word out now!!!

K..... will be speaking with Kevin Annett on live radio today at 4:30
pm Montreal time.

Iakoha'ko:wa
Sharbot Lake, Haudenosaunee Territory

PLEASE SEND YOUR OBJECTIONS TO: QUEENIE ELIZABETH II, Buckingham Palace,
LONDON UK;

Governor General MICHAELLE "Haitian-Against-the-Nation" JEAN, 1

Rideau Hall, OTTAWA, ONTARIO info@gg.ca;

Canada Prime Minister STEPHEN HARPER, House of Commons, OTTAWA, ONTARIO harper.s@parl.gc.ca;

Ontario Premier DALTON McGUINTY, Queen's Park, TORONTO, ONTARIO
mcguinty.D@parl.gc.ca; United Nations unat@un.org;

Indian Affairs Minister Strahl.c@parl.gc.ca;

Brantford Mayor Michael Hancock 519-759-3330 nborowicz@brantford.ca;

Ontario Attorney General 416-326-2220 or
1-800-518-7901;

Minister Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Michael Bryant % Lars.Eedy@ontario.ca ;

Neil Smitherman, Brantford ambulance chaser n.smitheman@fasken.com
416-868-3441;

Aaron Detlor adetlor@sympatico.ca;

Bev Jacobs bjacobs@nwac.hq.org;

Julian Fantino OPP Commissioner julian.fantino@jus.gov.on.ca; s

"Paul Leblanc of \"Indian\" Affairs" >,
Sylvia McKenzie Justice Canada epc.gc.ca>,
Emanuel Chabot Public Affairs 7 Emergency Preparedness
cc.gc.ca>, Louis-Alesandre Guay
<"Justice Canada lguay"@justice.gc.ca>, Gilles Rochon Aboriginal
Policing >, "Chuck Strahl Minister of
\"Indian\" Affairs"

UPDATE: (June 20) Since the above was posted, nothing further at all has emerged, other than a few widely recycled commentaries originating from what I regard as less-than-unimpeachable sources.

I remain open to receiving further information, but at this point I must regretfully conclude that there was no substance to the original message--"regretfully," because there is a sufficiency of well-founded instances of police brutality against Native people, whose word is not always given the credibility it deserves. This sort of thing, frankly, is not at all helpful in that respect.

UPDATE: (June 28) I was wrong in my last Update. The very day after it appeared, the Globe and Mail carried the story, and a similar one appeared today in the Ottawa Citizen. A more detailed account of events may be found here. Where there was smoke, some fire has emerged. The facts of the case are far from clear, but that there is a case is no longer in doubt. My sincere apologies to anyone who was offended by my earlier comment: I dropped the ball. I'll be watching events as they unfold with, I hope, a sharper eye.

UPDATE: (July 16) Katenies in court.

Low-hanging fruit: a challenge

I’m not a journalist and have never claimed to be, so journalistic ethics don’t apply to me. I’m a polemicist and proud of it. --Kathy Shaidle

Former poet, former occasional Toronto Star columnist, former just about everything Kathy Shaidle--a wannabe who became a has-been with no intervening stage--takes on commenter "truewest" here. Her challenge:

Please elaborate on my “frequent factual errors” , oh anonymous coward truewest.

The floor is open.

To start things off, let me provide a few that I know about personally: she has publicly accused me of calling her a "Nazi." She has claimed (more than once) that Mark Steyn chastised me over the publication of an alleged photograph of speech-warrior Marc Lemire. I dealt with these and other inaccuracies here. And here. She never retracts: but, as she notes, journalistic ethics don't apply to her.

I was going to leave this bilious creature alone, henceforward: I really was, even though she has taken to following me around the blogosphere, sniping at me from other people's comboxes. After all, she's about to get married, and, besides, she has an increasing obsession with guns. But this is really too much. She wouldn't know a fact if it bit her on the arse, to be blunt. For people like this, accuracy is just a sign of weakness.

But for the rest of us, who like to get things right, let's put a list together. She's thrown down one gauntlet too many. Time for a reckoning.

UPDATE: (June 17) Kathy's the gift that goes on giving, isn't she? Global warming is a hoax because (cough) coffee in a thermos doesn't get any hotter. Canadian Cynic and assorted commenters have skewered that egregious howler here. Heterosexual AIDS is a hoax, because a mischievous article in the Guardian says so.

(The article is so packed with straw persons that one wonders how the Brits will feed the horses come winter. The author can't even spell "AIDS" correctly, and* dishonestly fudges the question of heterosexual AIDS in Africa. He claims that malaria and TB kill more Africans than AIDS, but a huge part of that death toll is amongst AIDS-infected Africans with weakened immune systems: statistics here and here. Chasing this stuff down requires only a modicum of critical intelligence--but Kathy doesn't do real research. She's "a polemicist, and proud of it.")

Oh, and Kathy? James Kirchick isn't a "Lefty reporter," either. Good grief, can't you get anything right?


_________________
*Commenter James Goneaux points out that this is the approved media spelling in the UK. Mea culpa.

Ed Stelmach's Alberta

Where Nazis caper unmolested*, the government robs its own piggy-bank and public health doctors are fleeing en masse:

[Alberta Health Minister Ron] Liepert told reporters Tuesday that the such doctors are in high demand and Alberta couldn't keep pace with competing offers.

But one of the doctors immediately contradicted the minister, saying she has no other job in the works.

"It's not all about money. It's a combination of things," said Dr. Ameet Singh. Her contract expires in August.

Liepert insisted Wednesday that he didn't mean to leave the impression that the doctors were leaving for other jobs. But he refused to discuss specifics of their departure.

He also repeated his assertion that the province simply couldn't match the salary levels that are "out there" for these doctors.

Premier Ed Stelmach and Liepert both said they don't know what the doctors are paid compared to people in the same position in other provinces.

However, Stelmach offered high praise for the doctors who are leaving. He says they had "tremendous input into health policy."

Stelmach also suggested the province is being cautious about salary increases for any government employees because other public sector workers are also looking for raises.

"I keep hearing from the public, 'Your spending 40 per cent of your budget on health. What if the economy starts to slide, how can you support this?"' said Stelmach.

"We've got to find the balance someplace in terms of what we expect from our revenue stream into the future."

Recently, Stelmach and his 23-member cabinet voted themselves a 30 per cent pay increase, making them the best paid provincial politicians in Canada.

[H/t Kate McMillan for the idea for an on-going parody series.]

______________
*Yeah, yeah, I know about Jessica Beaumont. But it's not as if posting Internet hate is capering, exactly, and, besides, she's no fox.

Left-wing aposematism

I think it's time to address this vexed question directly on this sunny Saturday morning, without obfuscation or coded language. I shall be descending upon the Conservative Party convention in Winnipeg this Fall (having just received word that I've been accredited as a blogger there). But anxiety has struck.

What shall I wear?

I pitched my three-piece blue pinstripe yonks ago. Marianne couldn't abide that sort of thing, and besides, it seemed to have shrunk as the years passed. I gave up wearing ties even before that. It's been a matter of pride for me that I haven't worn one for nearly two decades. I wear boots, but more biker than cowboy. An earring. And a battered hat of kangaroo leather, from the skin of a real kangaroo, not a sun-tanned Guantanamo Military Commissioner. (Too bad, in a way, since the latter would probably last longer.)

I don't want to be forced to blend in, renouncing my self-imposed ban on suits and ties. In any case, I don't do mimicry, not out of principle but out of inability. A clothes-horse I am not. So, what, then?

Aposematism seems to be the only way to go. To prevent me from being eaten alive. Don't-mess-with-me leathers. Shades. Fake miltats on both forearms. An affected scowl, which I shall have to practise. An aggressive DFWM swagger.

Perhaps, though, I am foolishly prejudging the whole question of attire. A few weeks back, I was whisked off by an old union brother to the Eastview Legion, and treated to beer that came in quart bottles. As it happened, a new Legion president was being installed. Both the new and the outgoing president, of the male persuasion, wore earrings. And they called each other "Comrade." It was a pleasure to stand up in their honour. I felt right at home.

Remembering that, I realize that I can face Winnipeg and its sartorial dangers after all, without recourse to protective clothing and unDawgly behaviour. I'll just be myself. And come to think of it, that may be all the aposematism I need.

Proud

My stepdaughter Aurora (Rory), the graduate. Highest Honours in Classics, Religion and Humanities at Carleton University.

Convocation: was I there for her, or was she there for me? Probably a bit of both. My late partner Marianne had no truck with these occasions. A degree was a qualification: time to move on to the next challenge.

I'm glad we did this. Not every day a grad gets to shake Marc Garneau's hand and listen to Buffy Sainte-Marie give the convocation address after receiving a doctorate of laws, honoris causa, to add to her towering stack of credentials. (Twenty albums, an earned PhD in fine arts, a painter, an Indian rights activist....) I listened spellbound to Buffy's barnburner of a speech, given partly in spoken words and partly in song. I wished that my friend Darcey Jerrom, suffering the reawakened memories that this week has brought, had been present to hear it.

The whole occasion made me teary-eyed, I will admit. For this, Marianne might have made an exception. Rory looked beautiful. I felt indescribable pride.

She is happily married now, and expecting twins in January. But she's her mother's daughter, and won't vanish into the home never to return. "Beware of the gatekeepers who get between you and your goals," Buffy said. And, twice, "When the spotlight is on you, what will you say?"

Rory knows, in her quiet, firm way, what she wants. The future is hers. Marianne would be so proud of her. Rory can't drink these days, and her husband doesn't as a matter of faith. (Good having a Muslim in the family as our permanent designated driver.) If he isn't as proud as I am right now, I'm going over there for a chat. But first, I'm having a drink for the three of us.

To the future, dear Rory. And to you.

Diseased American politics

Predictably--although they were so quick off the mark that I was taken by surprise--the blog and media racists who infest the American political scene have hared off after Barack Obama--and his spouse.

She's a "baby mama," according to Faux News, the term being a pejorative referring to Black women who have children out of wedlock. Her fist-to-fist "pound" with Barack was "a terrorist fist jab." But of course Fauxer Bill O'Reilly, the dumb bigot who was surprised that Blacks in restaurants use knives and forks, doesn't want to go on a "lynching party." (Who needs dog-whistles when you have Faux News telling it like it isn't?) And, since the first defence of a racist is to call your opposition racist, Michelle Obama has been accused of using the term "whitey" in a non-existent videotape. (The usual suspects are all over that one, like, er, white on rice.)

Meanwhile, Obama monkey dolls and T-shirts are now for sale on the Internet.

Obama, being Obama, has been quick off the mark too, launching a website to counter what promises to be a malodorous verbal avalanche of raw racist sewage during the presidential run. Swiftboating is the work of gentlemen in comparison to what we can confidently predict will be the deliberate racializing of the 2008 campaign.

I had thought the Civil War was over. I still believe it may well be. Obama has a shot at the top job. But the "Keep the White House White" folks are busy little bees. The Old South is rising again, with one last, desperate slobber of racial hate--only this time it's happening on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. And the conservative media, as always, are there to help out.

Canada's Horsemen--more shocking news

A new report, the results of a joint investigation by Canadian Press and CBC Radio-Canada of more than 3200 Taser incidents between 2002 and 2007, shows that multiple use of Tasers on individuals by the RCMP is on the rise.

In 43% of the cases, more than one shock was administered. In 31 cases, the cops used 7 or more jolts.

In two-thirds of the multiple-shock incidents, the citizen at the receiving end was unarmed.

The cops are apparently ignoring an internal policy bulletin that warned of the hazards of repeated shocks, and advised officers not to inflict them "unless situational factors dictate otherwise": a loophole, of course, that you could drive a truck through as your superiors nudge-nudge and wink-wink and close ranks as usual.

The RCMP stonewall continues. Commissioner William Elliott refused an interview about the report. The RCMP still refuses to release descriptive summaries of Tasering events.

It is clear, yet again, that this rogue police force is completely out of control. There are simply no checks, no balances, no means of getting rid of the sadistic creeps in red serge who are going around torturing Canadian citizens on whim--whether it be an 82-year-old heart patient in a hospital bed or a Native person zapped repeatedly because he wouldn't remove a ceremonial necklace. And the four uniformed killers of Robert Dziekanski are still on active duty, their names a closely-guarded secret.

This "horribly broken" organization, rife with thugs and incompetents, needs to be disbanded. Now. We need to build a new national police force from the ground up, finding a way to screen out the sadists, the punks and the time-servers, and to reassign the decent officers caught up in the current RCMP web of deadly incompetence, breaking up the tight little cliques right down to the detachment level. This latest report makes the task even more urgent. But, as I have asked before, is there the political will to take this on?

UPDATE: And if RCMP stonewalling isn't enough, there's always Stocky to run, er, political interference.

The triumph of paranoia

Balbulican has a nifty little contest going on over at Stageleft that I stand to win, unless other folks join in. The task is to find hyperinflated commentary on the BC Human Rights Tribunal and the desperate plight of the Dirty Half-Dozen™, aka the Canuck Six.

It's not rocket science, to put it mildly. Google is your friend.

Such commentary has a habit of feeding on itself, in fact, and the result has been a frenzied, escalating shriek-fest of untruths, hyperbole, hysteria and utter paranoia: Kanada is a Velvet Fascist police state! No, a gulag! The BCHRT is a "nanny state style knuckle rapping kangaroo court!" The hearings are an Inquisition! A Star Chamber!

It's called "communicated insanity." Nothing like hyperlinks to facilitate the process, too. Cyberspace can literally drive you mad.

Even the normally reasonable can fall into this bubbling vat. It is to be expected that a site like Free Dominion would be in a state of fugue at this point, but Jay Currie, too, has been obsessing over the BCHRT hearings like a boy with a bug. So perhaps it's no surprise that he has linked up with FD yet again in a further episode of folie à deux, and thrown all caution to the winds.

Richard Warman, as everyone in the blogosphere (but not the general public) knows, is suing Free Dominion for defamation. Part of this process involves mediation, and a mediator has been appointed by the court from a roster. It happens to be Muriel Korngold-Wexler, an official with many years of experience, including a long stint on the Public Service Staff Relations Board (now the Public Service Labour Relations Board).

Presently, Korngold-Wexler is Director of Grievance Analysis and Operations at the Canadian Forces Grievance Board. The predictable shrieks and groans have commenced.

"A very interesting coincidence since we know someone else who works in the very same DND department. Hint: Richard Warman," says Connie Fournier. And Jay Currie, swallowing it whole, writes,

Mediator: Impartial, Unbiased and, Hey, Richard Warman’s Boss.

Or co-worker. I can’t be arsed to figure out the chain of command.

The fact is that the mediator assigned the Free Dominion v. Richard Warman madatory mediation, as well as being late, happens to work with our man Lucy.

Now, call me crazy, but I have to say there might be a reasonable apprehension of bias lurking in those weeds.

So now the regular court system is run by hopping marsupials too? Those 'roos are everywhere!

But I'll take Jay up on his offer. Jay, you're crazy.

When you confess that facts don't matter ("I can't be arsed to figure out the chain of command"), you know you've already begun the slide into delusion.

As it happens, there is no "chain of command." You don't have to live in Ottawa to know that the Canadian Forces Grievance Board isn't a "DND department," to use Connie's phrase. (Departments have departments now? Who knew?) It's a separate, independent, arms-length agency that deals, as its name would appear to suggest, with grievances from members of the Forces.

We union types call this "third-party review." It is exactly analogous to the aforementioned Public Service Labour Relations Board. When grievances cannot be resolved in-house, they can be referred to agencies such as this for an impartial hearing. Members of these Boards have no working relations with in-house departmental officials.

Poof! The delusions disappear in the cold light of day. Except, of course, for those who are so clearly enjoying their paranoid fantasies.

UPDATE: More ignorami pile on madly. Next thing you know they'll be confusing the Canadian Human Rights Commission with the Department of Justice. You read it here first.

UPDATE: (June 13) Paranoia triumphs even further: Korngold-Wexler has now recused herself, no doubt after emails from the FDers started pouring in. Her role as mediator, with FD as one of the parties, has been seriously compromised by all this.

While the CFGB is independent, and does not, therefore, work with DND on specific grievance files, DND and the CFGB, at some level, have been collaborating on administrative procedures to clear a grievance backlog. This is, of course, a far cry from the earlier ill-informed claims that Korngold-Wexler and Warman were colleagues in the same department, or were in the same chain of command. Indeed, Korngold-Wexler says she has no connection to Warman, but she is taking the only course available to her at this point. Besides, who needs this kind of filth?

Harper's apology to Canada's aboriginal peoples

"Sympathy without relief," runs an old Scots saying, "is like mustard without beef."

A very well-scripted apology it was, delivered by the fellow whose government

• tore up the Kelowna Accord, ignored Parliament's vote to reinstate it, and offered aboriginal people a fraction of what the deal called for;
  
  
• refused fast-track payments to the very people to whom he has now apologized;
  
  
• continues the Liberal malign neglect of the Lubicon Cree;
  
  
• keeps Maurice Vellacott in his caucus--the Conservative MP who defended the Saskatoon cops who carried out the "starlight tour" that took Darrell Night out for a "starlight tour," like the one that killed Neil Stonechild*;
  
  
• to our international shame, voted against the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and indeed made every effort to scuttle it.

But how timely this apology is! Why, one of these days there might actually be an election: Operation Outreach continues. And in this glaringly obvious context, what a disgraceful example of form without substance that apology was. What empty words. What hollow rhetoric.

Gallons of mustard, in fact. But where's the beef, Mr. Harper?

UPDATE: And here's how to poison the mustard:

Now along with this apology comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years. Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask, ‘Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?

Thanks, Pierre.

(H/t Peterborough Politics)

____________
*Commenter Tim points out that it was Darrell Night, not Neil Stonechild, who was the victim of the officers in question. In fact, it was because Night survived that the whole ugly story of police practices in Saskatoon came to public attention. Correction made, with new links.

Blatchford does it again

Surely this comment from today's Globe and Mail says it all:

For all his frankness, despite the black skull cap and full beard and the kurta, Mr. Shaikh, a born-and-bred Torontonian, is a good Canadian boy with Canadian sensibilities.

Blatchford goes on to note that Mubin Shaikh was unwilling to use the "N word" when testifying against the "Toronto 18" (now the Toronto 11) yesterday. This was in reference to a black 9mm gun allegedly in possession of the group, and their nickname for it.

Has Blatchford shifted position since she scribbled this?

Not at all.

With her, it's always about categories, one group against another, one cause against another. Here, yet again, we see the binary firmly in place. The Other is racist. Our boy isn't.
And as for the long-sleeved shirt, beard and skull cap, despite these, he's reassuringly "Canadian." He's even got a sense of humour.

Now imagine if she had been referring to, say, an Orthodox Jew instead. "Despite the dangling locks and black skull cap, Moishe, a born-and-bred Torontonian, is a good Canadian boy with Canadian sensibilities." Just how long would she last as a columnist in the Globe and Mail?

What is a "Canadian," exactly? Why is Mubin Shaikh a Canadian despite what he chooses to wear and believe? What should he wear, in order not to disguise himself, somehow, as a non-Canadian? What should he believe?

The floor is open.

Nazism is child abuse

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
--South Pacific

The libertarians and conservatives will be honking loudly about this one, mark my words: Manitoba Child and Family Services seized the children of a couple of neo-Nazi knuckledraggers the other day, rescuing them from an atmosphere of insanity and hatred. And already the usual suspects are slithering out from under their rocks.

"They seem like well-adjusted, normal people," says veteran neo-Nazi Paul Fromm.

The arguments will be framed thus: child-rearing is a private matter. Intervention is only justified if there is severe abuse of the child. Indeed, these arguments have already been made, and appear to have trumped any concerns about the toxic atmosphere to which the kids are now likely to be returned. Even though that very atmosphere constitutes serious emotional abuse, on a continuing basis.

The mother and father have now split up. "He's a bigot," says Mum. "I'm just a white nationalist." Oh, that's all right, then. How can one fail to see that obvious distinction? So Manitoba child services is now prepared to "re-integrate" the kids back into the mother's comfy little nest of hate. Ende gut, alles gut.

I disagree, and I hope MCFS reconsiders. As feminist and legal scholar Lorenne Clark once put it, "the last place we need privacy is in the home." (Just ask the children of Josef Fritzl.) She rejects, as do I, any absolute distinction between "public" and "private." It takes a village to raise a child, and that means we are all accountable for the children of our community.

Children's services in Canada are often criticized (and with good reason, sometimes) for being lax and careless. In this case, however, they acted quickly and correctly to rescue children from an emotional cesspool of hate. Now, however, they seem poised to return the kids to that cesspool.

That would be a grievous error. MCFS should stick to its guns. Neo-nazis are not fit parents. End of story.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
...
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
--CSNY, Teach Your Children