Friday, July 14, 2006

Beautiful British Columbia

FridayFly-Over
LotusLandia

Still hot on the trail of finding out when the Trials for our 'Crime of The Century' actually start, BC Mary is working her way south. First it was Parksville, now it is Nanaimo. And while she didn't get an answer, she at least found a person at the Courthouse.....And despite her frustrations, one of the great things about her quest is that she is fast assembling her own Kesey-like band of Merry Pranksters along the way.

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And too bad for all those Vancouver Islanders that the A Team has been dismantled by the BellGlobeMedia buy-out of CHUM. Must be a lot of folks pining for the long gone days of staid old CHEK I reckon, you know back when Robin and Marissa ruled the airwaves with an iron fist, although I'm not sure the RedTory would be one of them.
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Speaking of the Red Tory, he has the story of Mr. Floatie, the piece of human poo, and the $600,000 study that was commissioned by the local burghers of Victoria which demonstrates that the dumping of millions upon millions of litres of raw sewage into the ocean year after year after year is actually a bad thing. I grew up in Victoria, and the argument has always been that it is OK because the tides move 'real fast' past Trial Island, which was weird, because the Southern Tip beaches were always closed because of the coliform counts. Then again, self-delusion is a powerful drug, especially when you've got tourism slots to fill.

But the real question is.....will anything be done? Apparently it will cost something like $500 million to build a decent secondary sewage treatment system from scratch. Which is probably impossible because, heckfire, that's almost two luge tracks and a speed skating oval's worth of pork.

Speaking of tourism, there has been a bit of a dust-up at the Victoria Times Colonist over a columnist who wrote a story about how people could come to little England and actually do stuff that doesn't cost a small fortune. The Gougers, errrr...Tourist Operators were incensed; they demanded, and were given, an audience with the publisher and the offending columnist was immediately fired. It's the old story I suppose.....A Free Press is Only Free to he who owns it. Does this mean that Paul Willcocks will have to watch his step the next time he prints something that is critical of, say, a big lumber company? Clearly, Sean Holman, the Last of the Independents, does not have to. He broke the story.

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Of course, when they go to the Island all those tourists have got to use David Hahn's very fine BC Ferry fleet. Mr. Hahn, who is running a private corporation that is designed, reportedly, to stand on it's own two feet and never ask for hand-outs was, who would'a thunk it, asking for a hand-out this week. Specifically, he wants more money from the Provincial Government to buy a replacement for the Queen of the North. Sure, sure, Hand of God (where's Maradonna?) and all that, but wasn't that ship slated for decomissioning anyway? Which got us to wondering if maybe, just maybe, the Big Bossman called Keith Baldrey in the middle of the night when he was agonizing over the fact that some in the local press might call him a Corporate Welfare Queen for making the request? Then again, something like that is probably just idle, not to mention boneheaded, speculation. After all, if any columnist did get up the gumption to do such a thing the Bossman's Backers just might march into their publisher's office and have them fired.

And finally, forget the Morfitt thing, because that is actually just old news repackaged. What's really new and exciting at BC Ferries this week is that they've hired a pack of naturalists to talk to those tourists on board the ships about the, what else, Natural Wonders of Beautiful British Columbia. Which is probably a good thing I guess, because they will also be able to explain why there is poo floating in the water or, more to the point why there has been a decline in Orca stocks in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Southern Gulf Islands, which is actually one of the serious things that that $600K study on Raw Sewage looked at.

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Have a great weekend everyone!

As for me?

Well, once again, just like always, I will be a Folk Festival widower.

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