On The Second Day Of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me....

....Utterances From My Two Kids Named E.

So, yesterday our oldest daughter, Bigger E., asked me which of the following I liked better, because she has to tell the 'Pun of the Day' in English class today:


'What do you call a melon that can't get married?'

......A Can't Elope.

.....or


Where is graphite made?

......In Pencil Vania.

I chose the latter, but either way I know she'll do a good job because E. is the real actress in the family.

Did I mention that E. is thirteen?

Which brings up something else that E. mentioned yesterday, and that is the fact that her 13th year seems like it has been the longest of all the ones she's had so far.

At first I didn't get it.

But now that I've thought about it for a bit, and mentally flipped through all the things she's done and gone through in the almost year she's been 13, I think I do understand because, Wow!, life sure changes for a kid that age.

Which is both exciting and kind of melancholy-inducing at the same time, especially when you realize that she can never really go back again.

*****

A few minutes later, we were sitting around the Christmas tree reading 'Scooby Doo et Les Fantomes' while listening to a Louis Armstrong Christmas album when our younger daughter, littler e., suddenly stopped reading, looked up, and said:

'That's what I want to do.'

'What?', I asked, puzzled, thinking perhaps that e. actually wanted to become a french immersion version of Casey Kasem playing Shaggy in Summerstock in the Laurentians.

'Play the piano,' she said.

'But you already play the piano,' I replied (e. is taking piano lessons right now).

'But I wanna play the piano like that, ' she said.

'Like what?' I asked.

'Like that,' she said, pointing emphatically to the CD player.

We were listening to a really funky duet of Armstrong and Velma Middleton doing a live version of 'Baby It's Cold Outside', and in the background of the track you could just barely hear some deep-freeze cool tinkling of the ivories.

Did I mention that e. is only seven?


.

Gone Flippin'

Hookin'ThePublic
LargeMouthBassVille

While big Rich Coleman sets the hook with no substance comments about a social housing catastrophe he and his colleagues did their best to create, it turns out that treaties are not the only way British Columbia's LINO's have been flipping crown land out to developers:


By —Andrew MacLeod
Dec 13 2006, Monday Magazine

Ray Zimmerman draws a finger across the topographical lines on a map showing land in the Highlands near Mount Finlayson that changed hands betwen the provincial government and Western Forest Products in 2001. “The crown got the land that wasn’t much good for development because of it’s steepness,” he says. “The chunk that’s given away is the developable one.”

WFP turned around within a few months and sold the land it acquired to the developers of Bear Mountain resort, where part of it is now home to a golf course. WFP sold the 45 or so hectares for $1.05 million, the same amount they’d paid the government.

Zimmerman, who was active in the effort to save the Sooke Hills greenbelt in the 1990s, asks, “Why were they giving Crown land away in an urban area at that time?”

According to Jim Stephen, who works on land management for WFP, the area in question was part of a larger deal. The province wanted land in the Varney Bay area to add to Marble River Provincial Park near Port Alice on northern Vancouver Island. In exchange, says Stephen, the government offered various properties that were attractive to WFP, including the area the company later sold to Bear Mountain.

As for the timing, he says, it was coincidental that the deal completed within months of the B.C. Liberals taking office. “These deals take a long time to come together,” he says.

Yes, the company flipped the property pretty quickly, he says, but it was at a time when WFP was having financial trouble. “The company was trying to generate money,” he says. “We went through a period of time where we were identifying surplus land and selling it to generate cash.”

A man named Bob Flitton worked on the deal for WFP. Interestingly, he now works for Bear Mountain. He did not return calls.

Sound fishy?

Sure does.

And if this is a good deal for British Columbians, why do I keep seeing adverts for the land we used to own in the 'Escapes' pages of the New York Times?


_____
Update: Reader Big Audible Dyn-O-Mite reminds us that Paul Willcocks wrote about a much bigger give away, both in terms of hectarage and money, that the LINO's recently gave to another lumber company, Weyerhauser, on central Vancouver Island. Oh, and the ultimate point man on that one just happened to be none other than the afore-mentioned Mr. Coleman.

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On The First Day Of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me....

.....A Charlie Brown 'In-The-Stand' Tree

Last Monday, that day of super wild wind, lashing rain, and traffic lights out all over the place, I finally made it across town, the seemingly endless array of (no)four-way-stops notwithstanding.

Almost immediately my two daughters, Bigger E. and littler e., and me headed out to our local Lion's Club treelot at 41st and Fraser.

When we got there the old guys running the place were soaking wet but still as jolly as ever as they helped us choose our own special ball of needles.

And the choosing took awhile because at first E. wanted a behemoth that couldn't possibly fit in the house while e. was momentarily smitten by one of those cultivated treebots with branches denser than lead and a trunk the diameter of a dinner plate.

Then, suddenly, they settled on a stubby six footer that would be, as e. said, 'just perfect because it would be easy for Mom to put the angel on top.' E. agreed, but also mentioned that she liked the way the 'branches were sort-of crooked at the bottom'.

E. is now a teenager who likes the Ramones and creative dishevelment.

I was skeptical in the extreme, but the girls persevered, and so in the end we lugged Stubby over to the rickety sawhorses where the the old guys argued about how much to saw off the bottom while we slapped down our $23.00.

Which was probably at least four, maybe even five, bucks more than we would have spent if we'd gone to IKEA instead.

But if we'd done that E. and e. wouldn't have received candy canes and a cheering section when they carried the tree out of the lot to the VW (not so)Microbus.

****

When I was a kid, my Dad worked on boats that towed logs up and down the Westcoast.

And because the big lumber companies were always in a frenzy in December trying to get as much wood out of the bush as they could before winter set in, Dad was often at sea until right before Christmas.

Which meant that my two brothers and I often had to wait..... and wait......and wait......and then wait again before we could finally get our tree.

But the wait was almost always worth it.

And never more so than in 1968, when I was nine.

If I'm not mistaken we walked to the lot tucked in behind the old Oak Bay Theatre on December 23rd that year.

It was so late in the season that there were hardly any trees left to choose from that night.

Which didn't really matter because, for some explicable reason, Dad let us choose the largest one they had.

And we, my brothers and I, carried it all the way home ourselves, for the first time I think, because my youngest brother was only five that year.

Anyway, what really made that walk great and memorable was the fact that it started to snow about half-way home.

And it didn't stop all night long.

And it didn't melt the entire Christmas holidays.

And even better, it was actually cold enough for our Dad to lay down huge sheets of summer camping plastic in the back yard that he flooded with water to make us a skating rink.

So, while Apollo 8 circled the moon I alternated between pretending my bedroom closet was a Command Module and pretending I could skate.

After all, this was Victoria, a place where prolonged cold snaps were very rare indeed.

****

The stubby little tree that E. and e. picked out this year did not go up on Monday night because we had to rush off to littler e.'s Tapdance show at the Scottish Cultural center down in Marpole, which is a story and-a-half in and of itself.

Then on Tuesday I couldn't find our rickety old tree stand stand with the leaky bucket and Bigger E. had to go to Musical Theatre in Richmond that night.

As a result, when I finally got home late, as usual, on Wednesday I was prepared for a brutal heckfire and brimstone evening involving a trek to Canadian Tire to fight the crowds followed by an hour-long struggle trying to put up the tree in a straight and non-tilted fashion with a minimum of protrusion from the crooked branches at the bottom.

So imagine my surprise when I walked in the door and found that little e. and her mom C. had rushed home from 'Meet-The-Teacher' day to put up the trees all by themselves.

I was so relieved and so happy that I actually momentarily lost my head and agreed to do a job that I hate even more - putting up the lights.

After much untangling, cursing under my breath, and coerced rearranging, I finally got the bloody things up without electrocuting myself and even managed to connect them all to one cord with a foot switch, which made C. very happy indeed.

And then E. organized and directed the putting up of the family heirloom decorations; my two favorites are a miniature cedar-strip canoe and a cubist giraffe.

So now, after some very bad carolling, from me at least, the kids are finally both in bed.

And I must head back upstairs from the subterranean blues room where I am sitting hunched over in front of monitor's dull glow.

Because I have a foot switch to hit before I head to bed to officially thank my true love for putting up that very fine little tree.

OK?

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Delta Lands Goin' Down?

DidTheyHearTheDevelopersCallTheirName?
Treaties'RUs



Mary has an interesting take on the Tsawwassen Treaty Deal:

"On December 7, 2006, a critical step in the sale of BCRail was celebrated because it was made to look like a Treaty settlement. The Campbell government has given 207 hectares of prime Delta farmland, situated beside the Roberts Bank port, to the Tsawwassen First Nations.

The Tsawwassens have agreed to give up their Reserve status and to begin paying property taxes. How are they going to do that? Well ... the Campbell government has removed this land from the Agricultural Land Reserve making it OK to pave the richest, blackest soil in B.C. (Only 4% of BC land is arable.)

And for what? So that the Tsawwassens will be forced to make deals with industrial developers, even selling the land to industry if they so decide.

And for what? So that the industrial developers (who probably would like to buy Deltaport and Roberts Bank someday) can build warehouses for the shipping containers arriving and departing via the adjoining port facilities.

In other words: the farmlands will become a functioning part of the port facility ... the BCRail port facility ... making it all the more pricey (in cash terms) when a future government again puts Roberts Bank up for sale."


Which is an interesting way of looking at things, indeed. And if Mary is right in her assessment this certainly would be a mighty creative, some might suggest anti-democratic, way of fusing the "Treaty" and the "P3" processes.

Me, I'm not yet entirely sure what to think about all of this.

But there is one thing I do know, from personal experience.

And that is this.

When there are previously protected public* lands involved that have the potential to become hugely lucrative once liberated, the vultures/developers are rarely far from the scene.



_____
*How's that for a flipside definition of 'P3', eh?

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All Your Bases Are Mine

RovianDentistry
HarperVille



Gloria Galloway
Globe and Mail, Dec 08/06

OTTAWA(SH) — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declared the contentious issue of same-sex marriage to be permanently closed.

After a Conservative motion calling on the government to restore the traditional definition of marriage was defeated yesterday by a resounding 175 to 123, Mr. Harper said he will not bring the matter back before Parliament.

"I don't see reopening this question in the future," he told reporters who asked whether same-sex marriage would return to the table if the Conservatives won a majority government.

Now, of course, there is a whole lotta noise being trumpeted, ink being spilled, and bloggodomosborgs being gorgified in an effort to describe how Mr. Harper kicked his base in the teeth on this one.

Which, in a way, is true I guess.

But when you have a good dentist like, say, the one Sir Larry played in 'Marathon Man', you know the critical question, "Is it safe?" was answered way before the first drill went into Dustin Hoffman, errrrrr......the Canuckistani People's collective mouth earlier this week.

Because Mr. Harper knows his Base has nowhere to go but to him.

And, like every good Rovian laparoscopy dog, Mr. Harper also knows that it is actually to your great advantage if you do not fully deliver on the Base's most fervant, and fevered, wishes.

And what's more, how would the Fund-O-Matics, both political and Teevangelical, continue to herd their sheep and separate them from their money if there were no fever wishes to dupe them with?


.

Where He'll Stop, Nobody Knows.....

BaseIsBase
LowRoadVille


Rick Barnes, who knows of what he speaks, makes an excellent point regarding the same sex marriage issue:

The real greivance of the social conservative religious movement is that they lost last time out. Now they are seeking to pressure Members of Parliament to undo the law. If they succeed here the Government's bill will require the use of the Charter of Rights "Notwithstanding Clause". It will not stand up to a court challenge as Appeal Courts across Canada have all ruled in favour of equal marriage. Over 12,000 people have been married since the Ontario court recognized that Canadian marriage law discriminated against same-sex couples.

Lets suppose that the Conservatives manage to change the law and invoke the "Notwithstanding Clause" this time or after an election when they have either a larger minority or majority government. What will stop the social conservatiuves from seeking change to other laws protecting gays, lesbians, bisexual and trans (GLBT) Canadians? Would adoption, immigration, education or housing and or employment protection be on the agenda.

These people, the Christian right and social conservatives, are not happy with the idea of same-sex couples having any rights equal to marriage let alone access to marriage. Many would forbid GLBT persons from teaching or child care, no involvement in youth sports or boy scouts or girl guides.

Some of you may think it wouldn't happen. It can happen. Once the "Notwithstanding Clause" is utilised, it will be easier to justify its use again. The Conservative government led by Stephen Harper may be saying thats it, no more changes after this one, but will they be able to enforce that. The pressure on the Conservative party within its own membership made up increasingly more with social conservitives and members of the religious right have an agenda of their own. return to the days when queers were harrassed and stuck in closets if they knew what was goof for them.

So forget all the ink being spilled about how this thing of Harper's is actually a step towards the middle because, in my opinion, it is actually his first step down a long and lowly road.

And he knows he can count on the base pushing him, hard, from behind.

Way, way behind.

OK?

_____
The Globe and (nolongerEmpire) Mail gets it right on what how 'shoddy' Mr. Harper's motion is, but what they can't bring themselves to do is to contemplate the true motivations for his machinations. Alison, on the other hand, gets right to the heart of the matter.

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Serendipity In Science

BigBreakthrough
BreastCancerVille


A significant proportion of breast cancers that are carried in families arise because of a mutation in a hunk of DNA known as the Breast Cancer gene #1, or BRCA-1 for short.

This is the gene that women get tested for if there is a concern about the possibility of hereditary breast cancer arising because two or more close relatives have had the disease.

Now, just to get technical for a moment, the mutations almost always muck up the DNA just enough to keep the gene from producing its normally functioning protein in cells.

Which has been the crux of the problem in treatment terms.

Because it is always much easier to develop a drug that disrupts something than it is to develop a drug that fixes a complicated thing that is lost.

Thus, nobody has been able to figure out how to fix the damage caused by the mutational loss of BRCA-1.

Until today.

It turns out that one way to do it is to use a drug that blocks progesterone action, which normally makes breast cells grow, especially when they don't have any BRCA-1 protein.

The data are quite striking, and they were published today in the rigorously peer-reviewed (ie. evidence-based) journal Science (warning: gobbledy-gook alert - however, a decently readable summary can also be found in the WaPo)

So where does the serendipity come in?

Well, it turns out that the drug that does the best job of blocking progesterone action is also known as RU-486.

What is RU-486?

Well, it is also known as mifepristone, a compound that can be used as a very early abortifacient because it blocks implantation and disrupts very in the first portion of the first trimester (ie. for the first 6-7 weeks of gestation).

Which just goes to show........The Goddess works in strange ways sometimes.

Don't you think?

_______
Cliff posted up the WaPo link. And, just for the record, a note of caution - so far this has only been done in mice and cells in a culture dish, not people, but the data are very solid. Trust me on this one - for a change I actually really and truly know what I'm talking about here.
Thanks to Johnny B. who corrected my sloppy verbiage in the original version of this post with respect to the how RU-486 is used in the real world (as opposed to how it works biologically) - a more complete explanation of this is available in the comments.

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Je Suis Un A Quebecker!

The51stStateStratergy
FrancoPhoneVille

In our last post we remarked, only half tongue-in-cheek, that the current big Bossman of the American Democratic party and the prime mover behind the wildly successful '50 State Strategy, Howard Dean, came to Montreal this week to speak french at the opening of the Liberal convention.

Now, if you watch the video, you'll see that Mr. Dean's francais is pretty darned awful.

But that's not the point.

Because, freedom fries aside, it turns out, as our good friend and Quebec correspondent Eteba pointed out in the comments, Mr. Dean actually has close ties to La Belle Province.

1) He is the former governor of the next-door neighbourhood of Vermont

2) His wife, Judith Steinberg is an M.D. who trained to become a hematologist at McGill.

3) Their son played hockey in Montreal.

4) For 10 years Dean was a regular on a PBS public affairs program called 'The Editors' that was taped in Montreal.


So.....is that wall between Quebec and Vermont up yet?

Because if it is maybe HoDo should climb up on it and let fly with a scream that will be heard all the way to Berlin and/or Sandra Buckler's office in OttaWash.


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The 51st State Strategy

HoldThePhone
HoDoGoesFrancoVille


Howard Dean came to the Great White North yesterday.......

MONTREAL — The most wide-open Liberal leadership convention in a generation opened Wednesday, with a pep-rally style speech in the evening by U.S. politician Howard Dean.

He told about 2,500 delegates at the Palais de Congres in Montreal that opposition political parties — such as his in the United States and theirs in Canada — can win elections by going after every vote.

“Whether it is the Liberal Party or the Democratic Party, we should never cede a single region or province, never cede a single state or city. Nor should we ever cede a single voter. Not a single one,” Dr. Dean said.

“It is a mark of respect for the voters that we ask each one for their vote regardless of the likelihood of getting it. This is what we call the 50-state strategy.”

The Democrats' “50-state strategy” paid off in mid-term elections earlier this month, giving the party control over both houses of the Congress.


And while there were no reports of any 'screams', it appears that Mr. Dean may actually have stepped it up another octave or two into a range that drives all of the yellow dogs from Fox News absolutely bonkers.

Because Dean spoke, wait for it.......

French.

Lordy.

What will James Carville and the Wilting Dem's of Beltway (no)Ball(s) Society have to say about that I wonder?


____
Original Link Source on HoDo's verbal freedom fries from Chet of The Vanity Press.
And if you wanna see a true picture of all that is active about the 51st State and Main, check the following out, courtesy of Cliff at Rusty Idols. (and don't miss the 'coach').

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The Never Ending Story

EndlessSummerOfCamp
KidVille

This may come as a surprise to some of you, especially those that read the screeds I post up here regularly, but I'm actually not a bad teacher.

Although, just to be clear right up front, the kids I get paid to teach these days are not actually kids.

That's because I deal mostly with students who are doing their best to get into professional school, or some reasonable facsimile thereof.

Which means that, on the whole, they are a serious and seriously driven bunch.

But please do not be fooled; my ability to teach Type 'A' personalities reasonably effectively has absolutely nothing to do with my own extremely serious and ridiculously long bouts of training at fancy-schmancy institutes of higher learning.

Quite the contrary, actually.

Because, if you really want to know, everything I ever learned about teaching I learned at summer camp.

*****

A lot happened to me while I worked my undergraduate summers at a little gem of a place located high in the Sooke Hills on the southwestern edge of Vancouver Island.

Not the least of which was once wowing a fellow counsellor-in-training with a little bit of chivalry that involved an offer to take a long walk through a shallow pond while we both pretended we knew how to use a compass.

But that's a whole other story.

And so is the story of how I invented a bogus fitness activity called 'Fat Belly Hour' which my cabin group and I used to successfully bamboozle the camp quartermaster into forking over dozen or so bags of marshmallows that we devoured while wallowing in the shallow end of the swimming area pretending to be high-altitude beluga whales.

Which is just another way of saying that if you want to survive as a camp counsellor, suspending disbelief with a wink and a nudge is the only way to go.

Because there is nothing that kids like better than feeling that they, too, are in on the joke right from the start.

Except for one thing that is.

And that is when you manage to convince them that you are on their side.

Unfortunately, unlike pond walks and fat belly hours, that is something you can't fake and you actually have to work at.

Which brings me to that infamous early Bill Murray vehicle called 'Meatballs' which was a B-grade movie that centered around the life and times of the fictional Camp Northstar.

And fictional is a very good way of describing just about everything thing about that movie, including the ludicrous tales of the 'CIT's So Serious', the stupid intercamp rivalries, the non-stop panty raids, the bad food, and, most of all, Mr. Murray's insane antics.

But there was one bit in the movie that still rings true for me.

And that is the 'Vegas' scene.

In that vignette, counsellor Murray tracks down a kid in a diner that has just bolted down the camp road because he figures nobody likes him.

After bumming a few fries, Murray nonchalantly asks the kid if he's going to Vegas.

Why?

Because, as Murray explains:

"If you're going to Vegas, I would be up for it because I love that town."

In spite of himself, the kid laughs.

And it is in that fleeting moment that the camp counsellor begins the process of showing the kid that he is on his side.

And, of course, after that everything comes up aces; end of story.

But it is not quite the end of this particular story.......

*****

Now, it's not always easy to remember that the survival tricks you learned as a callow, snot-nosed 22 year old at summer camp can actually come in handy when you are dealing with kids of your own.

Take last Thursday night, for instance.

It was a madhouse at our place as usual. Little E., the seven year old, was blasting the soundtrack from 'My Fair Lady' while she danced madly in front of the living room funhouse mirror. In contrast, our thirteen year old daughter E. was pretty upset.

E. had a ton of the cursed highschool homework to do and she was giving C., her mom who also just happens to be that young girl with the compass from days gone by, a pretty hard time about it.

At this point in the story it's important to let you know that since school ended earlier that afternoon C. had already dealt with swimming class, piano lessons, and a trip to the Buy-Low. Then she rushed the crew home, cooked the dinnner, did the dictee, took care of the recycling, made a bunch of calls on behalf of the school choir, and suddenly found herself face-to-face with E.'s full metal meltdown when I finally walked in the door, late - again.

On the defensive and feeling inadequate, I immediately morphed into hard-core authoritarian Dad and began laying down the law with impunity.

Which worked fantastically.

For about 3 minutes.

Then all hell broke loose.

C. had to step back in and institute a forced truce of Golanian Heights proportions that sent everyone to their neutral corners.

About three hours later E. finally managed to finish her homework.

By then Little E. was fast asleep with yet another tooth for the fairy in a tiny treasure box at her bedside.

C. was in her pajamas and she was either reading Anne-Marie Macdonald or watching that wretched E.R. on the TV - I'll be darned if I can remember which.

And when I emerged from my subterranean blues room (ie. the basement cubbyhole where I compose these screeds) E.'s bedroom light was still on.

We hadn't spoken since the blow-up and I was tempted to leave her alone until morning.

But then, luckily for both of us, my heart softened and I knocked even more softly on her door.

She was hunched over her desk pretending to read her science textbook while she listened to the Ramones on her I-Pod.

My opening gambit was to ask her what she was doing in math these days.

She had a tough time explaining it precisely, but it sounded like it might have something to do with that dastardly distributive principle of multiplication and addition.

Which brought Grade 9 rushing back to me all over again.

So I explained to E. how I almost failed Grade 9 math because I was enrolled in one of those faddish 'work at your own pace' courses that were so popular in the middle '70's. Then I told her how my Dad bailed me out by stepping in and setting some ground rules that helped me get my homework done every night for about two weeks until I started passing tests again.

And that was all it took.

Pretty soon she was telling me about her own trials and tribulations as a kid in her first year of highschool.

Then I asked her to tell me what was really bugging her.

It turned out to be quite simple actually. She had been planning to go to a movie the next night, Friday, with a bunch of her new friends, but that had fallen through for reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me. The point is, though, that, regardless the reason, E. was devastated by this teenage turn of events.

So we devised a plan. She would call up one of the new friend kids and work something out. For my part, I promised to take them to any movie at any theater, within reason, within a 30 mile radius.

And I did.

The next night Little E. and I drove her big sister and her friend Z. to Tinseltown which is multiplex on the edge of Chinatown so that they could go see that new flick about dancing penquins or some such thing.

I have no idea if there are any Vegas scenes in that movie because, as you might have already guessed, the third part of the deal was that Little E. and I could not actually got to the movie ourselves.

This much I do know - trying to explain to your seven year old, even in fictionally conspiratorial candy-coated terms, what the characters who are ranting and raving as they roam the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside are really up to on a rainy Friday night in the middle of November just might be one of the most difficult tasks I've faced as a Dad so far.

But that too, like the time I took a trip to Vegas in a Motel Slant-Six to have breakfast on the Colorado Rockies, is another one of those stories that I hope will get better with the passing of time.

And if does I just might tell it to you sometime.

OK?


_____
Just for the record: The image is of E. in a gorilla suit on Chatham Island just south of Victoria B.C. The suit and the idea were provided by our good friend G., who just happens to have been another of the counsellors at the above described summer camp. However, the 'Gorilla Of The Gulf' is an entirely different story that only E. herself knows for sure.

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The Screed That Served Us All

FreeSpeeches'RUs
HarperVille

There's an old saying that freedom of the press is only assured for the man that owns one.

But perhaps that should be updated to include the man who 'controls' one.

Which, I guess, one could argue is the purview of rogue dictators and the Rovians.

But what about Canadian Prime Ministers who lecture Asian leaders about how important 'free speech' is to all Canadians?


BRIAN LAGHI
From Saturday's (Nov18/06) Globe and Mail

HANOI — Prime Minister Stephen Harper kept himself under wraps yesterday as his officials worked to defuse a growing list of controversies such as whether to meet with China's President, the ouster of a Chinese diplomat from Canada and how to respond to new proposals to combat global warming.

Mr. Harper and his staff took aggressive control of the agenda after a reporter threw a question at him as he was being greeted by his Vietnamese counterpart yesterday morning. Mr. Harper is in the Vietnamese capital to attend a weekend summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, but arrived early to take part in bilateral meetings with other leaders.

The question thrown to Mr. Harper prior to his meeting with the Vietnamese leader had to do with the Chinese foreign ministry's comments that it was irresponsible to interfere in China's domestic affairs.

Canadian reporters found themselves barred from the rest of Mr. Harper's events yesterday, including a photo opportunity with Canadian youth and a dinner with his friend and ideological ally, Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

So, if the press was barred from the proceedings, how do we actually know that Mr. Harper actually told the Vietnmamese PM how much import we, the Canuckistani people, place on free speech and, by implication, a free press?

Because, as Anthony Germain told us on last night's CBC 'World-at-Six', Mr. Harper's Chief-Rovian-In-Training, Sandra Buckler, was good enough to wheel in an 'unamed government official' who told the no-longer-free press just that.

Mr. Germain was also good enough to tell us that when Mr. Harper turned to the TV cameras before the dinner with Mr. Howard and said he wanted to speak 'to the media' about how he is going to focus on energy and the environment at the APEC meeting there were, of course, no actual media there. In fact, while it looked on TV like there was a news conference going on Mr. Germain noted that the only people in the room were Mr. Harper's wife Loreen, the Howards, PMO staff, the TV cameraman, and Mr. Harper's official photographer*.

Mr. Germain, also went into considerable detail about how there was to be a 10:00 pm press briefing when all was said and done. But then the story about Karl's man in Vietnam asking his buddy Steve-O to send our warships to North Korea broke and the entire thing was cancelled.

So, when midnight rolled around the fully-cowed and penned Mr. Germain finally asked himself, his producers, and his audience if:

'it was possible to do this story without sounding like it was a self-serving screed by a
frustrated journalist?'

As one Canadian in the audience who believes that free speech is an unalienable right rather than a political point scoring tool I would answer Mr. Germain with a most definitive yes.


______
*Must admit, that last one had me wondering.....was it officially a 'still' one or a leniversion photog?
If you would like to keep up on non-stop the machinations of Ms. Buckler and Mr. Harper, don't forget to check out Alison's ongoing series at Creekside.

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Sometimes, The Rich.....

....Really Are Like You And Me

LocalOwnershipGalore
CanuckistanMikitaVille

The big news around town today was the announcement that the Aquilini family bought-out Seattle bazillionare John McCaw to acquire total ownership control of the Vancouver Canucks and the barn they play in, General Hummer's Place.

All of which has been greeted with high-pitched hosanahs from the area's sports pundtwits because it means that a local family is once again in control of the city's NHL franchise.

And with each report the twitterers invariably mention the Canuckeheadland's first family, the Griffiths.

But only in passing.

As such, they rarely mention is that it was papa Frank Griffiths that acquired the team in the '70's and that he worked hard to make it into a local institution, even when it was losing, which was often, while he simultaneously built a communications empire which, at it's peak, consisted of ten television and twelve radio stations which included Vancouver market leaders BCTV and CKNW.

And what the twittering tweety birds mention even more rarely* is the fact that it Frank's son, Arthur Griffiths actually 'lost' rather than willingly 'sold' the hockey team.

So, how did that happen?

Well, nobody but Arthur and his accountants know for sure, but the best accounts make it very difficult not to conclude that the younger Griffiths over-extended himself when he borrowed huge sums, hand-over-fist, to build a new arena and bring the ill-fated NBA Grizzlies franchise to town.

Then, when the loans started coming due Arthur tried to bail himself out by selling off the family's communication assets, but when that wasn't enough he turned to an old-school-tie friend from his youth, a very fine-fellow named John McCaw to bail him out.

McCaw happily obliged and then, almost immediately the real squeeze play began in earnest. As a result, within three years Arthur lost his grip on the hockey team entirely and he was thrown out of his office at GM Place.

Anyway, this morning on my way to work I heard an interview with Mr. Griffiths the Younger on one of the local radio stations his family didn't use to own. And to his credit he was gracious in his comments about the McCaw era and his limited involvement in it.

He also had some very insightful things to say about how things have changed since his family owned the Canucks and the new market pressures the Aquilinis will face.

At the end of the interview Griffiths was asked what he is up to now. He replied that he is in the web streaming business.

'Hmmmmm - interesting, he must be building a 'new media' empire,' I mumbled to myself.

Then, with a little further prodding, Arthur went on to say that his latest 'exciting' projects include the streaming of images from a set of webcams placed near the resident grizzly bears on Grouse Mountain and the webcast of a local nightclub act.

'Wow!', I thought, 'that sounds almost as lucrative as this blog'.

Which just goes to show you, F. Scott Fitzgerald can't be right all of the time.

OK?

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From the credit where credit is due dep't: Ian MacIntyre in the Sun had a pretty good barebones summary of Arthur Griffiths' downfall.

In the comments Scout points out that Arthur is actually trying to cash in on the Hornby Island eagle's nest thing which his company got involved in on the back end. So maybe I'm being too harsh. After all, perhaps lightning, and pet rocks, really do strike twice.

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Extremism On Crack

ReapingAllTheyHaveSown
Wingnuttia


Yesterday we noted that the the current leaders of the U.S. Republican party have fostered a climate of sociopathic non-tolerance that encourages brutishness, ignorance and hate-based intimidation.

The example cited involved a group of 'patriots' who used intimidatory surveillance and unconcealed handguns in an attempt to discourage Latinos from voting at polling places in Arizona.

Well, Cliff at Rusty Idols now has more information about the perpetrators, one of whom has been linked to a well-known anti-immigrant group called the 'Border Guardians' by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

By all accounts the 'Border Guardians' are a more extreme version of the Minutemen, the vigilantes with guns that have been encouraged at every opportunity by George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

It is not a pretty picture, and if the SPL piece is not bad enough, many of the comments attached to a story in the Tuscon Citizen describing yesterday's events are enough to make any thinking person shudder.

And when you see stuff like this it is hard not to come to the conclusion that such extremism is actually the fourth generation offspring of first Lee Atwater's, and then Roger Ailes', and now, finally, Karl Rove's so-called 'genius'.

Joseph Goebbels, I'm quite certain, would be very proud indeed.


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And if you would like to see an example of how these folks attempt to intimidate up close and personal, check out the first comment left on the thread to Cliff's post itself.
Update: David Neiwart has the entire ugly story, with full background, up at Orcinus.


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We All Owe Michael J. Fox Now

..........Late night, Tues Nov. 7th, 2006

(updates below)

The fate of the free world tonight came down to a previously obscure Senate race in the southern U.S. State of Missouri.

I say previously obscure because this is the race that Michael J. Fox made famous by supporting the Democrat, a woman, Clair McCaskill because she had the guts to make Stem Cell Research an integral part of her platform.

The TV ad that Fox made was no-nonsense, hard-hitting, eloquent and uplifting all rolled into one.

In other words, it was what American exceptionalism once was and can still become again.

And for all that Rush Limbaugh and the Screamers lambasted Mr. Fox, most venomously by flat-out stating that he was faking the symptoms of his advancing Parkinson's disease.

The latter actions were the polar opposite of exceptional. In fact, they are all that is banal, brutish, and wrong with what America has become but does not have to continue to be. And these actions of the 'Axis of The Venal' were made all the worse by the fact that mainstream media outlets gave them serious airplay and even more serious consideration as talking points which, in turn, gave considerable credence and respectability to outright slander.

But in the end this crap didn't matter.

Because Mr. Fox soldiered on with grace, wit, humility and sincerity which is, of course, the exceptionally Canadian side of his character.

And now?

Well, McCaskill has just won, by a whisker.

And in so doing she appears to have swung the US Senate to the Democrats, who have already taken control of the Congress.

Thus, George Bush can no longer threaten the Constitution of the United States and all the peoples of the world, unchecked.

In other words, if not outright impeachment there will, at the very least, be a measure of oversight now.

And for that we all owe Michael J. Fox a huge debt of gratitude.

Here's hoping full U.S. federal funding for ethically-approved and fully monitored Stem Cell Research is re-established immediately.

And I'm sure there are some hugely proud parents in Burnaby British Columbia tonight.

And I'm not talking about the Keatons or the McFlys.

OK?



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Update: Of course, it could all come undone if Conrad Burns in Montana manages to get Smithers and the Henchfrogs walk off with the field with home base in a pine box.
DoubleSecretProbation Update: Wed morning......Democrat Tester has been declared the victor in Montana by....wait for it.......FOX News!
Triple-O Sauce Probation Update: Wed morning.....The oversight has begun!......Reports are rolling in that Rumfsfeld will resign today. The Rovians know they are operating under a whole new reality today, and in this case it truly is one of their own making. And it's name is fear.




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Come Gather Round People, Wherever You Roam...

HeCanRunButHeCan'tHide
ShrubVille

11pm Election night.....

House solidly Dem which equals.........subpeona power!

And as for the Senate, Virginia has swung to Webb, so now the Senate now hangs on Missouri where Democrat McCaskill (she who supports Stem Cells and was supported by our hero Michael J. Fox) is slightly ahead and Montana where Simpsons' favorite Republican Conrad Burns is getting smoked. If things continue to go that way it will put things out of reach even for the Tiemaker and Bush smoocher, Joe Lieberman.

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