CIVITATENSIS

I heard someone say that politicians are all the same, just the other day. It’s a single silly sentence, but such belief is already having a significant impact on the politics of the country. It will be even more influential in the public’s response to the Gomery Commission report.

On the one hand it may be a genuine moral disorientation on the part of some, unable to distinguish between crooks and honest men and women. It may also be the justification of the political lazy man. There is no need to look further than one’s nose for ideas, solutions and political alternatives. Why bother, in other words. It may also be a rehearsed Liberal argument, particularly to persuade Ontarians to stick with the Liberals.

Beneath the surface, the expression implies that the Conservatives would do the same as the Liberals if they were in power. AdScam, in other words, was an inevitability. There is no point in exploring if the Conservatives or the NDs are that corrupt. It is simple taken as a given that all are.

Such prejudiced conclusion has the benefit of obscuring a reality that should be plain to see: the Conservatives, Bloquistes, and NDPers have not been found massively defrauding the public, funneling money out of the state to give rewards to their friends and to get their own people elected, breaking electoral laws. The sameness argument is a way to turn away from the reality of Liberal Malfeasance.

From there, we go to the “conservative” argument which Liberals make: Better the crooks we know, so we may as well keep the guys that are in government. The logic of sameness has a perverse twist in that it creates a huge set of incentives for the crooks du jour (assuming that all are crooks) to continue doing what they are doing.

But it’s not all about all politicians being crooks. If it were, in the interests of fairness — and Canadians are fair-minded– why should one single group have the monopoly of stealing and pillaging the state? Would it not be fair that all political parties should have an equal opportunity to rob us blind? The fair thing would be to want to change the present crooks and to give a chance to the others, if nothing else to punish the current ones for having been stupid enough to get caught.

But it’s not crookedness that is at the centre of the matter, really. We know this in Alberta. Central Canadians would rather have a crook ruling them than an honest man who may make feel uncomfortable with his principles and beliefs. It can’t be that central Canadians are wrong; it’s easy after all to project faults onto others than to admit one’s own. So, there must be something wrong with Stephen Harper. He is, after all, a scary Albertan.

The Liberal mantra that politicians are all the same as a way to ensure that Liberals stay in power seems to be working precisely because all politicians are not the same, even if they were all thieves. There are differences, even among thieves. The Martin Liberal government will be making that argument tomorrow when they point their fingers at their Chretienite brethren.

Ontario will be oblivious to it, though.

Brazil’s President Lula has been in some trouble for a few months. His party is mired in accusations of corruption, election fraud, bribes and kickbacks. The scandal has already claimed more than a few political victims –though no commission has been called and no one has yet been convicted. Lula himself is yet to be touched by the scandals, however. Even then, Brazil has a public ethic that refuses to keep the corrupt in office in plain public view.

Lula’s chief of staff, Jose Dirceu, resigned in June after it was alleged that he knew the party had used more than $24 million in undeclared loans to repay campaign debts. Then, this month, the top aide to Lula’s finance minister resigned after allegations of kickbacks emerged.

As compared to AdScam, several Brazilian politicians have had sufficient honour, courage and decency to resign. Lula’s party, the Workers’ Party, has even lost its edge in the Assembly as four deputies have switched to the opposition parties. By contrast, the stench of corruption in Canada has attracted an MP from the opposition and minted a brand new cabinet minister. The corruption scandal in Brazil has not responded with more corruption or attempt at buying other opposition party members: Brazil has had no Tim Murphy equivalent. The Workers’ Party has also seen a defection of about 400 key organisers and volunteers. In Canada, the most Liberal Party members have come up with is getting undressed down to their underwear on a Montreal street.

The perception of fraud and mismanagement in Brazil is so strong that the government has not attempted to dream up policies to buy the electorate. That would only makes matters worse, at least for now. All the while, Lula remains popular by comparison, and is still expected to be a player in the next election.

Sadly, Canada has not seen a single resignation. Tuesday morning, Justice Gomery will finally publish his preliminary report. So the time for honourable resignations has already passed. Instead, Liberal politicians in Canada are will be partying this weekend, celebrating the launching of a book written by the Minister once sent to clean things up in Public Works after Alfonso Gagliano, but who instead ended up, quite literally, sleeping in the bed of one of the advertisement executives in Quebec for a weekend. From kitchen, to Cabinet, to other people’s beds.

Brazil has not always been a bastion of democratic values, but evidently it now deals with its corrupting aspects of politics in a more honourable and dignified manner.

For the next few days and weeks, Nicaragua will be distracted from the political storms that have been moving through it. The source of the distraction will be the power of yet another natural storm, Hurricane Beta.

The last time the country was severely hit by a hurricane was Gilbert in 1988. In its path of destruction, Gilbert flattened and flooded significant portions of the northern and north-eastern infrastructure, and took thousands of lives, left even many more homeless. Hundreds of millions in aid poured in from the international community, and it all disappeared into a black hole of corruption. The same black hole of corruption that later provoked the indictment of former president Arnoldo Aleman. Aleman is now out of prison and allied with the other half of the Nicaraguan kleptocracy, the Sandinistas, captained by the former dictator Daniel Ortega.

If History in Nicaragua is any indication of what’s to come, aid will pour in and disappear at the hands of the unholy alliance between Sandinistas and Arnoldistas. They have a lock on power, and have the government of Enrique Bolanos tied up in knots, powerless.

Droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes, disease, foreign occupations, civil war, and murdering dictators dot the country’s history since the early days of the Conquest, and their effect has grown larger and more frequent since the middle of the nineteenth century. All have contributed to the resilience of Nicaraguans; they have also contributed to its people’s resignation, to a sense of never-ending tragedy.

Beta will carve its own path of destruction but will soon move on. The political storms blown in by Sandinistas and Arnoldistas will endure. Their presence seems to have no end in sight, and the international community can’t do anything about them.

La «petite reine» noire du Canada est en France. So reads a Le Figaro’s headline yesterday. Rideau Hall’s spinning machine is doing an excellent job. Reading the piece, it would seem that Michaelle Jean’s visit to France is all about Michaelle Jean. There is brief mention that she will be going to Juno Beach. One line; that is all. Nothing about why or with whom. To be fair, that might not be Jean’s fault: it’s possible that talk about soldiers and war when it’s not to criticise the United States may be officially banned in France.

The article is about Jean, her immigrant status, her race, and her rise to notoriety. It does raise controversial issues like her separatist background, but there is no mention that she is half white. The tone is rather adoring of Michaelle Jean –good for her– with phrases like: “cette jolie princesse à   l’à ¢me vagabonde” (This pretty princess with the bohemian soul).

Now, if Jean went to France to promote awareness that Canadian aboriginals fought on the French beaches to rescue and defend that cowardly and ungrateful nation, the focus of her trip has been lost. There is not a single line about them. The “Little Black Queen” has become the centre.

There is something about hyping these Governor-General-types to the point that the goal of their position is compromised. Jean should remind her staff to try to promote Canada and Canadians, even if just as a small courtesy, at the same time as they promote her. After all, the country is paying the bills.

Crossposted to thePolitic.com

Diego Maradona, the disgraced Argentinian soccer super star, who has become a TV show host in Buenos Aires, will interview Fidel Castro. The show airs in Argentina next Monday. Castro is a former socialist idealist turned into a delusional but ruthless dictator; Maradona is a former delusional coke-head, whose brain may not have entirely recuperated from the drugs:

“For me he is a god,” Maradona said of the veteran communist leader.

Considering that Maradona used to think of himself as G-d, he seems to have made some progress. But Maradona may have traded one hallucinogen for another:

Maradona will lead a protest march against President George Bush during the upcoming Summit of Americas in Argentina.

[...]

“I cannot accept the fact (Bush) will set foot on Argentine soil,” said Maradona during a Cuban television show while meeting with Castro.

In addition to deifying Castro, as further evidence of his intellectual handicap, Maradona has referred to President Bush as an assassin (in Italian). Maradona was treated in Cuba for his drug abuse.

Recently, this blog was nominated for the SDA Blog Awards in the Best Canadian Political Blog. We came in third, far behind Sinister Thoughts and Monte Solberg. Many thanks to all those who voted for us. I just discovered that CIVITATENSIS has been nominated in My Blagh’s 2005 Canadian Blog Awards.

When I found out, I visited My Blagh and I came across a typical moonbat posting regarding the evil profits of oil companies –which is fine. But the closing of the post on the day before NEP’s 25th anniversary reads:

Pricks. I say regulate them. And to hell with Alberta if they don't like it.

Most remarkable is the “if” in the sentence, suggesting a disconnection from the reality in which Albertans live. Robert has apparently contemplated the possibility that Albertans might be delighted by, or at least be indifferent to, a second NEP.

That the NDP’s Robert would would want to seize Alberta’s wealth and banish Albertans to hell is no surprise. NDP is typically another way to say envy of what others have and have accomplished. NDP is another way of saying take Ontario’s dynamic economy and try to run it into the ground, as Bob Rae taught so exemplary. The “From Alberta according to its ability, to the RoC according to its needs” way of life is embodied in ingratitude –not to mention a little ignorance, but it also id the direct by-product of Bob Rae’s legacy to Ontario.

Albertans appreciate directness and sincerity, as Peter Rempel pointed out in the comments to Robert’s post. Robert is not really saying anything that Albertans have not realised since the United Farmer’s fought the centralist Feds for jurisdiction over natural resources. The attitude is illustrative of the notion that Alberta is and should be no more than a colony to the service of interests elsewhere in the quasi- federation, and that attitude is not exclusive to the NDP. It has been voiced by politicians and academics since and before Alberta became a province.

Beside the burning envy, the bold comment also shows the degree of comfort that the crude sentiment has reached among some political circles in central Canada. Its implications go far beyond the desire to pillage our natural resources; it betrays an acute self-awareness of the central Canadian demographic and therefore political muscle over Alberta. It underscores the precarious position of Alberta in the face a Canadian desire to abuse such power. We should be grateful to Robert for reminding Albertans, on the eve of the NEP’s silver anniversary, of their vulnerable existence in the current quasi-federal arrangement. There is no need to banish us to hell, rhowever. We already live in the federal hell that is called Canada.

CP reports that the federal Liberals will make offers to return the money that several of their party brothers in Quebec essentially stole from the public purse during the infamous AdScam activities.

The Liberal offer of reimbursement is part of the plan to soften the blow of the Gomery Inquiry’s partial report, which will be published on Tuesday morning.

That is clever idea. The Liberals could have offered to return the stolen monies long ago. The evidence, a few times corroborated in the Inquiry, that the Liberals were profiting from the illegal activity of AdScam, has been known for sometime. But they have held off to the moment of the bombshell report in order to deflect attention and to appear honest and magnanimous. Considering the level of political awareness of Canadians, the appearance of honesty and repentance may work. It seemed to have worked for David Dingwal, who promised to return the $2,000 or so that he misspent while at the head of the Royal Canadian Mint.

On the heels of damning news about contaminated water in Indian reserves across the country, Sheep River Valley residents in southern Alberta, those who live down stream from the dilapidated Turner Valley Gas Plant, may be growing concerned by news of possible contaminants in the river.

Federal and provincial environment officials are investigating whether a historic gas plant is poisoning the Sheep River in southern Alberta.

The province has long been testing water by the Turner Valley Gas Plant, which closed in 1985.

The site is contaminated but there has been no sign of toxic levels of pollutants in the water.

Environment Canada decided recently to do its own tests, and spokesman Ryan Levitt says there are reasonable grounds to believe the Fisheries Act may have been broken. (Calgary Herald)

Thousands of people in Black Diamond and Okotoks are down stream from the Plant. Alberta Environment has been monitoring the river for sometime and more so since the flooding this past spring. The involvement of Environment Canada seems like an escalation.

Environment Canada’s site does not offer any information about the news reported here. From this report, it seems the feds are more concerned about fish than they would be about people.

Ryan Levitt, the Enforcement Officer at Environment Canada mentioned in the news report can be contacted at this Edmonton number (780) 951-8631

From the Edmonton Journal’s Alberta news round up.

A Calgary activist who made headlines for pieing Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has now been found guilty of disturbing a Christian dinner party.

Provincial court Judge Bruce Fraser has ordered Christopher Peter Geoghegan to pay $500 to the Concerned Christians Coalition.

He and other protesters from a group called the Gay Militia crashed the dinner and yelled obscenities while the main speaker was on stage.

Geoghegan was ordered to serve a 30-day intermittent jail sentence in 2003 for throwing a pie in Klein’s face at a Stampede breakfast.

Trying to emulate a practice revived by Ronald Reagan, Paul Martin will take to the radio waves tomorrow. The buzz is that Martin is expected to address the softwood lumber issue –and likely further endanger Alberta’s oil exports to the United States in the process. Mostly, however,

The decision to take to the airwaves comes on the verge of …[the Gomery] report that is widely expected to blame key Liberals and senior bureaucrats for a scandal that funnelled millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money into Liberal coffers.

Two days before Gomery makes his report public, Martin will use the radio time to attack the United States and to distract Canadians with the trade dispute, away from the fraud, theft and electoral fraud in which his party engaged in Quebec for several years. Mr. Dithers’ infomercials will be paid by the Liberal party of Canada –which in effect means that taxpayers will pay for them considering the Liberal sacking of the federal purse.

Via Rempelia Prime comes a website constructed by Asad Raza, M.D., an immigrant to Canada, NotCanada.com. The site makes claims of false promises made to would-be immigrants to Canada by federal officials, and shows a particular bitterness in the experience of coming to this country.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau must be spinning in his grave; part of his social legacy has been placed at risk by Justice Pat Flynn of the Ontario Superior Court.

I am referring to the sentencing yesterday on an incestuous mother-and-son couple (subscription required) in Kitchener, Ontario. The pair in question were sexually involved for many years, and their illicit encounters that began when the boy was 15 years old produced three children. The son was a father to his own three siblings; the mother was a mother to her three grand-children.

The sentencing judge was appalled by the events and their unfolding, by the tales of elaborate lies and the apparent lack of remorse of the mother, who liked to pretend being an African Empress. Judge Flynn called it a “manifestation of evil and corruption, totally [even judges totally speak like teens now] contemptuous of the rules of society.”

I can’t help to notice the apparent inconsistencies of Liberal (and liberal) thinking in this regard. According to Pierre Trudeau, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” The singling out of bedrooms is, of course, rhetorical, but it does drive the point about privacy. Just in case anyone missed what he meant, Trudeau went on: “what’s done in private between [consenting] adults doesn’t concern the Criminal Code.” Thanks in part to Rosalie Abella, formerly of the Ontario Superior Court and now a newly minted Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada thanks to Paul Martin, the age of consent for sexual relations remains at 14 years old.

But Trudeau was talking about homosexuality, not incest. And so was Abella. True, but was not homosexuality a taboo a scarce three years ago when the House passed a resolution upholding the ancient structure of marriage. Most Liberals backed the resolution. That was when Liberals had not seen the light and evolved politically, however. But they now claim to have evolved. That’s how they can see clear through the homosexual marriage issue, they say. All others are unevolved, and therefore in darkness.

As an evolved (enlightened) political class, when will Liberals see clear about the rest of things taboo? The Ontario incest case clearly meets Trudeau’s requirement of home privacy and ability to consent. Judge Flynn’s words make it clear that she is no Trudeauite Liberal –which means that she will not make it to the Supreme Court or end up working for international tribunals any time soon. But the Liberal government of Paul Martin, Jack Layton and his storming troops, the gay lobby and so forth, are. Will they now come to the rescue of the African victims of the State?

This is a first! Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has given the green light to US officials to enter Cuba in order to assess recent damage by hurricane Wilma. The assessments will likely trigger American aid to the Communist island.

“Cuba has not solicited international aid,” Castro said Thursday on Cuban television. “It shares, however, the point of view” that countries in the region should “provide each other with mutual assistance in situations of disaster.”

Lysianne Gagnon seems to think that PQ members are being sexist for putting Andre Boisclair consistently ahead of Pauline Marois, a female candidate in the Parti Quebecois leadership race.

Boisclair is a 39-year-old former junior cabinet minister with minimal academic credentials who never held a job outside politics (he dropped out of a BA program in economics to run for office at 23). His performance as a minister was fine but not stellar. A few weeks ago, he admitted having snorted cocaine while he was a cabinet minister — something that shows an appalling lack of judgment. Yet, he might end up winning the race because he is handsome, smart and fit, and because he projects an image of youth in a party of aging baby boomers.

Gagnon then turns her attention to Marois:

She has impeccable academic credentials: a BA in social work and an MBA from Montreal’s leading business school. She worked for a decade in the “real world” before entering politics. Her experience as a politician is exhaustive: She held 11 portfolios, including the most important (education, health and finance) without making a single major gaffe, and often served as deputy premier. She is credited with several progressive initiatives (notably a comprehensive and affordable public daycare system and the long-overdue secularization of the province’s school boards). She also managed to bring up four children.

Still, PQ members do not seem to be warming up to Marois, and have so far thrown their support behind the former coke user instead. Could it be possible that a woman is excluded in the land of progressive politics?

Perhaps one can shame the progressives into voting for Marois by telling them that they are being sexist.

Ten years to the day that thousands of Canadians poured into Montreal for a huge rally just before the 1995 sovereignty referendum, a dozen federalists took time out to relive the event.

After two hundred and fifty million or so misspent in AdScam, which, let us remember, the Libranos say would raise the level of support for Canada in Quebec, a dozen people show up to support the federation. Quel pays!

Much like his former pupil at Public Works, David Dingwall is now trying to deflect criticism by threatening to sue people who mention his name in vain. Is he vindicated? Exonerated? Well, that may depend who you ask. The papers report that

the audit found 0.36 per cent of the expenses were not legitimate

Apparently, that amounts to a couple of thousand dollars, or thereabouts. If it were a gambling exercise those would be excellent odds in his favour. But it is not gambling. Dingwall had said that there was nothing to reproach him. Turns out that there is.

Even after Dingwall says that he’ll repay the improperly spent amounts, there is still the case that there are improper expenses to begin with. Mistakes, lapses in judgment? Maybe. Was it Warren giving him advise along with the bring-a-prop idea? Dingwall might have been better off shedding a few tears before national cameras and claiming some bipolar condition afflicting him rather than claiming to be entitled to entitlements. There are more come-back opportunities for tearful bipolars than there are for unregistered lobbyists.

And why did Dingwall resign in such a hurry? I’d like to know.

After the two posts from yesterday, I woke up to a whole bunch of Google ads about pigs on the blog. I had to laugh. Someone will come after those in no time, if they have not already.

On some reflection, this pig business is becoming a serious issue. Considering the trend, it’s not just isolated stupidity.

In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the initially well-meaning pigs head the rebellion against the farmer, oust the humans from the farm, and soon establish a dictatorship that inflicts far greater oppression on the animals than the humans ever did. The leading porcine tyrant in the story is named Napoleon.

It seems to me that the those who wish to make pig representations vanish from public view are very much like Orwell’s Napoleon, whether they are politicians, bankers or educators. Not just because they are trying to impose their views, but also because they have missed the point about artistic representation. The pigs in the stories stand for something else than for being pigs. They are a vehicle to some established meaning. And it is that meaning, lesson, or moral in the story which they are banning or opposing. They are opposing ideas which are far from threatening Muslims. In essence, we have pigs banning pigs.

This is not a question of religion or culture. The teachers in the Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley, UK, have not received complaints. They are simply acting on what they believe to be well-intentioned action. But the imagined offense is just that, imagined, and it does not take into account that neither Muslims or Jews in the UK are making demands to remove porcine imagery from view or discourse. But even if they were.

Lastly, Lafontaine did not write The Three Little Pigs in order to offend anyone. The message is about industry and preparedness, something about which all children and most adults would benefit in learning. The message and purpose of the story is lost in a pretension of sensibility that quickly becomes pig-headed intolerance. In the face of such well-meant tyranny, books like Animal Farm need to become required part of school curriculum, not removed from it.

Last week Lost Budgie wrote about the assault on poor Piglet in Britain because some Muslims find the image of the good natured porcine offensive.

Dudley Council members in Britain had previously banned toy pigs and other pig-related items in municipal offices as a result of a single complaint from a Muslim. Among the banned items were piggy banks, novelty pig calendars and a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

Now, some British banks have joined in on the silliness, doing away with piggy banks, citing the same reason.

We may be yet to see the limits of this nonsense. Will they remove from the schools and public libraries George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Aesop’s The Sheep and the Pig and The Farmer and the Pig or will they also pick on Lafontaine’s Les trois petits cochons (The Three Little Pigs)? Will Babe be fried out of video stores? If these are actions taken on what is essentially a representation of a pig, what extremes should we expect in the foreseeable future when it comes to the real animal? Will the Dudley politicians ban the sale of bacon and chorizos in their jurisdiction? Will footballs stop being sold? Will the enlightened Dudley rulers have check points to make sure no pigs come into town?

On the plus side of things, maybe the federal Liberals in Canada will catch on and outlaw pork barrelling… Will Pierre Pettigrew stop piggy-backing Bruno Labonte, his chauffeur, on trips abroad? As the Yiddish expression goes, “A chazer bleibt a chazer.”

Interestingly, Judaism also considers pigs to be unclean animals, but there has been, to my knowledge, no mention of respect for Jews among the pig-banning, self-flagellating Brits. If only Ms. Piggy were around, she would set them all straight.

UPDATE: Banning the piggy-related literature has already begun. Read it here via Damian and Derbyshire. Derbbyshire may have been kidding yesterday. But I am not.

The end of an era approaches as Alan Greenspan is set to retire from the Chairmanship of the US Federal Reserve at the end of this year. The legendary Greenspan has been Chair of the Reserve for eighteen years. His replacement has been named: Ben Bernanke. Bernanke is a Harvard and MIT graduate who taught economics at Princeton, and later became a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Since June of this year, Bernanke has been a member of the Council of Economic Advisers to President Bush.

Reports say that the markets are reacting favourably. Greenspan himself, has praised the presidential appointment. Bernanke awaits Senate confirmation.

On this day in 1415 (just a decade short of 600 years ago), an army of 5,000 tired English soldiers marching on French soil under the command of Henry V came under attack by more than 20,000 French troops. Henry and his ragged troop prevailed and defeated the French against impossible odds. The battle is known as the Battle of Agincourt, after a castle nearby.

William Shakespeare celebrated (and immortalised) it in his Henry V:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then, shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
–Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester–
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Here you can listen to a clip of Kennet Brannagh playing the young King Henry (RealAudio required) by going here.

In a province where it has become quite vogue for politicians to admit to doing drugs, shooting, sniffing and inhaling, Lucien Bouchard bucks the trend and swears to be pure as Ungava snow.

Mr. Bouchard told the TVA hosts that he had never taken illegal drugs, or even legal drugs.

“I never smoked a cigarette in my life,” he said.

He’s not a politician anymore, you’ll say. It’s hard to tell these days.

I was browsing through the web reading different news from around Alberta when suddenly, I saw an earth-shattering headline. I got excited right away: “Funding Confirmed for Expansion of Fire Wall.” Holy bovine, I thought. We’re going ahead with the Firewall and there is funding for it! Many things rushed through my head in the nanosecond (or was it a femtosecond?) that it took to move to the body of the piece. Way to go, Ralph! How will the feds react? How much funding? What’s the actual plan? What will Jim Dinning do now? This will be Ralph’s single most controversial policy/legacy…

This is the part that is most fun about being dyslexic and seeing letters in different order sometimes. On ocassion, you get momentarily to live in a world of fantasy. Happily, reality sets in a bit later. After I read the headline, the first line in the article was disappointing, even if I’m glad now that Wetaskiwin is expanding its fire hall! Some days, it’s just a roller-coaster ride… I’ll have to create a “separate reality” category in this blog.

Here is the article:

Funding confirmed for expansion to fire hall

Times Advertiser Staff
Monday October 24, 2005

Wetaskiwin Times Advertiser - The county, city and Wetaskiwin fire society have been given funds to go ahead with the expansion of the city's fire hall.
The three groups banded together to request a municipal sponsorship grant of $500,000 for an addition to the city's existing hall.

"We applied for this funding with the city. We asked for $500,000 and we have received $420,000, so the program will move forward," county administrator Frank Coutney told councillors.

The grant included a 25 per cent intermunicipal bonus for the partnership between the municipalities.

Coutney said one of the next steps will be to set up a committee.
Council will address who will represent the county at a later date.

Baby boomers have wrecked a great deal of the world in which we live. Consumerism and the sexual revolution are just two aspects of it. Now they threaten to destroy a great deal of the next generation, their own children.

A not-so-new phenomenon, which people have identified as “helicopter parent,” is growing in North American universities. The name reflects “our perception that many parents are seemingly hovering continuously over their students’ lives.” There are reports of mothers coming to campus to speak for their children (sometimes the students are in the room and sometimes not), to choose and register them in their classes, to clean their dorms, and to do their laundry and their groceries. Many call students four or five times a day on the parent-provided cell phones, prepare their to-do lists, follow their scheduled appointments, labs, exams, papers and so on. Many insist on checking their children’s homework. In some instances, parents are insisting directly to deal with professors and school administrators. In others, they are providing wake-up calls every morning to make sure that their kids go to classes.

The growing phenomenon is forcing universities to hire staff to deal with the intrusive parents, some of which include distraction programs during registration and orientation activities. The point is to try to have the students make their own decisions, but universities do not always win the battle.

The over-protectiveness is having an impact on students and campus life. Often, the young students welcome the extra help from parents, and see nothing wrong with the ultra active parental participation:

Campus officials say they’re seeing a growing number of freshmen lacking basic skills — negotiating for what they need, getting along with others in a shared space, using common sense to stay safe, and solving their own problems.

Stating the obvious, experts believe that

children are being coddled and protected to a degree that threatens their ability later in life to strike off on their own and form healthy relationships and proper job skills

They advise parents:

You’re too obsessed with your children. You treat them like little princes and princesses — like they’re No. 1, like they’re MVPs. You’ve painstakingly planned their lives from their first play date to their first day of college.

The impact of the phenomenon will go further than the university campus. It’s more than likely to spill over into careers and professional activities, as parents raise a generation of inept and dependent young adults. And even if parents find means to let go by that time students graduate, the damage may well have been done by then.

Echo boomers have also grown used to a significant amount of protectiveness from the regulations of an over-active state:

Echo boomers are the most watched-over generation in history. Most have never ridden a bike without a helmet, ridden in a car without a seat belt, or eaten in a cafeteria that serves peanut butter.

What will happen when these people, as adults, have to take care of their own children? What about when they have to care for their parents? Unable to do so, they may create a significant demand for public services which are already expected to tax resources as the ageing boomers reach more and more enfeebled conditions. Likely, most likely, these echo boomers, as they are called, will expect the state to do for them what mummy and daddy used to do. They’ll probably go from the depency of their parents to a greater reliance on state programs and bureacracies.

Considering that many of them are unable to book a reservation at a restaurant themselves, there may be little worry that they will organise to make too many demands. But the state, especially in countries such as Canada, will seize the opportunity to curry their electoral favour by providing special programs to help them out. Parties will shape their platforms to assist them and will probably not resist the temptation to create ways to raise funds out of them.

Sadly, the generation that defied political and social authority and turned the world upside down four decades ago, is now raising a portion of a generation of incompetent victims, who in one way or another, unless there are drastic changes, will become wards of the state.

The echo-boomer cohort will be well educated and refined. They are more accustomed to comfort than their parents were but they are more conforming and more deferent. So not all is bad news about them:

And you can already see some results. Violent crime among teenagers is down 60 to 70 percent. The use of tobacco and alcohol are at all-time lows. So is teen pregnancy. Five out of 10 echo boomers say they trust the government, and virtually all of them trust mom and dad.

Their dependency does not herald strong individuals. Luckily, they are not as numerous as their parents. But their presence and unengaging attitude will likely not advance levels of already-sagging political participation.

Over at Shamrocks, Patrick wonders about further expenses of the former Mint Prince and now Earl of Entitlements, David Dingwall. Warren Kinsella’s former boss is said to have expensed a massage in Bangkok for a sum of money well above market value for regular massages in the sinful city. So he wonders…. here.

I have one problem with raising this kind of question. Having been grilled about expensing chewing gum, Dingwall brought gum to the Commons committee and flapped his arms holding a pack before the committee and the cameras. I cringe just thinking about what sort of “massage” props one could marshal along to the committee to remain consistently on theme.

Hoping for a harvesting world record, farmers from around Winkler, Manitoba, also expect to be able to send many children in India to camps with the proceeds.

A group of Manitoba farmers are hoping to get into the record books by harvesting a quarter-section of wheat in under 15 minutes and 43 seconds, a time set in Alberta seven years ago.

Dozens of combines will converge on a single farm in the Winkler area on August 5, 2006 hoping to best the current Westlock record-holders, who used 64 combines in 1998.

Concerns over a potential outbreak of avian flu have cancelled an international poultry and exotic bird show at next month’s big agriculture fair in Alberta.

The cancellation of the Edmonton poultry and fowl show is truly a missed opportunity. Last week the presence in Edmonton of worrisome apple maggots from Eastern Canada was announced. All those chicks and all those maggots together would have been a perfect fit.

As usual, Solberg nails it with his humour. Here is his reaction to Dingwall’s appearance in front of the Commons committee.

When Mr. Dingwall said that he was entitled to his entitlement I thought it to be a circular argument. I thought it was a wonderful example of begging the question. I knew it was a ridiculous tautology, but I now see that I was the one who was ridiculous. Not only is he entitled to his entitlement, he’s also entitled to your entitlement! Unfortunately he’s not entitled to my entitlement, but if he was I would gladly hand it over.

The Crown has been granted leave to appeal Paul Coffin’s ultra light sentence of two years less a day for defrauding the federal government of more than $1.5 million. Coffin was also sentenced to give public speeches about his experience in the AdScam racket. He has already given his first talk to Management students at McGill University.