Graspingly Unseemly

"Justin's always been golden and I couldn't have been prouder of him last night [on October 19th's election as Canadian prime minister]. The whole family. It's a blessing to me and Justin my goodness."
"It's a tremendous victory for Canadian people."
Margaret Trudeau, former wife of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, mother of Justin Trudeau

Speaker, Celebrity -- Speakers' Spotlight

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From a proud mother's point of view, one more than tinged with egotism on her own part, let alone pointed pride of a son's accomplishment in using his famous name as scion of a former prime minister to advantage in rallying the Canadian public to wax nostalgic and respond to what to some must have seemed like an alluring whisper of royal privilege in ascension, it may well have been a blessing to her son and herself. As for being a 'tremendous victory' for Canada, that is yet to be seen.

There are many Canadians who cringe at the very thought of this man representing them on the world stage, let alone administering the internal affairs of the country in a responsible way. Intimations of the awkward yet oblivious dilettante were obvious before the election and are surfacing post-election. And as far as comportment is concerned, there seems much to be desired, in the ebullient touchy-feely mannerisms of this man who sees nothing awry during the solemn ceremony of remembrance of Canada's military sacrifices during world wars, to indulge in passionate kisses with his comely wife.

This fellow, who now occupies the position of prime minister has an obvious eye to self-aggrandizement, and it is a penchant that appears to have been handed down genetically from mother to son. His academic prowess went so far as to fit him for the position of a drama teacher at a private school in British Columbia. With that far-reaching experience he considered himself fit to sit behind the desk of a prime minister...and enough Canadians agreed with him to elect him to that post.

Previous to achieving the pinnacle of that entitled desire, he hired himself out as a public speaker, although why anyone might want to hear anything the golden-spooned Dauphin might utter, given his proven foot-in-mouth disease is a puzzle. Once elected as a member of Parliament, he continued to take speaking engagements, a fairly tawdry performance for someone paid as a lawmaker full-time, but speaking before charitable and educational organizations for personal profit.

Now it is his mother who stands to profit from speaking engagements as the mother of the current Prime Minister of Canada. She too uses the Trudeau name, despite subsequent marriages, after her awkward and hugely embarrassing-for-Canada behaviour while the-then prime minister's wife. This is a woman who far more recently hired a high-priced lawyer to free her from charges of drunk driving; one law for the ordinary person, another for the well-heeled social elite who inherited wealth from her industrialist father and her former husbands, three in number.

This peculiar attachment to public display for profit appears to run like an unfortunate virus through the family, with another of Ms. Trudeau's sons also registered as a speaker with the very same bureau that promoted First Son and herself as well. In the words of the Speakers' Spotlight listing, praise is heaped upon this woman as a "Celebrated Canadian/Mental Health Advocate". Her claim to a mental health affliction has been useful throughout her life as an excuse for her rather unorthodox behaviour.

The ghastly phrase they use: "From becoming a prime minister's wife at a young age, to the loss of both her son and her former husband, to living with bi-polar disorder, Margaret tirelessly shares her personal stories to remind others of the importance of nurturing the body, mind and spirit", rather gilding the lily, but then -- that's business.

"Zionist" Olive Trees in Turkey by Burak Bekdil November 16, 2014 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4880/zionist-olive-trees-turkey "Islamic state in Palestine in place of Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel." — Hamas Charter. Turkey's supreme court declared the olive grove to be "under state protection," after it was totally destroyed. Some Turks are prepared to hate even olive trees because "they are Jewish." Islamists often come in two flavors: Those who would decapitate an infidel, take out his heart and eat it in front of cameras, like the jihadists in Syria; and those who have the same sentiments and goals but pursue smarter means to Islamize the whole universe through "de jure" methods, including the ballot box. Turkey's leaders fall into the second category, but some Turks these days feature a third flavor: Non-Violent Idiocy. Hamas's infamous charter, proclaimed in 1988, is a must-read for self-declared Western intellectuals who tend to "angelize" the terrorist group in order, often, to reinforce their own intellectual identities. The charter (or the Covenant) calls for the eventual creation of an "Islamic state in Palestine in place of Israel and the Palestinian territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel." It goes on by outlining Hamas's mission as: "The only way to engage in this struggle between the truth and falsehood is through Islam and by means of Jihad until victory or martyrdom." Here, obviously, "victory is killing the last Jew on earth; and martyrdom is getting killed by Jews [or Muslims of rival sects]." In one particularly tragicomic passage, the charter defines "our struggle against the Jews" as "very great and very serious" It goes on to say: "The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews [and kill them]; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees which will cry: O Muslims! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." Apparently, some people take Hamas's prophecy literally. Last May, Muhammad al-Zoghbi, an Egyptian cleric, said in a television interview that "not a single Jew will remain on the face of this earth." When asked by his interviewer if the section about speaking trees and stones was an allegorical expression, al-Zoghbi replied: "Whoever says this is an allegory is wrong. The trees will actually talk. And the walls as well." Apparently, some Turks have brought a totally unexpected dimension into the Islamic debate over the trees that will point to the last living Jews on earth. Despite a dubious source, a campaign ad circulating popularly in Turkish social media calls for a boycott against olive trees. Why? Read the campaign text: "Shortly before the Day of Judgment, Muslims and Jews will fight a war. Eventually, Muslims will defeat the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the trees but the trees will betray them to the Muslims. But the olive trees will not. Because the olive tree is a Jewish tree. Today Israel encourages olive plantations in many countries. Because Jews know that olive trees will protect them. Israel has tried to prevent the uprooting of olive trees in Turkey. But our government, despite a court order that banned the uprooting, went ahead and foiled Israel's plans. In Turkey all olive trees should be uprooted within the next three years. That way we'll give a big blow to Israel. Our nation should join the campaign and do its part by not consuming olives." That is the text. It invites everyone to join the campaign by visiting the hashtag "#zeytinalmiyoruz (We are not buying olives)." In conspiratorial thinking, the campaign may be the work of anti-Islamists who are trying to ridicule the Islamists. Regardless of whoever is behind the campaign, some pro-government Turks have already joined it, with tweets that demonize olives and olive trees. Can countries go insane? If, in the Islamic thinking, Muslims will defeat Jews in the war before the Day of Judgment, why fight olive trees now? Why are olive trees Zionist trees and other trees are not? Will Muslims lose the war if olive trees do not betray the hiding Jews? If so, why is there a prophecy that says Muslims will win the war? Such questions of reason can be endlessly multiplied only to remain unanswered in a country where reason is being systematically defeated by Islamist bigotry. That is what goes on in the virtual world. But in the real world, in the early hours of Nov. 7, six thousand olive trees that were 85 to 100 years old were cut down in Yırca, a village in western Turkey, despite 52 days of resistance by olive growers. The Turkish government had decided to expropriate the land and give it to a government-friendly business conglomerate, the Kolin Group, which would build an electricity-generation plant there. The villagers appealed to the Council of State for a reversal of the cabinet decree and had been waiting since then. The uprooted olive trees of Yırca, Turkey, on November 7, 2014. (Image source: Greenpeace Turkey) On Nov. 7, Kolin's army of private security guards did not wait for the court verdict. They violently dispersed the villagers guarding the fields, and opened the way for the bulldozers that uprooted the 6000 olive trees. Ten hours later, the supreme court ruled the expropriation and the construction of the power plant illegal. It also declared the olive grove to be "under state protection," after it was totally destroyed. On Nov. 11, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said: "[the Turkish soil] is full of olive trees. But Turkey needs energy too." There are allegations that the court ruling had been leaked to the Kolin Group, prompting it to order an immediate uprooting of the trees before the verdict was announced. Security guards confessed that they were ordered to clear the grove of villagers in return for pay rises and other benefits. Apparently, Kolin did not destroy an otherwise fertile olive grove in agreement with the "olive-trees-are-Jewish" campaign. The company must have behaved from more corporate motives, no matter how unethical and illegal. It just does not change the fact that some Turks are prepared to hate even olive trees because "they are Jewish." Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Transport Personnel

Smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac-Magantic, Que., Saturday, July 6, 2013. Three people will appear in court later Tuesday in Lac-Megantic, Que., to face charges of criminal negligence causing death stemming from one of the deadliest rail disasters in Canadian history. The Crown announced late Monday that Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway Ltd. and three employees of the insolvent railway will each face 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Last year a shipment of highly explosive crude oil derailed and exploded in a little railway town in Quebec called Lac-Megantic. A horrible conflagration resulted, destroying half the downtown centre of the town. A tragedy of formidable proportions left the town residents in a state of shock, with the realization that there were 47 of their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, neighbours whom they would never again see in this lifetime.

A succession of careless personal decision-making on the part of employees of the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic railway and institutional disinterest in instituting a fail-safe formula of safety procedures, along with inadequate investment in more soundly structured rail cars to handle the highly flammable crude oil brought this tragedy on Lac-Megantic.

Though the disaster, when 72 tank cars of a runaway train caused the dreadful impact on July 6, 2013, has simmered for many months, it is only now that Quebec Crown prosecutors have brought 47 counts of criminal negligence against the single engineer in charge of the train who decided to leave it on a siding, facing a downhill slope, without an adequately assured braking system.

Two other railway employees were also placed under arrest with similar charges brought against them. The tragedy that night began when a fire was noticed on the engine, and the two men responsible for the train at a town close by Lac-Megantic where it was parked, absent the engineer who had taken himself to bed for the night, responded, put out the fire, and decided it was safe to leave it where it had been parked, unattended, still on that downhill slope.

The rest is tragic history, as the inadequate braking system that was not entirely engaged to begin with, failed and the unmanned train rolled down the incline into Lac-Megantic, derailing as it reached the town centre, some of its cars exploding into chemical-induced flames, turning the sleepy little town into a vision of Hell.

Contrast that with the responsible, quick-thinking reaction of a bus driver in Yibin, Sichuan whose bus burst into flames, who remained on his bus and whose actions saved the lives of his passengers. Xiao Kunming used a fire extinguisher on the flames, he smashed a window with a safety hammer to create an exit, helping passengers leave the conflagration.

Badly injured himself, he is now being treated in hospital. There were not only witnesses to the event, but a video was filmed by the camera system on the bus. Twelve people are in intensive care, out of the 77 who received injuries. The man who died, 51, is suspected of having set the blaze.

In the former instance, many in the town of Lac-Megantic feel some sympathy for the three rail employees who were arrested, charged and taken in for a lengthy, close questioning lasting many hours. The shocked rail employees had some idea that they would be called to account, but they had no indication when they might be taken into custody and appear to be in a state of shock.

"There are certainly other people. When you let a railway deteriorate like [MMA] did, there are other people responsible", commented the mother of one of the young men who had died that fateful night in Lac-Megantic. Specifically, the townspeople feel that the one person who should be found responsible for everything wrong that happened was the owner of the now-bankrupt railway, Edward Burkhardt, whose reaction to the disaster left an aura of resentment within the town.

Reuters  The site of a bus fire in Yibin, China, was cordoned off on Monday. One man died and 77 people, including rescue workers, were injured in the blaze.

 

In the latter instance, one courageous man's actions when faced with a disaster not of his making led to the rescue of many people who, though injured, will live to see another day. His actions were a credit to his own sense of place and time and responsibility. His actions heroic, in an entirely unpredictable situation, but falling within his sphere of operation and responsibility, as he saw it.

Toronto's Notoriety

Toronto The Good no longer. Choose a no-goodnik mayor and that's what happens. It hasn't been the first time that Torontonians have been zany enough to elect, and more than once, a mayor who was fairly wacko; there was Mel Lastman and in his time as mayor one could be forgiven for thinking that Toronto had hit rock-bottom. He garnered his very own share of gasping headlines between his antics and those of his wife.

But Mayor Rob Ford is in a class all of his very own. And just as Mayor Lastman was elected and re-elected, so too would Torontonians, despite the inglorious basterd that Mr. Ford turned out to be, re-elect him, given the opportunity, according to polls identifying the loyalty of "Ford Nation", heaven help us all. People who think of him as a ordinary person with a good heart and a canny political eye, but hindered by a few excusable faults similar to those that many others grapple with.

Mayor Rob Ford watches TV coverage after documents were released on Dec. 4, 2013. (Michael Peake/Toronto Sun)

It's questionable whether these people fully weigh the gravity of the absurdities committed by the man. They like the swaggering bully that they see, and they relate to him as a man who will not back down from his 'unfair' detractors who are just slavering at the opportunity to swing those left-wingers back into the mayor's office, so they can spend, spend, spend the poor taxpayer's money needlessly, flagrantly.

As though the pick-pocket mindlessness of the provincial Liberals isn't taxing enough.

One can recognize that with some sympathy. But consider the man; a lewd loud-mouth, a blustering fool of a man, spoiling for a juvenile show-down with those whose views of his actions and his character he resents, though his own mother must shrink in dismay at the very sight of his overwhelming stupidity. She has allegedly called upon him to seek medical help.

That might help with his drug and alcohol addictions, but won't do a thing for his incurable terminal stupidity, alas. And one can throw his brother in to make it a double-special. Consorting with known criminals and obvious low-lifes, including drug pushers and special-category prostitutes, all of whom prey on society and conduct themselves as entitled to their way of life, as predators living off city welfare.

The police investigation into the activities of members of the Dixon City Bloods where monitoring of the cellphones of 59 "principal known persons", revealed so many references to Mayor Ford it would have been impossible for investigators to bypass the obvious links and the less obvious but perceived criminal activities of the Toronto mayor.

Rob Ford's public displays of boorishness, his sexist behavior, and his errant public drunkenness has done much to put Toronto on the celebrity map. With every new revelation about his incredibly inane behaviour and his associations, gossip columns, Twitter comments, TV talk show hosts and comedians find more than ample material to feed the public hunger for conspicuous idiocy.

Obama delays Syria strike indefinitely by turning decision over to Congress

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 31, 2013, 10:04 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Barack Obama,  Syria,  US military action,  chemical weapons,  Tomahawk cruise missiles,  Binyamin Netanyahu,

Confounding tense expectations worldwide, US President Barack Obama again dodged a decision for a US strike on Syria by referring it to Congress. In a speech to the American people, Saturday, Aug. 31, he said the use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad must be “confronted not just investigated.” But then went on to say, “We are ready to strike whenever we choose. This operation is not time-sensitive. It could take place tomorrow, next week, or next month.

The US House Speaker meanwhile set Sept. 9 as the date for the debate to start.

By these words, the US president chipped away once again at US military plans for Syria - only this time, they looked like vanishing into the blue yonder, leaving Assad and his partners all the time in the world to line up their counter moves, and putting Israel in a tight spot on three counts:

1.  The hostile Iran-Syrian-Hizballah bloc comes out strengthened;

2.  Tehran can feel free to develop a nuclear bomb without fear of resolute US interference;

3.  Hizballah can celebrate its backing for the winning horse in Damascus.

4.  Binyamin Netanyahu’s six-year old policy, which was oriented on engendering understanding with Barack Obama, is in ruins, although it was endorsed by Israel’s defense ministers on the assumption that it was in the interests of national security.

As we reported earlier, President Obama confirmed Friday night that the forthcoming US military attack on Syria would be “limited” and “narrow” and not open-ended, in a  bid to avoid the risk of America being mired in the Syrian civil war.

DEBKA Weekly’s analysts calculated Thursday that by forgoing an air assault and relegating his projected military operation against Syria solely to seaborne Tomahawk cruise missiles - limited to 15 launches - the US president relinquished America’s “penetration and destruction” capabilities – depending of course on his sticking to this plan and not expanding its scope at the last minute.

The Tomahawk cruise missile has a range of 2,500 kms, weighs 450 kilos and can be fired from the five US destroyers and the four US nuclear submarines waiting in the eastern Mediterranean for orders to go.

However powerful, the exclusive use of this type of missile means that Washington has a priori sacrificed the following military objectives:

1. Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles will remain intact. The Tomahawks can damage surface structures at the bases hosting them, but not penetrate their underground storage sites.
Assad will be left in full possession of his CW arsenal.

2. Neither can Tomahawks alone cripple the Syrian Air Force or shut down its bases. They could damage runways, but only for the hours or days it would take to repair them.

DEBKA Weekly's military sources say that the Syria air force is left with six air bases still operational, out of a total of thirty. A heavier and larger missile onslaught than the limited assault planned could have destroyed them all, given the Syrian rebels a huge advantage and opened the way for a plan to impose no-fly zones over Syrian air space.
But Obama clearly chose to discard those options.

By delaying his go-ahead on military action against Syria, he gave the Assad regime time to tuck most of its air force bombers and attack helicopters away in fortified hangars early this week, safe from attack. As the hours slipped by with US action, the Syrian ruler’s self-confidence mounted.

3. Syrian missiles have likewise been hidden in underground bunkers. They include the Scud C and D missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

4. The big Syrian field command centers will also escape unscathed, although DEBKA Weekly’s military sources report that many of them figure as large as strategic assets on the list of targets which the Pentagon and US military chiefs originally put before the president.

Among them were the command and control centers of the Syrian army’s 4th Division and Republican Guard Division, which protect Bashar Assad and bolster his regime's hold on power.
It is not clear if the military command centers of Homs, Hama, Tartus, Latakia, the Aleppo area and Idlib remain on the final list.

Striking those targets would have shut down the Syrian military command system and seriously disrupted its operational capabilities.

A second list of 35 strategic targets was handed to President Obama by Syrian rebel commander Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, according to our sources. Their destruction was described as vital. However, not a single item on the list was approved by the president, the Pentagon on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, reflecting the distrust and disconnect prevailing between the US administration and military, and the Syrian rebel leadership.

5. Our sources say that the US military to-do list for Syria covers army artillery units, some of which participated in the chemical weapons launch of August 21 against eastern Damascus; local command and communications centers; and research institutes involved in the development and upgrade of Syrian chemical weapons.

This heavily pruned US operation, if it goes through, will leave Syrian President Bashar Assad sitting pretty with most of his military resources intact, and his hands free to continue his barbaric war on the Syrian opposition, including the use of chemical weapons, unhindered and undeterred.

It is still possible for President Obama to have second thoughts about his low-key operational plan and decide after all to land a strategic blow on Syria.

Life's Injustices

"Driving to work on Monday August 11, 2008 several gunshots were aimed at me. A bullet entered the back of my head, another bullet entered my back shoulder and a third bullet hit my ribs. I then drove into several cars before my vehicule (sic) hit a tree."
"I suffered bad headache pain at the back of my head and neck. I had a hard time breathing, my chest was closing in on me and I had pain in my neck."
Antonio (Tony) Magi, Montreal developer

This was a thorny claim that administrators of Quebec's no-fault automobile insurance plan scratched their heads over in consideration of a claim for compensation. The claim was submitted in 2009, but the tribunal ruling issued on the case was released this year. The man in question, Mr. Magi, was in critical condition, having to spend two weeks in hospital. But he was fortunate to survive the attempted murder that took place in broad daylight.

He had been driving his Range Rover. Had stopped at a red light, on a busy west-end Montreal street. Suddenly someone approached the vehicle's driver side and fired at point-blank range. That man has never been apprehended. But Mr. Magi, 53, survived the murder attempt. And submitted a claim to the Societe de l'assurance automobile du Quebec. It was rejected. He asked for a review. That failed too. He appealed to the Tribunal administratif du Quebec.

Even the tribunal rejected the poor man's request for state compensation. The ruling quoted a 2009 medical diagnosis mentioning a skull fracture, intracerebral hemorrhage, shoulder trauma, broken ribs. And unsurprisingly, major depression. Who wouldn't be depressed, after all, having experienced such a traumatic event in their life? Knowing someone tried to kill them. Not knowing who it was. In all likelihood fearing future repeated attempts.

There had been previous similar claims that were approved for payment; a Quebecer shot while trying to escape a bandit who had accosted him in his car in Florida. Another man who had sought benefits under British Columbia's no-fault insurance for gunshot injuries sustained while desperately attempting to escape a carjacking.

Mr. Magi's wife had a shot fired at her SUV in 2011, a block from their home. A month ago a masked man armed with a gun came close to two security guards stationed outside the Magi residence, but left the scene without firing. Mr. Magi is a former business partner of Nick Rizzuto Jr. son of Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto. Rizzuto Jr. was shot dead outside Mr. Magi's offices in 2009.

"Judges tend to be influenced by the manner in which the accident happened, by the victims involved. And when the victim is not very sympathetic, it definitely doesn't help in getting a reward", caustically observed Daniel Gardner, a professor of law at Universite Laval.

Life Interrupted

Newspapers convey the news. This is what they do. And the news is always replete with stories, small and large, of human tragedy. It is a human tragedy any time a life is lost. There is always a background story of the deceased being special, with very particular, outstanding personality traits that made them so beloved of those who mourn their deaths. Every life is special, every individual has their own very authentic character. And when, as happens all too often, a car load of young people finds death together in a tragedy, that is profoundly sad.

Crews work to pull a semi out of a pond that was involved in a collision with another vehicle near Lloydminster, Sask., on Saturday, July 27 2013. (Jason Franson / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Six young people are now dead. They were friends. And they were out together on a Friday in July enjoying life. There were three boys and three girls, aged 13 to 17. On Friday afternoon they had gone together to a local gym. Later in the evening they were still together, and one of the boys telephoned his mother to inform her he was experiencing trouble with his car, a Pontiac Sunfire. His mother contacted a local gas station, asking that her son be extended credit for gas. 

 

She would stop by the following day and pay the bill. They had been at a friend's home in Lloydminster, a city close to the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, about 30 kilometres away from Marshall where they were calling from. The parents of one of the boys, 15 years of age, had agreed to an interview, despite their grief at their dreadful loss. 

 

"He was a good boy, never had to worry about him, was really never in any trouble", said the boy's mother tearfully anguished. "I didn't care as long as I knew where he was at." He had what she termed "free reign". He had proven responsible. If he was out drinking at a party he would always call his mother to come and pick him up. 

 

His father identified his fifteen-year-old boy. After unzipping the body bag that held his beloved child, he kissed him repeatedly. "I told him how much his sister and I would miss him. I couldn't leave him. I just wanted to bring him home with me. That was my little man", sobbed the boy's distraught father. But at 15 years of age, he was not a man, little or otherwise; he was a child.

 This is clearly a family that will be left to struggle with their loss for the rest of their lives. Multiply that five more times to include the other families of the other five young people whose lives were claimed in a horrible crash that left their vehicle submerged in a water-bloated ditch. Their families too will think incessantly of the smiles they miss so dreadfully, the infectuous enthusiasms, their children's future that no longer stretched before them.

RCMP received a call around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday. Evidently a semi-trailer rollover had occurred south of Lloydminster. The responders discovered the truck that had been hauling crude oil on its roof in the roadside slough. They manouvred the driver out of the truck, and discovered a teenager in the wreckage. Both were rushed to hospital. It took a little while for police to realize there were others left there, in the watery ditch.

They hadn't seen the Sunfire. It was completely submerged, completely out of sight. Then began the horrendous task of retrieving the bodies of the two other boys, and the three girls. Nor did the boy who had been taken to hospital survive his injuries. Further investigation found no alcohol in the car. The car, it appears, drove straight through a stop sign. And obviously, the driver of the semi-trailer must have desperately attempted to avert hitting the car.

Those niggling, nasty little details: six children age 13 to 17 out for the day together, having a good time presumably. Parents taking it for granted that their fifteen-year-old was perfectly capable of comporting himself well. Not turning a hair that at the age of 15 he was drinking alcohol at parties. They had taught him not to drink and drive. Youngsters 13 to 17 driving in the small morning hours.

Did none of them have parents that expected them to return home at a decent hour? Were none of those parents tearing their hair out with worry that their children were out somewhere long past midnight? Did none of them think that such young people needed discipline, structure and self-responsibility in their lives that would instruct them that they were expected to be home in bed at a certain hour?

The wreckage of a crash Lloydminster, Sask., is shown in this RCMP handout photo. Police say six people were killed after a car and a semi-tanker truck collided on Saturday morning. (RCMP)

Beware The Ordinary

"I had some personal hard days. But the main worry was how I was going to deal with my family. There was one day and one of the doctors said he heard circulation in my hand and that they were going to possibly be able to save my hand."
Christine Caron, Ottawa

Imagine the impossible. Bereft of all your limbs how would you, how could you possibly manage pedestrian things of everyday life. As a quadriplegic you would be entirely dependent on others to perform the most simple tasks that able-bodied people -- which is most people -- never give a second thought to. How would you get out of bed in the morning? Wash yourself. Prepare a meal. Earn a living. Travel anywhere. Much less look after your four children. And the home you share with them as a single mother.

Surely, at age 46, this kind of thinking would rate as bizarrely twisted. Why would anyone give something so completely unbelievable a second thought? Unless they were threatened with the loss of their legs, their arms, their clever hands. Left with a torso and all the intelligence remaining quite intact in their practical heads. You are informed, through no one's fault, that you must prepare to lose mobility, capability, independence.

Your legs and your arms must be amputated. To save your life. You might think: what life? What is there left of life if you cannot do anything but think, see, hear, and feel. And you would feel utterly dreadfully hopeless. Christine Caron was playing a tug of war game with two of her four dogs on the 18th of May. Her three-year-old Shih Tzu, manoeuvring for a better grip grazed her knuckle.

"It didn't seem like a big deal" she said in an interview. How many of us having sustained a slight injury have experienced the instant interest of our pet dogs in the site. They immediately offer to make it better, to lick the wound clean. But clean is a relative concept; the saliva on the soothing tongue that licks the blood off the wound comes complete with a bacteria common to dogs called Capnocytophaga canimorsus.

It rarely causes infection in humans. The Public Health Agency of Canada declares this type of infection to have been reported roughly 200 times worldwide since 1976. In Christine Caron's case, a few days after her knuckle was scratched by her little dog, and licked 'clean' by her three other dogs, "I went to bed on May 21 and I don't remember anything after that". For a month and a half she knew nothing, since she was in a coma.

Soon after awakening from the coma doctors informed her of the need to amputate her limbs. All four would have to be taken. But then one of the surgeons informed her they could save one of her arms, and her hand, her right hand. She is re-learning how to use that hand at the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre. "It was like a -- I don't know -- it was like the moment that I decided that this was going to be it and we were going to do it and there's no question, it has to happen."

She lost her employment with the National Research Council two years earlier, and has no private insurance to pay for the prosthetic limbs she will require, let alone the refitting of her home to accommodate her new realities. A fundraising drive has been launched on her behalf with the goal of raising $100,000.

fundrazr.com "Caring for Chris"

Canadian Criminal Activity

The immigrant quotient in criminal activity within Canada is amazingly high profile, which leads the casual observer to the conclusion that it is also reflective of a high level of criminal propensity among the offspring of immigrants to Canada. The country is afflicted by the presence of gangs of youth of Chinese extraction, of Indian and of Somalian backgrounds. And most obviously, of Arab heritage.

One family appears to stand out for the number of young men all born into the same family who have made an outstanding contribution to crime in Canada. Thugs involved in the drug trade seem to proliferate everywhere, in every country of the world, reflective of a large underbelly of society that thrives in dealing proscribed street drugs, to service the needs of recreational drug users and drug addicts alike.

A current drug kingpin has been identified as 25-year-old Rabih Alkhalil, wanted on serious criminal charges in Vancouver, Montreal and Niagara Region. Vancouver Police have accorded this man the distinction of being responsible for having ordered assassinations of rivals in his very competitive business. Determined to take tighter control of cocaine import and distribution, he ordered the commission of well-planned and executed killings.

Rabih Alkhalil is in Europe, however. Arrested in Greece in February. Toronto Police are actively engaged in working toward his extradition on charges of first-degree murder. Accused in the murder of Toronto's underworld thug Johnnie Raposo, and British Columbia gangster Sandip Durhe. In Quebec police want him as the ringleader of a massive Montreal-based drug-smuggling operation.

But here's the thing about this man Rabih Alkhalil. Born in Saudi Arabia, his family removed to Surrey, B.C. as refugees in 1990. In 2001 his brother Khalil at 19 years of age was shot to death outside his family apartment block. Two years afterward, Mahmoud, another brother, was killed in a gunfight at a Vancouver nightclub.

The Alkhalil family obviously felt that life in Vancouver was far too dangerous for their family. The parents took their sorrowing dwindling family in a cross-country move to Ottawa. Where another brother, Nabil, soon after their arrival in the city was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on a conviction of assault. On his 2005 release police caught him smuggling cocaine from Toronto.

There are two other brothers of the Alkhalil family, still believed to be living in Canada.

Much Ado About Quinoa

Quinoa (pron.: /ˈkiːnwɑː/ or /kɨˈnoʊ.ə/, Spanish: quinua, from Quechua: kinwa), a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the true grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beets, spinach and tumbleweeds.

Quinoa has been a staple for thousands of years for the people living in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Of recent vintage has been its appearance as an edible seed emulating cereal grains in North America. Where, in its incarnation as one of the 'ancient grains', it has achieved wide popularity. It represents a healthy, nutritional choice, offering helpings of lysine, calcium, phosphorus and iron.

And the shocking news out of rabbinical councils is that this seed that is not a grain is held to be non-kosher. Non-kosher, that is, for Passover. "We can't certify quinoa because it looks like a grain and people might get confused", is the scholarly opinion of the kosher division of the Orthodox Union. This critical information has dreadfully upset the orthodox Jewish community, and it has created an understandable backlash.

Many Jews, it would seem, have developed a dependency on quinoa as a grain substitute during the eight-day holiday of Passover, when leavened products are forbidden, in memory of the passage out of Egypt when Jewish slaves were liberated by Moses, and were unable to cook anything but unleavened products on the hot desert stones, baked by the burning rays of the sun. Matzoh remains the 'bread' of choice during Passover.

And it is a decidedly acquired taste. Looked on with fond appreciation by those whose childhood memories of grandparents presiding over the Passover seders imbue matzoh with special powers of blood and belonging. The memory-and-taste uninitiated can be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Does this photograph exemplify the delight someone unaccustomed to the taste evinces while eating matzoh?

Amazingly, the 7.8 million citizens of Israel eat more quinoa than all of Europe manages to do. "Perfect for Passover" recipes for Passover are available everywhere. "Listen, give me a topic in which there isn't a conflict. Since it appeared on the scene, it is seen as being absolutely kosher for Passover. It's a seed", commented Vancouver's Temple Shalom's Rabbi Philip Bregman.

The Kashrut Council of Canada, however, as the country's largest kosher certification agency, begs, officially, to differ saying only that "there are differing opinions". While a kosher-certifying agency based in Baltimore, Star K, has decided on the basis of subjecting the seed to a series of leavening tests, that it is appropriate for Passover use.

For its part, the Bible lists wheat, spelt, barley, rye and oats as grains to be avoided during Passover for those who pay attention to such trivia. However, according to Canada's Kashruth Council, not only does the seed look like the banned grains, it happens to grow on long stalks like other forbidden grains.

This nonsense is in the grand old tradition of GIMMEEABREAK!

Exacerbated Aging

We live in an aging world. In North America and in Europe, mature adults living in intimate communion in family situations are not replacing themselves. There are far fewer young people than there used to be. Seniors are far more abundant than they ever were. These countries have become dependent on immigration from countries where childbearing is still high.

The irony being, of course, that the more educated and wealthy and technologically advanced a country becomes, the lower the birth rate plunges.

Third-world countries experience no such draining of the birth rate. There the very opposite situation prevails, the demographic of the young far outweighs the elderly. As the birth rate soars and better living conditions lead to greater child survival rates, the longevity levels of the elderly also rise, but they still do not live as long as their first-world counterparts.

This, even despite the fact that the first world is suffering an epidemic of obesity, leading to life-style diseases of the mature and the young as well.

New studies have concluded that an increasing number of the elderly in North America are succumbing to various types of dementia, with Alzheimer's steadily on the rise. Part of the prevalence may be due to the fact that people are simply living longer, having enjoyed better diets, better life experiences, much improved medical attention leading to a prolonged elderly life.

Yet the studies indicate that one in three seniors now dies with Alzheimer's disease or some other type of dementia.

While we're living longer, and living more healthily, we are also becoming, due to the breakdown of the body, more susceptible to dementia. Dr. Maria Carrillo, vice president of the U.S. Alzheimer's Association calls it "exacerbated aging."  She, like the association she represents, advocates for more research and support for afflicted families. "It changes any health-care situation for a family", she says.

Figures state that 30% of 70-year-olds without Alzheimer's can expect to die before reaching 80, whereas with dementia, 61% will die before 80. In the United States, 5.2-million are estimated to have Alzheimer's or some other type of dementia. By 2050 that number is expected to rise to $13.8 million. The Alzheimer Society of Canada's estimates sit at 500,000 Canadians with dementia, with numbers doubling by 2038.

Alzheimer's can be named as an underlying cause on a death certificate when it has led to respiratory failure. Alzheimer's represents the sixth leading cause of death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even while the prevalence of Alzheimer's is seen to be rising, the CDC finds that deaths among some of the country's other top health killers like heart disease, cancer, stroke or diabetes has fallen.

There is simply no reliable, effective treatment for Alzheimer's, accounting for its rise in both incidence and death-causative. Available drugs are only capable of temporarily easing some of the symptoms of dementia. Severe dementia can make it difficult for people to move around, or to properly swallow, raising the risk of pneumonia, one of the most commonly identified causes of death among such patients.

In 2012 the Obama administration initiated a goal to find effective treatments for Alzheimer's by 2025. Funding for research was increased. Health and long-term care services are expected to total $203-billion in 2013 in the United States, rising to $1.2-trillion by 2050, should no breakthrough in successful research occur.

Gloom.

Leaving It A Better Place

"A shopping centre mall should not just fall down. We thought someone would do something before it was too late."
Doug Elliott, lawyer, Elliot Lake, Ontario

Perhaps sometimes, when it comes to the precarious situation of a community shopping complex utilized by the public and having trust, despite obvious concerns that nothing would necessarily occur to endanger themselves, it would have been far better if suspicions of awry conditions had been expressed vocally and frequently to provincial inspectors. Rather than, say, rely on the mall's owners to do the responsible thing themselves.

In this case the Algo Centre Mall's owners simply seemed to believe that no responsibility for public safety attached to them. That the brief and incomplete inspections they had ordered were sufficient unto the day. But the parking garage, located over the mall, had suffered too grievous damage over time and the incidents of decay noticed but not overly concerning were true indications of the depth of concern they should have had.

As far as design and planning are concerned why, in a place like Elliot Lake, where there is more than ample space to have a parking lot alongside the mall rather than atop it, would it have been constructed in this manner transcends the belief in human intelligence.  The constant winter conditions whereby vehicles parking over the mall bringing in salt to erode and corrode steel and concrete seemed inevitable in its conclusion.

Everyone, said lawyer Elliot, missed an obvious solution, which would have been to close off the garage to traffic. Band aid solutions, he said, were applied to the situation instead, and predictably "none of them ever worked". The leaky roof was a legacy adopted by a succession of mall owners. The last of whom, Bob Nazarian, claims to be blameless in the unfortunate collapse and death of two women.

It seems as though there is more than enough blame to go around and be generously shared among those who should have known better - including previous mall owners who seemed to wash their hands of insider knowledge and social responsibility with the change of ownership. What of commitment to the public weal of their community?

"It was the heartbeat of the community", said Roland Aube, Mr. Elliott's co-counsel. The catastrophic collapse of the roof-deck and consequent deaths of Lucie Aylwin, 37 and Doloris Perizzolo, 74, represented a dreadful loss of innocence to the one-time uranium boom town of about 13,000 residents. Once touted as a potential retirement capital of Ontario, for its natural geographic beauty and living style.

Houses were plentiful, as a result of the vanished industry, and inexpensive - and people were attracted to the possibilities of the town. The blameless owner of the mall, Bob Nazarian, appeared to ignore the leaky roof of his asset, which further deteriorated.  The enquiry currently ongoing into the tragedy may conclude that fault in addressing the possibility of just such a collapse as had occurred, is too difficult to ascribe and in so doing bypass conferring blame.

"I realize that come September, the rest of you will all be gone, and we'll be left here. I hope that you will keep mindful of the fact that Elliot Lake does need to be a better place when you leave", commented Doug Kearns meaningfully, to the inquiry. An anticipated 75 witnesses will be scheduled to address the inquiry.

And perhaps, in the final analysis, taking that admonishment seriously, no one will be held to account. Other, that is, than the outsiders whose delayed rescue effort had been aborted precipitously serving to impose a trauma of their own on the suffering town.

Confidence Men

It's an old story; have enough confidence in yourself, exude that confidence, and you convince others of your super capabilities. A facade of self-confidence can accomplish what a lack of ability cannot; the trust of others. Convincing other people that they are quite correct in sharing your confidence in yourself is not all that difficult; people are basically won over by a brisk attitude of 'can-do'. And it doesn't hurt if there is official documentation to aid the process, like an academic or professional degree.

Integrity and honesty do not necessarily accompany academic credentials and professional certainties. But when one attains a trusted position the stage for embezzlement and fraud is set, and some see no reason not to take advantage of such opportunities. There are people who conduct their professional lives in this manner, and who never get caught out, and there are those who attain a level of respect to the degree that more trust is placed in them, and they do eventually trip over their own success.

You can fool all the people all of the time, but life gives no such guarantees that you will succeed in so doing forever.

It was a tangled web of intrigue, strange connections and trust on a wide scale that elevated Arthur Porter, a medical man of some repute originally from Sierra Leone and more latterly the Bahamas, who made some very interesting business connections for himself, and ended up gaining the trust of high-level politicians. Dr. Porter achieved the post of chief executive of McGill University's hospital network, the McGill University Health Centre.

He was appointed to Canada's Security Intelligence Review Committee, and as such was privy to the country's top-secret security documents. He sat on a multitude of high-profile corporate boards, including Air Canada's corporate board for which he earned a six-figure annual director's fee. He had been appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a lifetime member of Canada's Privy Council, making him eligible to become SIRC chairman.

This man reeked privilege and prestige and trustworthiness. He led a charmed life of entitlements. But he never left his native Sierre Leone behind in his fond estimation, and was that country's "ambassador plenipotentiary".  It took a suspicious snoop of an investigative reporter to wonder how it was that a man of Dr. Porter's political, business and social standing would have a questionable relationship with a man known to be involved in shady business dealings to uncover Dr. Porter's own strange dealings.

Which eventually led to a lost of trust when it was revealed that Dr. Porter had entered into a peculiar business arrangement with a notoriously peculiar lobbyist, Ari Ben-Menashe, an Iranian-Israeli with odd business contacts including the regime of Robert Mugabe, and the Russian government. Dr. Porter's personal company, one of many, was to have taken advantage of a Ben-Menashe-brokered $120-million Russian grant to benefit Sierra Leone.

More latterly, in his position with the McGill University Health Centre which he had left under strangely clouded circumstances, owing a considerable sum of money to the MUHC, he had brokered another deal, this one with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to award the engineering firm a sizable construction contract for a superhospital in Montreal. SNC executives Pierre Duhaime and Riadh Ben Aissa have been charged with fraud.

An affadavit was issued for a warrant to search the MUHC headquarters, alleging Mr. Ben Aissa oversaw transfer of $22.5-million from SNC-Lavalin's Tunisian operation to a bank account in the name of Sierra Asset Management. Auditors could find no services performed for that payment. The RCMP laid charges of fraud, fraud against the government, breach of trust,, conspiracy and laundering the proceeds of crime.

Canada's federal Justice Department will now seek to have Dr. Porter extradited from Bermuda where he operates a range of businesses, including a cancer clinic. To which he has admitted himself, with inoperable cancer, he claims, in his defence. Dr. Porter denies any wrongdoing. He is ill, under treatment, and unavailable.

Spending Thriftily

Little wonder politicians get such low marks from the public on issues of trust. More revelations over spendthrift senators having little regard for the trust the public does or does not regard them with. And leaving the distinct impression that Senate rules to begin with are inordinately canted toward permitting its members a trifle too much leeway in declaring their entitlements.

New revelations have been unearthed about Mac Harb, a former elected Member of Parliament, selected to sit in the Senate as a recognition of his work on behalf of the public weal. Only, it appears, his enthusiasm for good public work has waned and veered off toward self-enrichment at some cost to the public taxpayer.

Validation has arisen that this real-estate magnate's assertion that his primary residence is outside the National Capital goes beyond suspect. Indeed, since he pays taxes and casts his vote in elections within the City of Ottawa, he is deemed to be living within the 100km area of the capital, and is thus ineligible for the $40,000 he has collected in living expenses reflecting maintenance of a secondary residence in Ottawa.

But then, he is not alone. Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Dennis Patterson have all been lassoed into the same pen of petty malfeasance in declaring what is evidently untrue to enrich themselves personally at the public trough. While serving the taxpayer's best interests of course, through their activities in the Red Chamber.

Investigative reporters have turned up additional examples of questionable expenditures on the public dime. Naming Frank Mahovlich, Vivienne Poy, Don Meredith, Nancy Ruth, Salma Ataullahjan, Asha Seth, David Braley, Nicole Eaton and Irving Gerstein, all notable for their whopping travel expenses. Living in Toronto, travelling back and forth to Ottawa to dispatch their duties in the Senate of Canada.

They are entitled to travel business class all expenses paid with Via Rail which operates regularly between Toronto and the national capital. They are not required to do so by Senate rules. And if they do, there is no cost, they travel free, the four and a half hours or so it usually takes back and forth. Most, however, citing time being of the essence, opt instead to fly, and that costs.

In fact, it costs greatly - with Frank Mahovlich and Vivienne Poy for example topping the travel expense list at $96,311 and $71,256 respectively, with all others coming in well below, from $59,743 down to $42,344 for others. Mind, that's a lot of toing and froing. And it all adds up. Did we mention Linda Frum and Art Eggleton in there as well, at $43,189 and $42,344?

"As you are likely aware, the Senate committee on internal economy is reviewing these matters. I respect taxpayers. I am committed to ensuring my affairs and expenses are both appropriate and respectful of the Senate policies and rules governing them", responded Nicole Eaton to a query respecting her $36,010 travel expenses.

There are more names: "Normally, I just fly Porter and get the cheap rates. It's 40 minutes once you're on the plane. (Regarding) the trains, it just takes a long, long time. Occasionally I'll do it, but normally, you just don't have the time", responded David Smith of his $18,485 travel expenses, reasonably enough.

Taxpayers should rest easy; the Senate's committee on internal economy has been perusing senators' expense claims. All is well.

A Curious Aristocrat

P.T. Barnum had it right. But then, there are a lot of gullible people out there in the world. The three-dimensional world we know so well. We are not yet familiar with the four-dimensional world. But it is reputed to be out there. Who knows? We could be living simultaneous lives on a number of existential planes.

And then there are those planes that are lofted adrift in Outer Space timelessly flitting among Galaxies doing their social science research. From time to time visiting Planet Earth. Organisms of higher intellectual capability than mere humans aboard those orbs so popularly called 'flying saucers'. Who select specimens from among the human race to briefly study, then discard them.

Leaving no trace, and certainly no real memory in the recollection of most abductees who are briefly examined, then released back into the custody of their normal preoccupations and lifestyles, but with a niggling sense of something 'different' having occurred to them, a dim memory of something truly askew.

If you're an individual who as a young boy became fascinated with such accounts of alien abduction and unexplained phenomena, and urban legends like space ships being held in top-secret, highly confidential military confines so as not to alarm the public, such conspiracies are appealing. And if you eventually become an academic and that unshakable belief in the extraterrestrial visitors remains, you write a book.

Retired Montreal psychology professor Don Crosbie Donderi did just that. He wrote UFOs ETs and Alien Abductions, a Scientist looks at the Evidence.  Professor Donderi is convinced on the basis of his decades of research, that extraterrestrials do exist, that they have flown intergalactically, and have hovered above the globe, and have taken into custody human specimens to study.

"There is an entire chapter on six UFO abduction cases. Each of them has what you might call in common a touchstone. Every one of the people involved saw a close-up of a UFO. Every one of the people had missing time they could not account for, a period of an hour or more, maybe even two or three hours. After the initial sighting, they ended up driving down a road not knowing how they got there. In several other cases, people saw the UFO as well. Some of these people wound up with scars they could not explain."

Professor Donderi spent 47 years at McGill University, including as associate dean of the faculty of graduate studies and research. He submitted to an interview that was later published in a national Canadian newspaper.  He has no physical evidence to support his beliefs, but his knowledge of the human psyche leads him to believe that what he had recounted to him by those who believe they were abducted by extra-terrestrials establishes without a doubt his theories as fact.

"I was interested as a boy when this stuff started happening in 1947. I was old enough to read the newspapers. I'm a curious person and I was persuaded this was a curious phenomenon. Thirty years later, I had a university position. I had tenure. I could study things without worrying about what other people thought about them. This is a very liberating thing. Nobody except university professors have tenure in the world, it makes you an aristocrat right off the bat. You can do what you like as long as you do your work, which I always did."

Multiple photographs or photographs taken by gun cameras on fighter planes chasing UFOs, several examples of which the good professor is privy to, support his arguments, he says. Radar plots taken during a UFO chase. "...a tremendous amount of corroborative evidence".

This is not self-delusion, not waking nightmares, not intellectual and imaginative confusion, alcohol or drug-induced, or simply fanciful thinking. This.is.the.real.thing. Plausible, real.

Get your mind around that!

Indigenous Insecurity

It is unspeakably sad and tragic that Canada's aboriginal peoples suffered historically in their own country by a succeeding wave of first settlers, their political representatives, and colonialist sentiments that hardly regarded their human rights when their traditional lands were encouraged to be signed away in the faith that justice and fairness would prevail, because the British Crown promised it.

It is no less sad and tragic that time has not made their situation any more palatable.

Canada's million-strong aboriginal peoples still suffer discrimination, lack of opportunity, an unwillingness on the part of authorities to finally settle their legitimate grievances dating back to the agreements that have never been finalized giving them full authority over their own lands. The residential schools that sought to 'civilize' young children to appreciate the white man's way of life created further divisions and anguish.

Not that there was malice behind the plan; rather it was an attempt to teach young aboriginals life skills in the new world it was thought they would be entering through assimilation. Skills that were absent in their own settlements where traditional lifestyles were then far more common than they are now.

A hundred years of residential schools created a demographic of children who did become skilled in areas that would benefit them in later years.

But it also created a wider group of adults who recall those years with bitterness because of the enforced separation from their families and their clans. And those were perhaps not those among the population who suffered the abuse of neglect, the debasement of their own culture, sexual abuse and violence.

It was long the social culture of the British Isles that wealthy families would send their children to boarding schools. And in those schools the scions of great wealth would learn formally social skills and academic performance that would prepare them to take the reigns of the family fortune and social standing, representing the British elite.

Many of those schoolchildren suffered the abuse of loneliness and neglect, physical violence, and sexual abuse, and many lives were traumatized by those encounters; they have been well written about. Perhaps aboriginal children were not as flexible in their ability to spring back while taking advantage of their schooling; their pain may have exceeded that suffered by British children.

The British could blame their very own social structure for all the ills that traditionally were imposed upon them. The children of First Nations peoples could look with aggravated scorn and blame on the values of an entirely different culture and society that were imposed upon them, values that they preferred in the final analysis to reject and embrace their own.

To learn now that out of the 150,000 aboriginal children that filtered through the Indian residential schools from 1910 to the 1970s with all the tribulations that they suffered, along with the advances that were represented to some, that an estimated 3,000 children were documented to have died while in the care and custody of the agencies, religious and governmental that operated those schools, adds to the tragedy.

But those deaths must also be taken in proportion to what they represent. Aboriginals were especially vulnerable to diseases that everyone suffered from; where white people often recovered, aboriginals succumbed; the impact on them was far more lethal; their exposure was new and morbid. Tuberculosis was a killing disease, partly due to ignorance over spread and treatment.

Some children died, incredibly, of malnutrition, others through accidents, and yet others as a result of fires burning through schools killing both students and staff. Exposure to the environment and drowning have been listed as other causes of death. During that time frame it is highly likely that children from white backgrounds suffered at least like fates through misadventure.

While history records tragedies of many dimensions, all regrettable, there is no way of altering what happened. We live in the present, while deploring incidents of the past that shed no enlightenment on what we truly represent. Most Canadians would far prefer the country's first and original inhabitants to find themselves comfort and opportunity equal to that of any other Canadians.

 Disrespect for Culture

The Chinese penchant for using animal parts in the formulation of ages-old 'natural' pharmaceuticals has created a huge strain on the enduring existence of elephants, rhinos, snakes, exotic birds, turtles, lizards, anteaters, bears and many other species. Some of which linger on the endangered species lists compiled in various countries around the world. Despite which, they are still illegally hunted to provide parts to the Chinese restaurants and pharmaceutical makers that value them in traditional medicine and cuisine.

The Scaly Anteater, Or Pangolin, Is A Delicacy In China. Many Chinese Also Believe That Their Scales Have Medicinal Properties. Photo:Piekfrosch

The Japanese are well known and disparaged and challenged for sending out their whaling fleets to hunt dolphins and sharks, and endangered whale populations. While they are condemned widely for continuing the hunt despite the scarce numbers of some whale species, the Japanese contend they are doing nothing amiss, simply engaging in hunting for a few specimens to aid in 'scientific research', fooling no one.

And in Canada, another indigenous population that, like the Chinese and the Japanese, consider themselves respectful and admiring and hugely protective of nature, is engaged as well in the illegal killing and trade in endangered species; eagles.  Eagles are common in British Columbia but they have an extended range across the country and into the United States.

"Eagles are poached mainly for the dance costume trade. We do our best to prevent that sort of thing because eagles are listed as a sensitive species. So they're not at risk of extinction but they may require special attention to avoid becoming at risk.
"Eagles typically only produce one or two offspring a year and their mortality rate for chicks can be pretty high."
Brendan Cox, Alberta Justice and Solicitor General's office

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) perched on a branch, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

"There is an ebb and flow and there's been a rush, or exceptional interest in years past with bear gallbladders. More recently, to satisfy the costume trade for traditional dancers, there's been a real rush in eagle feathers. There has been lots of illegal killing of eagles. It's about the money", explained Neil Brad, compliance officer with Alberta's fish and wildlife enforcement branch.

It is estimated by conservation officials that between 500 and 1000 eagles are killed annually on the coast of British Columbia. Most of the poached eagles are sold for use in ceremonial purposes or First Nations' regalia. The feather sale is illegal, but profitable. Feathers sell for thousands of dollars. In B.C. and Alberta programs are in place permitting First Nations people the plumage of birds who die of natural causes.

Replicas are available; turkey feathers dyed grey and resembling eagle feathers.

"It's a symbol of honour. Everything that exists is special but the eagle feathers in particular are a connection to our creator. Eagle flies high in the sky and carries our prayers to the creator.
"When we take anything from mother earth, we always give a gift of tobacco back, which ensures that abundance always flows", explained Yvonne Jobin, a First Nations art consultant.

As far as Ms. Jobin is concerned, the poaching is not done by or for First Nations. "I have to say, the New Age community, who are searching for a more meaningful life and taking from this culture and that culture, there's a lot of them out there and they are always wanting eagle feathers. I know this because I do get requests", she proffered.

After a 15-month investigation in 2006, wildlife officers charged 11 First Nations men with involvement in an extensive eagle-trafficking ring. The discovery of 50 dead birds, shorn of their feathers and talons, tipped investigators off. The charges laid against the men resulted in fury; First Nations leaders insisting the men had been ensnared.

Wildlife officers, they fumed, showed disrespect for their culture.

Wedding Vendor Opposed to Same Sex Marriage Shuts Down

Breitbart

 

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by Breitbart News 27 Dec 2012, 2:23 AM PDT 

A company in the wedding industry based in Annapolis, Maryland will close its doors, rather than face lawsuits for refusing to serve same-sex marriage couples.

Discover Annapolis Tours, which runs old-fashioned trolley tours in Annapolis, will close their $50,000 a year business. The owner of the trolley tour company would rather shut down his business than compromise his moral beliefs when same-sex marriage law becomes legal at the beginning of the year.

Wedding vendors who refused to provide services to same-sex couples have faced discrimination lawsuits in the past-- and lost.  Glendora Hughes, general counsel for the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights stated: "If they're providing services to the public, they can't discriminate who they provide their services to.."

According to the Maryland Wedding Professionals Association, Discover Tours is the second company to refuse business because of the same-sex marriage law. The law was upheld in the November election. 

The company's owner, Matt Grubbs, has encouraged his clients to lobby the state for a religious exemption for wedding vendors. He suggested people contact their representatives to "request they amend the new marriage law to allow an exemption for religious conviction for the layperson in the pew. The law exempts my minister from doing same-sex weddings, and the Knights of Columbus don't have to rent out their hall for a gay wedding reception, but somehow my religious convictions don't count for anything."

Frank Shubert, who ran the Maryland campaign against same-sex marriage, said: "This is exactly what happens," adding that religious liberty is "right in the cross hairs of this debate. … The law doesn't protect people of faith. It simply doesn't."

Addicted to Excitement

Perhaps more accurately, addicted to the varied roles that engender attention, acclaim, the kind of notice normally accorded celebrities of one kind or another.  For someone owning varied attributes, intelligence, beauty, physical prowess - the allure of presenting as an original, authentically athletic, obviously desirable individual, imbued with talent on many levels of human aspirations - admiring attention becomes addictive.

High-powered men, engaged in politics, in the upper echelons of corporate affairs, those who have attained great wealth, or whose professional achievements in science, medicine, sport, art, theatre have gained them a devoutly admiring following often succumb to the attraction of dalliance with fervent hangers-on.  It is most commonly recognized as an overt attribute of musicians and sport figures.  Less commonly exercised other than covertly by others.

For the most part, it is male figures who indulge in exercising their options for a wide range of sex partners.  Other than in exceptional circumstances where those celebrated figures have portrayed themselves as other than given to relaxed morals in exuberant promiscuity, these peccadilloes are usually shrugged off as irrelevant to their extraordinary talents and of little consequence.

When they have burnished a reputation for impeccable behaviour and are then discovered to have been leading a secret life of disguised libertinism, obeying their libidinous cravings, they are exposed to the disappointed opprobrium of those who once set them on the pedestal of quasi-immortal fame in recognition of their outstanding performances in their professions.

So why be surprised when a woman does the same thing?  Perhaps because it's a woman who appears wholesome and unaffected by her supreme physical abilities.  Like former U.S. Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton.  Who, in an interview with the website Smoking Gun once her double life was outed, explained that she found the escort business she was clandestinely engaged in "exciting".
FILE - In this Feb. 27, 1999, file photo, Suzy Hamilton reacts after winning the women's 1,500 meter run with a time of 4:13.96 at the USA Championships athletics meet in Atlanta. he three-time Olympian has admitted leading a double life as an escort. She apologized Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, after a report by The Smoking Gun website said she had been working as a prostitute in Las Vegas. Photo: John Bazemore / AP

"She took "dates" in Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston under the alias Kelly Lundy, working for Haley Heston's Private Collection.  Charging hefty fees of $600 each hour of her services, or ten times that amount for her full attention for a full day.  "I met Haley with the idea of fulfilling a fantasy and only doing this for the short term.  Well, after my first date I was hooked, and have been doing my best to visit Las Vegas as often as my schedule allows."

Suzy Favor Hamilton poses for a portrait at her home in Shorewood Hills a suburb of Madison, Wis. in 2012. The three-time Olympian has admitted leading a double life as an escort. She apologized Thursday after a report by The Smoking Gun website said she had been working as a prostitute in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Michael Sears) Photo: Getty Images / SL

Not that this 44-year-old mother of a 7-year-old boy, wife of her college sweetheart has a lot of spare time.  She runs her own business.  She is hired by organizations to deliver motivational speeches.  She does promotional work for Disney and for the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon series.  And her real estate business in Wisconsin (with her husband) keeps her quite busy.

They are an affluent couple, living a satisfying life.  She has appeared in commercials for well-known brands like Nike, Reebok and Pert Plus shampoo.  She is fit and beautiful and has no problem attracting attention.  She also seems to have no problem with the fact that her husband is unhappy, knowing about her double life.  "He tried to get me to stop. He wasn't supportive of me at all."

That must be quite the understatement.  Would she have expected him to be?  And here's the kicker; she is rather put out that she was outed.  She had informed several of her casual partners in the business of her real identity.  And someone she 'trusted' repeated what was told to him in confidence; you know how such men like to brag of their conquests, of their sexual contacts...? 

To her this represented an unforgivable transgression of trust.  She blames herself for being too "trusting".  This is rather an astonishing interpretation of trust.  Trust, one might logically think, is what her husband and her son have in their wife and mother.  Only to have discovered (at least her husband) that trust was misplaced. 

But for exceptional athlete and world running champion Suzy Hamilton, her trust in someone in her secret business was misplaced.  "He totally broke all the rules by outing me.  I don't want to be like him because he is scum.  And I will not become scum to make myself feel good."  And so - there!