Monday, December 30, 2013

You (and Harper) already blew it!!

Harper knob polisher, Michael Den Tandt offers up the results of gazing at the Conservative crystal ball with a set of 2014 predictions on what to expect from (missing in action) Harper. It's actually quite stunning. Den Tandt pines away for the "Charm Offensive" he has oft predicted from Harper but which has never happened. It seems to escape Den Tandt that Harper doesn't have it in him and if it's scripted for him, that fact becomes obvious. More on that in a minute.
... Harper in 2014 will make a visible effort to re-engage – likely through more frequent speeches, perhaps even more frequent press conferences. He will do so not by choice, but by necessity.
Really?! Because, the gods forbid, when he was handed a late 2013 opportunity to "re-engage" he refused to come out of his hole. If, at any point, he had wanted to appear to be a leader in any way, shape or form, all he had to do was actually show up. But that ice-storm was a natural, short-notice event - not something scripted well in advance by the short-pantsers running the PMO. Re-engagement, as Den Tandt is suggesting will happen, requires long, detailed preparation. No rehearsal - no show.
The Wright-Duffy mess, the sheer scale of the venality and dishonesty exposed within his own office, among people he appointed, has shaken his personal standing. The only practical remedy is to shore up his positives, namely his reputation for competence and intelligence. He can only do so by communicating.
Competence and intelligence in a leader would suggest being able to read the character and qualities of individuals appointed to positions of prominence and influence. We haven't seen any of that and Den Tandt says so before he makes the impossible leap in the other direction. I question Harper's intelligence at times but his competence is not up for debate. This is one of the least competent prime ministers Canada has ever endured. Owen has more to offer on that along with this very poignant observation:
For a man who doesn't like people, Harper has chosen a curious profession.
Which is why when hundreds of thousands of Canadians are without heat in the middle sub-zero temperatures at the darkest time of the year the "re-engagement" comes in the form of a solitary 14-word Twitter offering. 

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

The spirit of man . . .


WINTER SOLSTICE, and the cycle of life continues: we celebrate the end of one year and the beginnings of our future and the re-birth of the world around us. That future belongs to the young, and some of them are up to the task. 

Consider 19-year-old Zack Kopplin; according to io9's article by George Dvorsky, “How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for Louisiana's creationists”, Zack's leading the battle against Christian ignorance in Louisiana. Way to go, Zackster!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Conniving CONs . . .



THE SENATE HOO-HA'S origins, as seen by my friend Scanner, who I believe has created an accurate account of how things came to be. I wish the RCMP every success, good luck and good weasel-hunting.
I have written this before but in light of SJH's unequivocal answer to the question whether he was aware at the time of a plan to have the Conservative party reimburse Mike Duffy for his questionable expenses, this is what I believe happened.
At some point two or more years ago, SJH and members of his closest clique came up with a scheme to increase Conservative fundraising while making the taxpayers of Canada pay for it. 
They schemed to recruit media stars like Mike Duffy to travel all over Canada attending Conservative fundraisers, but by making them Members of the Senate, have their expenses paid by the Senate. 
The PMO and the Privy Council were fully aware that the eligibility of Duffy and Wailin and others was questionable a best but since this has never been a problem before, did not even consider this.
These recruits were told to just expense what they needed to, that no-one ever questioned Senate expense reports and to get out there and start raising money.
I believe the PMO and SJH expected some level of discretion on the part of these flacks but made no attempt to monitor them. I bet Wallin's travel costs were a surprise even to SJH who has never tried to curb his own expenses.
Now they are caught in an ever expanding ring of lies to cover up the real crime - that the Prime Minister, The members of the PMO, the Privy Council and the Conservative Party of Canada colluded in a scheme to enrich the coffers of the CPoC by defrauding the people of Canada.
To cover this up, SJH is willing to lie at every turn and to destroy anyone near and loyal to himself and the Conservative Party. If the real facts come out they may all face prison. I hope they do. If you can't face the time, don't do the crime.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Y'know all those "made in BC" jobs Christy Clark promised ...

Well, the actual contract hasn't even been inked yet and Seaspan is looking offshore to fill the positions necessary for the vessels they will (supposedly) build.
Seaspan is a Canadian shipbuilding firm which has recently been given a contract to build 17 ships for the Canadian Navy.
Now they need skilled workers to move to Vancouver and help build the vessels – and they have got their eye on Portsmouth workers.
The real hairball will get coughed up if the Canadian public finally wakes up to the fact that Harper's ship procurement fairy-tale is actually way off the rails, seriously under-funded and probably won't happen in anything like what is being advertised by the Harper Hillbilly Government.

At least, according to Christy Clark, BC is "family friendly" and the unicorns sprinkle sugar everywhere.

Added: To enhance clarity, Portsmouth is in England, Hampshire County, UK. 

And you think you have it rough ...

Journalist Michelle Stewart can probably put those feelings to rest.

All the best, Michelle. All any of us can do is hope this is a Christmas that brings you some joy. You deserve it.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Airshow MacKay rolls out more of that "Compassionate Conservatism"

First it was James Moore, telling us he was fine with Canadian children starving; then it was that nasty little shit, Flaherty, making it clear that the elderly can continue to eat cat food.

Next up? None other than Elmer MacKay's entitled brat, Peter "Airshow" MacKay.
MacKay said poor offenders could pay the fine back over time or consider selling some of their belongings to pay off the debt.
Selling off their belongings? Most of them don't have any belongings. It's one of the reasons they're standing in front of a judge. And one judge had something to say about it.
“You have to understand these people have nothing. That’s the tragedy,” said Waterloo region Ontario Court Justice Colin Westman, one of many judges in Ontario who have found ways to minimize the mandatory penalty by doling out small fines that reduce the victim surcharge to as little as 30 cents.
“I’m not trying to be a smart-alec here but I think someone has to remind the minister there are broken people here who don’t have anything to give. It’s a bully mentality. It’s kicking people while they are down,” said Westman Tuesday. “The people we are dealing with, believe me, a high portion of them are just broken souls.”
The judge also recommended that MacKay actually spend some time in a courtroom. What a novel idea ... a Canadian justice minister actually having a clue what actually constitutes the parade of accused in a Canadian courtroom.

It's amazing isn't it? At this time of year when we actually think of the characters in a Charles Dickens novel, the ministers of Harper's government actually associate best with the worst of them.

What ever law school conferred a law degree on this self-absorbed, self-entitled shit-head should seriously consider finding a way to disown him.

The trouble is...

No one believes him about Wright, Duffy, etc.

EVEN IF Harper was by some miracle of time-space and multiverses kept in the dark then his leadership is an epic fail. As has been pointed out all over the internets, pretty much all the players in this are Harper picks. His people, his fault.

His survival strategy seems to be one of both distancing himself and playing the hapless victim. Aw, muffin.

I like that he's set on 'leading' the Cons in 2015. Famous last words and all that... Every month for the Cons under Harper is a game of scandal-roulette. Bookies might start taking odds on what'll take him down.   Popcorn?

Sunday, December 15, 2013

“Is it my job to feed my neighbour’s child? I don’t think so.” UPDATED

That, from Harper Industry Minister and Harper MP for Port Moody, James Moore when questioned on the embarrassing levels of child poverty in British Columbia. 

The only words that don't fail me are, Fucking selfish ... greedy ... scumbag. Typical bloody-minded right-wing puke. Charles Dickens wrote books about people like James Moore.

UPDATE: Moore is now claiming he was taken out of context. Sara Norman, who was interviewing him at the time, has something different to say about Moore's rushing to his own defence. So ... you need to hear it for yourself. Off to The Gazeteer with you where you'll hear the whole context and understand that my description of Harper government minister, James Moore need not be altered. 

Moore would watch Canadian children starve in the street.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Nelson Mandela scholarships

So the Harper crowd, never ones to miss an opportunity to cash in on the deaths of better human beings, are launching a series of Masters and PhD scholarships for African students.

Candidates will study in Canada in French or English at the master’s degree level or equivalent in the areas of public policy and public administration. They will be required to present their cases for their areas of study and demonstrate that they will contribute to shape Africa’s future through public service, the release said.

Coming from existing funds

There is also cash for Canadian students pursuing master's or PhD-level programs in social sciences and humanities at Canadian universities. Students who want one of the 20 annual Canada Graduate Scholarships to Honour Nelson Mandela will have to do research in one of the following topics:
  • National unity. 
  • Democracy, freedom and human rights.
  • Leadership.
  • Children’s participation in society.  
​Up to 10 master’s scholarships and up to 10 doctoral scholarships will be awarded for the first time in 2015, following the 2014 competition, the release said. Scholarships at the master’s level will provide $17,500 for one year, while those at the doctoral level will provide $35,000 annually for three years.
Several quick problems.

First, public policy and administration are pseudo-disciplines, and national unity, democracy, freedom and human rights [Oxford comma? Are these tied together?], leadership etc are a mishmash of feel-good concepts and topics that are the buzzwords of Canadian L/liberalism (and not really Harper, but again, way to poach!). Childrens participation in society? Worthy topic, but oh my heartstrings it makes us comfy wealthy white Northerners feel like a fuzzy Unicef box. And who on Earth is going to evaluate these applications? The PMO?

There are a number of highly functional African democracies, South Africa and Botswana being very good examples. There are also a number of good African universities and a larger number that could use some serious cash infusion so that their teaching and research capacity can improve and allow their academics to join the intellectual conversation dominated by institutions and researchers based in the global North.

A much better thing to do would be to provide support to African universities so that they may provide robust educations to African students in Africa and thereby improve the overall advanced education infrastructure and civil society in countries that need it. But hey, since we're not into supporting own universities, why the hell would we help those in Africa?

No, the universities who will most benefit from this are those in Canada. Especially since they will likely charge tuition fees to these scholarship recipients. They do this, mercilessly, because they are also strapped for cash. See above.

Moreover, a number of scholarship recipients will apply for residency in Canada following the completion of their degrees or move to other developed nations. This is what happens when you move from a poor to a rich country - you tend to want to stay. Unless the government intends open the can of worms that would be a prohibition on these students from applying for residency here, Africa may not particularly benefit from this noble gesture by our little grand emperor.

Lastly, the awards are equal to SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) masters and PhD scholarships. Canadian masters degrees are almost all two-year programms meaning that $17 500 for one year leaves a student high and dry for at least one of those years. Universities also often charge tuition meaning that the money left over willl put the student around the poverty line.  What this means is that the children of African elites will get these scholarships because they will be the ones who went to the best schools (often other Euro or North American) and have the wealth to overcome the cost of living deficit imposed by our pathetically insufficient scholarships. Poorer Africans need not apply.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Funerals and funnymen

Well, off they go to South Africa, our Prime Minister and assorted hang-arounds past and present from different parties. They all were, are, or want to be in the driver's seat, so they are all hang-arounds.

Chief among them but far from a chief is the current occupant of two-four Sussex Drive. The gall of someone like him showing up at the hero's funeral of Nelson Mandela, a man he would had tried to snuff, jail, or otherwise destroy were he Native and living in Canada is no surprise.


Maybe the RCMP will release some emails while he's gone. Bet that would be awkward flight home on Con Air, what with Mr. Mulcair licking his chops. 

Saturday, December 07, 2013

CON control . . .

SETTLER TREATY CARD: a fine concept from the folks at Briarpatch. Click on the link to see a giant-size version, 'cause the fine-print ‘some conditions apply’ is worth reading.

We Own You ...

At least that is the tacit message that comes from the excerpted emails from the PMO (Nigel Wright) to the Conservative house leader in the senate. Although not subordinate in any way to the frat boys in the PMO, senators are taking orders from Nigel Wright.


Now, I didn't do the heavy lifting so I will send you off to Creekside, where Alison has done just that.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Patrick Lane, UVic commencement speech.

There are honourary degree holders. And then there's the poet Patrick Lane and his commencement speech at the University of Victoria, reprinted in the Times Colonist.


It is 65 years ago, you’re 10 years old and sitting on an old, half-blind, grey horse. All you have is a saddle blanket and a rope for reins as you watch a pack of dogs rage at the foot of a Ponderosa pine.
High up on a branch, a cougar lies supine, one paw lazily swatting at the air. He knows the dogs will tire. They will slink away and then the cougar will climb down and go on with its life in the Blue Bush country south of Kamloops. It is a hot summer day. There is the smell of pine needles and Oregon grape and dust. It seems to you that the sun carves the dust from the face of the broken rocks, carves and lifts it into the air where it mixes with the sun. Just beyond you are three men on horses.
The men have saddles and boots and rifles and their horses shy at the clamour of the dogs. The man with the Winchester rifle is the one who owns the dog pack and he is the one who has led you out of the valley, following the dogs through the hills to the big tree where the cougar is trapped. You watch as the man with the rifle climbs down from the saddle and sets his boots among the slippery pine needles. When the man is sure of his footing he lifts the rifle, takes aim, and then … and then you shrink inside a cowl of silence as the cougar falls.
As you watch, the men raise their rifles and shoot them at the sun. You will not understand their triumph, their exultance. Not then. You are too young. It will take years for you to understand. But one day you will step up to a podium in an auditorium at a University on an island far to the west and you will talk about what those men did. You know now they shot at the sun because they wanted to bring a darkness into the world. Knowing that has changed you forever.
Today I look back at their generation. Most of them are dead. They were born into the first Great War of the last century. Most of their fathers did not come home from the slaughter. Most of their mothers were left lost and lonely. Their youth was wasted through the years of the Great Depression when they wandered the country in search of work, a bed or blanket, a friendly hand, a woman’s touch, a child’s quick cry. And then came the Second World War and more were lost. Millions upon millions of men, women, and children died in that old world. But we sometimes forget that untold numbers of creatures died with them: the sparrow and the rabbit, the salmon and the whale, the beetle and the butterfly, the deer and the wolf. And trees died too, the fir and spruce, the cedar and hemlock. Whole forests were sacrificed to the wars.
Those men bequeathed to me a devastated world. When my generation came of age in the mid-century, we were ready for change. And we tried to make it happen, but the ones who wanted change were few. In the end, we did what the generations before us did. We began to eat the world. We devoured the oceans and we devoured the land. We drank the lakes and the seas and we ate the mountains and plains. We ate and ate until there was almost nothing left for you or for your children to come.
The cougar that died that day back in 1949 was a question spoken into my life, and I have tried to answer that question with my teaching, my poems and my stories. Ten years after they killed the cougar, I came of age. I had no education beyond high school, but I had a deep desire to become an artist, a poet. The death of the cougar stayed with me through the years of my young manhood. Then, one moonlit night in 1963, I stepped out of my little trailer perched on the side of a mountain above the North Thompson River. Below me was the sawmill where I worked as a first-aid man. Down a short path, a little creek purled through the trees just beyond my door. I went there under the moon and, kneeling in the moss, cupped water in my hands for a drink. As I looked up I saw a cougar leaning over his paws in the thin shadows. He was six feet away, drinking from the same pool. I stared at the cougar and found myself alive in the eyes of the great cat. The cougar those men had killed when I was a boy came back to me. It was then I swore I would spend my life bearing witness to the past and the years to come.
I stand here looking out over this assembly, and ask myself what I can offer you who are taking from my generation’s hands a troubled world. I am an elder now. There are times many of us old ones feel a deep regret, a profound sorrow, but our sorrow does not have to be yours. You are young and it is soon to be your time. A month ago, I sat on a river estuary in the Great Bear Rainforest north of here as a mother grizzly nursed her cubs. As the little ones suckled, the milk spilled down her chest and belly. As I watched her, I thought of this day and I thought of you who not so long ago nursed at your own mother’s breast. There, in the last intact rainforest on earth, the bear cubs became emblems of hope to me.
Out there are men and women only a few years older than you who are trying to remedy a broken world. I know and respect their passion. You, too, can change things. Just remember there are people who will try to stop you, and when they do you will have to fight for your lives and the lives of the children to come.
Today, you are graduating with the degrees you have worked so hard to attain. They will affect your lives forever. You are also one of the wild creatures of the Earth. I want you for one moment to imagine you are a ten-year-old on a half-blind, grey horse. You are watching a cougar fall from the high limb of a Ponderosa pine into a moil of raging dogs. The ones who have done this, the ones who have brought you here, are shooting at the sun. They are trying to bring a darkness into the world.
It’s your story now.
How do you want it to end?
Today, you are graduating with the degrees you have worked so hard to attain. They will affect your lives forever. You are also one of the wild creatures of the Earth. I want you for one moment to imagine you are a ten-year-old on a half-blind, grey horse. You are watching a cougar fall from the high limb of a Ponderosa pine into a moil of raging dogs. The ones who have done this, the ones who have brought you here, are shooting at the sun. They are trying to bring a darkness into the world.
It’s your story now.
How do you want it to end?
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/patrick-lane-an-open-letter-to-all-the-wild-creatures-of-the-earth-1.717669#sthash.dxZJir8g.dpuf
Today, you are graduating with the degrees you have worked so hard to attain. They will affect your lives forever. You are also one of the wild creatures of the Earth. I want you for one moment to imagine you are a ten-year-old on a half-blind, grey horse. You are watching a cougar fall from the high limb of a Ponderosa pine into a moil of raging dogs. The ones who have done this, the ones who have brought you here, are shooting at the sun. They are trying to bring a darkness into the world.
It’s your story now.
How do you want it to end?
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/patrick-lane-an-open-letter-to-all-the-wild-creatures-of-the-earth-1.717669#sthash.dxZJir8g.dpuf
Today, you are graduating with the degrees you have worked so hard to attain. They will affect your lives forever. You are also one of the wild creatures of the Earth. I want you for one moment to imagine you are a ten-year-old on a half-blind, grey horse. You are watching a cougar fall from the high limb of a Ponderosa pine into a moil of raging dogs. The ones who have done this, the ones who have brought you here, are shooting at the sun. They are trying to bring a darkness into the world.
It’s your story now.
How do you want it to end?
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/patrick-lane-an-open-letter-to-all-the-wild-creatures-of-the-earth-1.717669#sthash.dxZJir8g.dpu
It is 65 years ago, you’re 10 years old and sitting on an old, half-blind, grey horse. All you have is a saddle blanket and a rope for reins as you watch a pack of dogs rage at the foot of a Ponderosa pine.
High up on a branch, a cougar lies supine, one paw lazily swatting at the air. He knows the dogs will tire. They will slink away and then the cougar will climb down and go on with its life in the Blue Bush country south of Kamloops. It is a hot summer day. There is the smell of pine needles and Oregon grape and dust. It seems to you that the sun carves the dust from the face of the broken rocks, carves and lifts it into the air where it mixes with the sun. Just beyond you are three men on horses.
The men have saddles and boots and rifles and their horses shy at the clamour of the dogs. The man with the Winchester rifle is the one who owns the dog pack and he is the one who has led you out of the valley, following the dogs through the hills to the big tree where the cougar is trapped. You watch as the man with the rifle climbs down from the saddle and sets his boots among the slippery pine needles. When the man is sure of his footing he lifts the rifle, takes aim, and then … and then you shrink inside a cowl of silence as the cougar falls.
As you watch, the men raise their rifles and shoot them at the sun. You will not understand their triumph, their exultance. Not then. You are too young. It will take years for you to understand. But one day you will step up to a podium in an auditorium at a University on an island far to the west and you will talk about what those men did. You know now they shot at the sun because they wanted to bring a darkness into the world. Knowing that has changed you forever.
Today I look back at their generation. Most of them are dead. They were born into the first Great War of the last century. Most of their fathers did not come home from the slaughter. Most of their mothers were left lost and lonely. Their youth was wasted through the years of the Great Depression when they wandered the country in search of work, a bed or blanket, a friendly hand, a woman’s touch, a child’s quick cry. And then came the Second World War and more were lost. Millions upon millions of men, women, and children died in that old world. But we sometimes forget that untold numbers of creatures died with them: the sparrow and the rabbit, the salmon and the whale, the beetle and the butterfly, the deer and the wolf. And trees died too, the fir and spruce, the cedar and hemlock. Whole forests were sacrificed to the wars.
Those men bequeathed to me a devastated world. When my generation came of age in the mid-century, we were ready for change. And we tried to make it happen, but the ones who wanted change were few. In the end, we did what the generations before us did. We began to eat the world. We devoured the oceans and we devoured the land. We drank the lakes and the seas and we ate the mountains and plains. We ate and ate until there was almost nothing left for you or for your children to come.
The cougar that died that day back in 1949 was a question spoken into my life, and I have tried to answer that question with my teaching, my poems and my stories. Ten years after they killed the cougar, I came of age. I had no education beyond high school, but I had a deep desire to become an artist, a poet. The death of the cougar stayed with me through the years of my young manhood. Then, one moonlit night in 1963, I stepped out of my little trailer perched on the side of a mountain above the North Thompson River. Below me was the sawmill where I worked as a first-aid man. Down a short path, a little creek purled through the trees just beyond my door. I went there under the moon and, kneeling in the moss, cupped water in my hands for a drink. As I looked up I saw a cougar leaning over his paws in the thin shadows. He was six feet away, drinking from the same pool. I stared at the cougar and found myself alive in the eyes of the great cat. The cougar those men had killed when I was a boy came back to me. It was then I swore I would spend my life bearing witness to the past and the years to come.
I stand here looking out over this assembly, and ask myself what I can offer you who are taking from my generation’s hands a troubled world. I am an elder now. There are times many of us old ones feel a deep regret, a profound sorrow, but our sorrow does not have to be yours. You are young and it is soon to be your time. A month ago, I sat on a river estuary in the Great Bear Rainforest north of here as a mother grizzly nursed her cubs. As the little ones suckled, the milk spilled down her chest and belly. As I watched her, I thought of this day and I thought of you who not so long ago nursed at your own mother’s breast. There, in the last intact rainforest on earth, the bear cubs became emblems of hope to me.
Out there are men and women only a few years older than you who are trying to remedy a broken world. I know and respect their passion. You, too, can change things. Just remember there are people who will try to stop you, and when they do you will have to fight for your lives and the lives of the children to come.
Today, you are graduating with the degrees you have worked so hard to attain. They will affect your lives forever. You are also one of the wild creatures of the Earth. I want you for one moment to imagine you are a ten-year-old on a half-blind, grey horse. You are watching a cougar fall from the high limb of a Ponderosa pine into a moil of raging dogs. The ones who have done this, the ones who have brought you here, are shooting at the sun. They are trying to bring a darkness into the world.
It’s your story now.
How do you want it to end?
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/patrick-lane-an-open-letter-to-all-the-wild-creatures-of-the-earth-1.717669#sthash.dxZJir8g.dpuf
It is 65 years ago, you’re 10 years old and sitting on an old, half-blind, grey horse. All you have is a saddle blanket and a rope for reins as you watch a pack of dogs rage at the foot of a Ponderosa pine.
High up on a branch, a cougar lies supine, one paw lazily swatting at the air. He knows the dogs will tire. They will slink away and then the cougar will climb down and go on with its life in the Blue Bush country south of Kamloops. It is a hot summer day. There is the smell of pine needles and Oregon grape and dust. It seems to you that the sun carves the dust from the face of the broken rocks, carves and lifts it into the air where it mixes with the sun. Just beyond you are three men on horses.
The men have saddles and boots and rifles and their horses shy at the clamour of the dogs. The man with the Winchester rifle is the one who owns the dog pack and he is the one who has led you out of the valley, following the dogs through the hills to the big tree where the cougar is trapped. You watch as the man with the rifle climbs down from the saddle and sets his boots among the slippery pine needles. When the man is sure of his footing he lifts the rifle, takes aim, and then … and then you shrink inside a cowl of silence as the cougar falls.
As you watch, the men raise their rifles and shoot them at the sun. You will not understand their triumph, their exultance. Not then. You are too young. It will take years for you to understand. But one day you will step up to a podium in an auditorium at a University on an island far to the west and you will talk about what those men did. You know now they shot at the sun because they wanted to bring a darkness into the world. Knowing that has changed you forever.
Today I look back at their generation. Most of them are dead. They were born into the first Great War of the last century. Most of their fathers did not come home from the slaughter. Most of their mothers were left lost and lonely. Their youth was wasted through the years of the Great Depression when they wandered the country in search of work, a bed or blanket, a friendly hand, a woman’s touch, a child’s quick cry. And then came the Second World War and more were lost. Millions upon millions of men, women, and children died in that old world. But we sometimes forget that untold numbers of creatures died with them: the sparrow and the rabbit, the salmon and the whale, the beetle and the butterfly, the deer and the wolf. And trees died too, the fir and spruce, the cedar and hemlock. Whole forests were sacrificed to the wars.
Those men bequeathed to me a devastated world. When my generation came of age in the mid-century, we were ready for change. And we tried to make it happen, but the ones who wanted change were few. In the end, we did what the generations before us did. We began to eat the world. We devoured the oceans and we devoured the land. We drank the lakes and the seas and we ate the mountains and plains. We ate and ate until there was almost nothing left for you or for your children to come.
The cougar that died that day back in 1949 was a question spoken into my life, and I have tried to answer that question with my teaching, my poems and my stories. Ten years after they killed the cougar, I came of age. I had no education beyond high school, but I had a deep desire to become an artist, a poet. The death of the cougar stayed with me through the years of my young manhood. Then, one moonlit night in 1963, I stepped out of my little trailer perched on the side of a mountain above the North Thompson River. Below me was the sawmill where I worked as a first-aid man. Down a short path, a little creek purled through the trees just beyond my door. I went there under the moon and, kneeling in the moss, cupped water in my hands for a drink. As I looked up I saw a cougar leaning over his paws in the thin shadows. He was six feet away, drinking from the same pool. I stared at the cougar and found myself alive in the eyes of the great cat. The cougar those men had killed when I was a boy came back to me. It was then I swore I would spend my life bearing witness to the past and the years to come.
I stand here looking out over this assembly, and ask myself what I can offer you who are taking from my generation’s hands a troubled world. I am an elder now. There are times many of us old ones feel a deep regret, a profound sorrow, but our sorrow does not have to be yours. You are young and it is soon to be your time. A month ago, I sat on a river estuary in the Great Bear Rainforest north of here as a mother grizzly nursed her cubs. As the little ones suckled, the milk spilled down her chest and belly. As I watched her, I thought of this day and I thought of you who not so long ago nursed at your own mother’s breast. There, in the last intact rainforest on earth, the bear cubs became emblems of hope to me.
Out there are men and women only a few years older than you who are trying to remedy a broken world. I know and respect their passion. You, too, can change things. Just remember there are people who will try to stop you, and when they do you will have to fight for your lives and the lives of the children to come.
Today, you are graduating with the degrees you have worked so hard to attain. They will affect your lives forever. You are also one of the wild creatures of the Earth. I want you for one moment to imagine you are a ten-year-old on a half-blind, grey horse. You are watching a cougar fall from the high limb of a Ponderosa pine into a moil of raging dogs. The ones who have done this, the ones who have brought you here, are shooting at the sun. They are trying to bring a darkness into the world.
It’s your story now.
How do you want it to end?
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/patrick-lane-an-open-letter-to-all-the-wild-creatures-of-the-earth-1.717669#sthash.dxZJir8g.dpuf

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

So a guy who has never played a team sport writes a book about hockey ...

... And we're supposed to believe that anything in it is in the slightest bit accurate? Because Stephen Harper is such a renowned historian ... on anything?

Stephen Harper has not provided a single satisfactory answer to any question about his involvement in the alleged attempt to subvert a senator and commit a fraud. Not one. And the thing just keeps getting bigger.

And we've got a line-up that's getting bigger by the day.

Where is Canada's newest hockey "expert"?

Hiding. It's what the coward does best.