An anthem for our time . . .

RAY AND DAVE tell it like it is: Low Budget. Full lyrics at the YouTube page.

Cheap is small and not too steep
But best of all cheap is cheap
Circumstance has forced my hand
To be a cut price person in a low budget land
Times are hard but we'll all survive
I just got to learn to economize

I'm on a low budget
I'm on a low budget
I'm not cheap, you understand
I'm just a cut price person in a low budget land

Dickens' perspective . . .

—  Mr. D. —

HARD TIMES AGAIN: that's the title to a fine article on The American Conservative (go figure) by Theodore Dalrymple, who contends that "Amid the wreck of capitalism and socialism, Dickens is timelier than ever."

We live in hard times, and all the indications are that they may get much, even very much, harder. No one, at any rate, would take a bet that they won’t.

The number of children in America claiming subsidized meals in school has shot up; the homeless are increasing by the hour; the formerly prosperous are laid off without so much as a thank you; the young struggle to find any work at all; beggars are making a comeback on the streets of cities as if they had been hiding all these years, waiting for the right moment to emerge from their subterranean lairs into the world above.

The February bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, then, could hardly come at a more appropriate moment in economic history, for Dickens was the revealer, the scourge, the prose poet, of urban destitution—a destitution that, in our waking nightmares, we fear may yet return.

Take a minute to read what Theo has to say, and ponder his observation on how a North Korean looks at the world portrayed by Dickens. I look at the acreage of "Escort" ads and the tawdry rub-and-tug parlors and I realize that the poor little match girls of London that Dickens encountered, would feel right at home.

Ottawa, we have a problem . . .

Many children are scalded and burned from living in densely overcrowded houses with makeshift wood stoves.

AND IT'S NOT GOING AWAY. According to Charlie Angus, who's the MP for Timmins-James Bay, the plight of our aboriginals on the northern Ontario reserve of Attawapiskat is intolerable. His post on Huffington Canada, "What if They Declared an Emergency and No One Came?" has a must-see video, as well. It's AOL-resident, and AOL doesn't play nice like YouTube for embedding, so check out the Huffington link to see it. I wonder who owns the new Cadillac Escalade to be seen in it? A $60K SUV could supply a lot of plumbing.

It's been three weeks since Attawapiskat First Nation took the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency. Since then, not a single federal or provincial official has even bothered to visit the community.

No aid agencies have stepped forward. No disaster management teams have offered help.

Meanwhile temperatures have dropped 20 degrees and will likely drop another 20 or 25 degrees further in the coming weeks. For families living in uninsulated tents, makeshift cabins and sheds, the worsening weather poses serious risk.

Two weeks ago I travelled to this community on the James Bay coast to see why conditions had become so extreme that local leaders felt compelled to declare a state of emergency. It was like stepping into a fourth world.

• • •

You'd think that a medical warning from a provincial health authority would move government into action. Think again. When it comes to the misery, suffering and even the death of First Nations people, the federal and provincial governments have developed a staggering capacity for indifference.

H/T to le grand chef Daniel