I am reading the 2004 book "Shake Hands with the Devil" by retired Canadian armed forces Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire. Lieutenant-General Dallaire's courage and perceptiveness in writing about the UN humanitarian mission to Rwanda, which he led and which ended in 1994, have justly won him many admirers.
I have long believed in the two-faced dishonesty of United Nations members, especially the powerful ones. This belief needs no further confirmation than the following quotation from pages 89 and 90 of Lieutenant-General Dallaire's book. "Member nations do not want a large, reputable, strong and independent United Nations, no matter their hypocritical pronouncements otherwise. What they want is a weak, beholden, indebted scapegoat of an organization which they can blame for the failures or steal victories from."
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
What conspiracy?
Lawyer alleges conspiracy at B. C. Taser probe
Dziekanski Inquiry; RCMP fabricated 'version of events,' lawyer says
Brian Hutchinson, National Post Published: Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=2073528#ixzz0TELmwzKG
The above article does not as far as I can see suggest that the Polish government's lawyer used or even implied the use of the word "conspiracy". I wonder therefore why the National Post uses the word in its headline. The effect of this headline seems to me to be to discredit the lawyer: conspiracy theorists are usually the butt of laughter and contempt. I further suspect that the National Post, which seems to me to have very conservative (right-wing) leanings in its editorial outlook, would seek any opportunity to discredit someone who finds flaws in what many of us believe to be the heavy-handed and unjustified violence used by Canadian law enforcement agencies on all too many occasions
Dziekanski Inquiry; RCMP fabricated 'version of events,' lawyer says
Brian Hutchinson, National Post Published: Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=2073528#ixzz0TELmwzKG
The above article does not as far as I can see suggest that the Polish government's lawyer used or even implied the use of the word "conspiracy". I wonder therefore why the National Post uses the word in its headline. The effect of this headline seems to me to be to discredit the lawyer: conspiracy theorists are usually the butt of laughter and contempt. I further suspect that the National Post, which seems to me to have very conservative (right-wing) leanings in its editorial outlook, would seek any opportunity to discredit someone who finds flaws in what many of us believe to be the heavy-handed and unjustified violence used by Canadian law enforcement agencies on all too many occasions
Who has had enough?
"HALIFAX, N.S. - The archbishop of Halifax expressed his own frustration and issued an impassioned plea to his parishioners Sunday to keep their faith as they grapple with allegations that one of their bishops was in possession of child pornography.
Archbishop Anthony Mancini said the church has had enough of charges of sexual abuse and impropriety. His comments come days after Bishop Raymond Lahey, from a Nova Scotia javascript:void(0)diocese, was charged in Ottawa with importing and possessing child pornography."
The above quotation from a Halifax newspaper certainly invites the conclusion that Archbishop Mancini has an unusually large amount of guile (and gall) in him even given the standards in recent years among the prelates of the Church of Rome. There is an unmistakable implication that the "charges of sexual abuse and impropriety" are signs of a flaw in those who make such allegations. The implication is cunningly worded so as to give the archbishop "deniability" - i.e. he will claim in righteous indignation that this is not what he meant - and yet allows him to evade (again) the church's responsibility by blaming those who discern and report wrongdoing
Archbishop Anthony Mancini said the church has had enough of charges of sexual abuse and impropriety. His comments come days after Bishop Raymond Lahey, from a Nova Scotia javascript:void(0)diocese, was charged in Ottawa with importing and possessing child pornography."
The above quotation from a Halifax newspaper certainly invites the conclusion that Archbishop Mancini has an unusually large amount of guile (and gall) in him even given the standards in recent years among the prelates of the Church of Rome. There is an unmistakable implication that the "charges of sexual abuse and impropriety" are signs of a flaw in those who make such allegations. The implication is cunningly worded so as to give the archbishop "deniability" - i.e. he will claim in righteous indignation that this is not what he meant - and yet allows him to evade (again) the church's responsibility by blaming those who discern and report wrongdoing
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Education and the profit motive
In recent years, governments in Canada have made repeated cuts to public education funding. These cuts have led, among other outcomes, to dissatisfaction with the public education system. Private interest groups have fostered this dissatisfaction for their own purposes.
One of the results of this dissatisfaction is the increase in the number of private schools in B. C., and the number of offshore schools offering B. C. curriculum to their students. These schools are, of course, for profit.
I am a teacher on call ("supply teacher" or "substitute teacher"). On more than one occasion, I have created original curriculum items when called to teach. I am sure that regularly employed teachers create their own material much more often than I do. It is likely that at least some of this material eventually finds its way into the B. C. curriculum. In other words, much of that curriculum has been created by teachers. They are not paid any additional income for this work. However, private companies profit from it by collecting fees for offering taxpayer-funded material to their students. The B. C. curriculum is apparently highly-respected outside Canada and attracts many students.
B. C. schools are increasingly offering International Baccalaureate (IB) programs to B. C. and out-of-country students. It is a reasonable (inescapable?) conclusion that this occurs because of real or purported deficiencies in the B. C. curriculum, surely a contradiction of the preceding paragraph. This is not, of course, to deny the qualities which IB may (probably does) possess. What does happen, however, is that B. C. teachers not only create curriculum content which (as above) is used by others for their own profit with no credit given or benefit accruing to the teachers who at least sometimes created the educational material. Teachers, therefore, are expected to gain competence in the additional material and (presumably) different pedagogical approach embodied in IB, on their own time and without any additional income as a result of their efforts.
This is how the situation appears to me. There may easily be further information or insights which might help me consider the matter in a different light.
One of the results of this dissatisfaction is the increase in the number of private schools in B. C., and the number of offshore schools offering B. C. curriculum to their students. These schools are, of course, for profit.
I am a teacher on call ("supply teacher" or "substitute teacher"). On more than one occasion, I have created original curriculum items when called to teach. I am sure that regularly employed teachers create their own material much more often than I do. It is likely that at least some of this material eventually finds its way into the B. C. curriculum. In other words, much of that curriculum has been created by teachers. They are not paid any additional income for this work. However, private companies profit from it by collecting fees for offering taxpayer-funded material to their students. The B. C. curriculum is apparently highly-respected outside Canada and attracts many students.
B. C. schools are increasingly offering International Baccalaureate (IB) programs to B. C. and out-of-country students. It is a reasonable (inescapable?) conclusion that this occurs because of real or purported deficiencies in the B. C. curriculum, surely a contradiction of the preceding paragraph. This is not, of course, to deny the qualities which IB may (probably does) possess. What does happen, however, is that B. C. teachers not only create curriculum content which (as above) is used by others for their own profit with no credit given or benefit accruing to the teachers who at least sometimes created the educational material. Teachers, therefore, are expected to gain competence in the additional material and (presumably) different pedagogical approach embodied in IB, on their own time and without any additional income as a result of their efforts.
This is how the situation appears to me. There may easily be further information or insights which might help me consider the matter in a different light.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
CBC budget cuts - the real reason?
Today, as in the past few days, there is news of more budget cuts for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
I think there has been a pattern among center-right governments in this country over the past generation or so.
The pattern was established by Brian Mulroney not long after he was sworn in as Prime Minister in September, 1984.
According to Knowlton Nash's book The Microphone Wars, the 1984 cuts to CBC were "proportionately far heavier than to other areas of government spending." There was "prolonged, loud cheering" in the House of Commons when the cuts were announced.
The CBC President at the time described the decision as "a catastrophe." But, he felt, "there was no way we would win with public opinion at that stage."
Mulroney was a very canny, and very sneaky, politician. He made most of the cuts, not among executives (though they earn the highest salaries) but among on-air personalities. The savings were comparatively modest, but the public noticed the increased weakness in the CBC's on-air presence and protested the cost of this increasingly inferior service. This was a predictable outcome (see below). Mr. Mulroney was either stupid enough to think that the weakness would not show, or malicious enough to create weakness intentionally under the guise of saving money. Not even the most virulent of Mulroney's enemies would accuse him of being stupid. This leaves "malicious", which I believe to be a very accurate description.
A Toronto Star editorial on Dec. 13, 1984 read, in part, as follows "[Prime Minister] Brian Mulroney campaigned… saying his first priority would be to create new jobs for Canadians. Yet now, without having created a single identifiable new job, he's throwing at least 750 Canadians out of work by chopping the CBC's budget." The editorial concluded: "Who gains? Not the CBC…and certainly Canadians won't."
On its editorial page the same day, the Globe and Mail said: "All right: the CBC had to share the general financial pain… but [Communications Minister Marcel] Masse should lay off the CBC before they chew off so much bark that the trunk withers and dies… There are many ways to kill an independent voice of national interest, and whittling away its funding is only one of them."
This independence is precisely what Mulroney objected to. So, I am convinced, did Jean Chretien. So, I believe firmly, does Stephen Harper. Though none of them admitted it, the above newspaper citations seem to me to invited the foregoing interpretation of events.
I think there has been a pattern among center-right governments in this country over the past generation or so.
The pattern was established by Brian Mulroney not long after he was sworn in as Prime Minister in September, 1984.
According to Knowlton Nash's book The Microphone Wars, the 1984 cuts to CBC were "proportionately far heavier than to other areas of government spending." There was "prolonged, loud cheering" in the House of Commons when the cuts were announced.
The CBC President at the time described the decision as "a catastrophe." But, he felt, "there was no way we would win with public opinion at that stage."
Mulroney was a very canny, and very sneaky, politician. He made most of the cuts, not among executives (though they earn the highest salaries) but among on-air personalities. The savings were comparatively modest, but the public noticed the increased weakness in the CBC's on-air presence and protested the cost of this increasingly inferior service. This was a predictable outcome (see below). Mr. Mulroney was either stupid enough to think that the weakness would not show, or malicious enough to create weakness intentionally under the guise of saving money. Not even the most virulent of Mulroney's enemies would accuse him of being stupid. This leaves "malicious", which I believe to be a very accurate description.
A Toronto Star editorial on Dec. 13, 1984 read, in part, as follows "[Prime Minister] Brian Mulroney campaigned… saying his first priority would be to create new jobs for Canadians. Yet now, without having created a single identifiable new job, he's throwing at least 750 Canadians out of work by chopping the CBC's budget." The editorial concluded: "Who gains? Not the CBC…and certainly Canadians won't."
On its editorial page the same day, the Globe and Mail said: "All right: the CBC had to share the general financial pain… but [Communications Minister Marcel] Masse should lay off the CBC before they chew off so much bark that the trunk withers and dies… There are many ways to kill an independent voice of national interest, and whittling away its funding is only one of them."
This independence is precisely what Mulroney objected to. So, I am convinced, did Jean Chretien. So, I believe firmly, does Stephen Harper. Though none of them admitted it, the above newspaper citations seem to me to invited the foregoing interpretation of events.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Power vs collaboration
Many lay people, and some clergy have left the Anglican Church of Canada (and the Episcopal Church in the United States) over that church's decision to support the blessing of same-gender unions. (That seems to be a gross over-simplification of what the Anglican Church has actually done - over-simplification to the point of major distortion.)
I was ordained priest by a clergy member who has since renounced his/her Anglican ordination. I think this individual acts without regard to the implications of this renunciation.
I do not for a moment, of course, think that the decision was taken lightly. It's a decision which lends weight, however, to much of my experience of Anglican christianity during the past 25 years.
The renunciation of participation in the Anglican Church of Canada calls into question the validity of every sacramental act - every ordination, every baptism, every celebration of eucharist. One who renounces the vocation of presiding over the acts as an Anglican clergy member of necessity, I think, renounces the acts themselves. My celebration of marriage, my ordination, the celebration of baptism of my children - it is as if they had never happened.
During my active parish ministry, the Anglican Church on more than one occasion refused to allow my requests to use my continuing education leave (3 weeks per year) to study communication skills. This subject was apparently considered inappropriate as continuing education. The Anglican Church’s unwillingness, as a matter of policy at the national level, to fund this type of further education among its clergy seems to have persisted during over 25 years. I am convinced that this outlook, shared (as the foregoing makes clear) by many Canadian Anglican leaders who otherwise disagree to the point of complete separation, has led to the current division in the Anglican communion.
Successful communicators using the mediation model have a proven record in furthering communication and collaboration between even the most intractable enemies. One of my B. C. Justice Institute instructors, for instance, had a success rate of slightly higher than 50% in the extremely difficult case of enabling, not reconciliation, but at least peaceful and collaborative coexistence, between the members of couples in which the man has been jailed for physically abusing his partner. Developing and maintaining peaceful collaboration within the Anglican Church, with all our common goals and purposes, would seem to have been an easy matter compared to creating peace in the situations I have alluded to. The various opinions in the Anglican Church are held by individuals who, to increase their power and influence by decreasing that of others, have systematically created conflict and division. For all their alleged differences, this systematic fostering of conflict is one area in which Anglican leaders have shown themselves to have common ground.
There are many who have paid, and will continue to pay, a huge price for this mutual abandonment of the good news of the Prince of Peace by leaders across the Canadian churches.
I was ordained priest by a clergy member who has since renounced his/her Anglican ordination. I think this individual acts without regard to the implications of this renunciation.
I do not for a moment, of course, think that the decision was taken lightly. It's a decision which lends weight, however, to much of my experience of Anglican christianity during the past 25 years.
The renunciation of participation in the Anglican Church of Canada calls into question the validity of every sacramental act - every ordination, every baptism, every celebration of eucharist. One who renounces the vocation of presiding over the acts as an Anglican clergy member of necessity, I think, renounces the acts themselves. My celebration of marriage, my ordination, the celebration of baptism of my children - it is as if they had never happened.
During my active parish ministry, the Anglican Church on more than one occasion refused to allow my requests to use my continuing education leave (3 weeks per year) to study communication skills. This subject was apparently considered inappropriate as continuing education. The Anglican Church’s unwillingness, as a matter of policy at the national level, to fund this type of further education among its clergy seems to have persisted during over 25 years. I am convinced that this outlook, shared (as the foregoing makes clear) by many Canadian Anglican leaders who otherwise disagree to the point of complete separation, has led to the current division in the Anglican communion.
Successful communicators using the mediation model have a proven record in furthering communication and collaboration between even the most intractable enemies. One of my B. C. Justice Institute instructors, for instance, had a success rate of slightly higher than 50% in the extremely difficult case of enabling, not reconciliation, but at least peaceful and collaborative coexistence, between the members of couples in which the man has been jailed for physically abusing his partner. Developing and maintaining peaceful collaboration within the Anglican Church, with all our common goals and purposes, would seem to have been an easy matter compared to creating peace in the situations I have alluded to. The various opinions in the Anglican Church are held by individuals who, to increase their power and influence by decreasing that of others, have systematically created conflict and division. For all their alleged differences, this systematic fostering of conflict is one area in which Anglican leaders have shown themselves to have common ground.
There are many who have paid, and will continue to pay, a huge price for this mutual abandonment of the good news of the Prince of Peace by leaders across the Canadian churches.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
An esoteric post of interest only to French horn fanatics
Some time ago, a bunch of us hired a local conductor (at the time she was the assistant conductor of the Vancouver Symphony) to take us through Beethoven's 9th Symphony. (This wouldn't have been my choice, but I had no influence and was glad to have the chance to play anything of that caliber. We read it without any vocalists!) I would have jumped much harder at an opportunity to read the 7th symphony.
There was some competition between the horn players as to who would play the challenging 4th horn part in the third movement. I would like to have tried it to debunk a comment I read in the Pelican volume "The Symphony 1. Haydn to Dvorak" (1966). On page 167, Basil Lam (the author of the article on Beethoven) writes "That the occasional can influence the creation of the permanent is shown by the circumstances in which Beethoven wrote the horn solo in this episode.... The simple explanation is that one player of the instrument in Vienna had a primitive example of the valve-horn: hence the allocation of this elaborate solo to the fourth horn."
Well, I am a very half-baked amateur horn-player. Yet, though I don't own a natural horn (of course!), I have reproduced the effect by using the Bb side of a double horn, fingering the note Eb concert, and playing the entire passage using hand-stopping. It's a bit tricky, but very do-able. I don't know where Basil Lam got his idea: I have read that the valve mechanism was invented by Stolzel in 1831 or so and was first used in Halevy's opera "La Juive" (which apparently has 2 valve cornet parts) in 1835. Although Berlioz uses 2 valve cornets (in "Harold in Italy" written in 1834), where they are in A and Bb. However, he uses natural trumpets alongside the cornets, and always uses four natural horns. He does the same in Symphonie Fantastique. Even later, in the Brahms Trio for horn, violin, and piano, the horn part specifically calls for "Waldhorn" yet has many hand-stopped notes, though the valve horn was readily available by Brahms' time
There was some competition between the horn players as to who would play the challenging 4th horn part in the third movement. I would like to have tried it to debunk a comment I read in the Pelican volume "The Symphony 1. Haydn to Dvorak" (1966). On page 167, Basil Lam (the author of the article on Beethoven) writes "That the occasional can influence the creation of the permanent is shown by the circumstances in which Beethoven wrote the horn solo in this episode.... The simple explanation is that one player of the instrument in Vienna had a primitive example of the valve-horn: hence the allocation of this elaborate solo to the fourth horn."
Well, I am a very half-baked amateur horn-player. Yet, though I don't own a natural horn (of course!), I have reproduced the effect by using the Bb side of a double horn, fingering the note Eb concert, and playing the entire passage using hand-stopping. It's a bit tricky, but very do-able. I don't know where Basil Lam got his idea: I have read that the valve mechanism was invented by Stolzel in 1831 or so and was first used in Halevy's opera "La Juive" (which apparently has 2 valve cornet parts) in 1835. Although Berlioz uses 2 valve cornets (in "Harold in Italy" written in 1834), where they are in A and Bb. However, he uses natural trumpets alongside the cornets, and always uses four natural horns. He does the same in Symphonie Fantastique. Even later, in the Brahms Trio for horn, violin, and piano, the horn part specifically calls for "Waldhorn" yet has many hand-stopped notes, though the valve horn was readily available by Brahms' time
First post
I have never posted anything yet. I have been a little uneasy about trying "blogging" because I am highly unfamiliar with the ins and outs and I expect therefore to make some basic and pretty foolish mistakes. I also tend to hold opinions which seem to differ from those of many others. I look forward to any interesting and positive comments.
I'm sending this opinion out as a trial balloon, to see what responses I'll get and simply to begin learning the basic process of posting and receiving comments.
Recently in my part of the world there is a great deal of attention being paid to gang violence. Politicians are making frenzied pronouncements as to how they will stop this violence. I think there is one basic premise which they are ignoring.
Gangs are presumably profitable, whether through drug dealing, weapons sales, illegal sale of alcohol or tobacco products, extortion, or whatever else they may do. It seems to me that it is essential for these profits to be "laundered". If this money laundering could be stopped, gang activity would dwindle because the profits could not be used. I expect that this will never happen because the practices used by gangs to launder their money are also widely used in supposedly legal business activity and in government financing. Businesses and government want these practices (often a matter of "creative accounting") to continue, as they find them useful.
I'm sending this opinion out as a trial balloon, to see what responses I'll get and simply to begin learning the basic process of posting and receiving comments.
Recently in my part of the world there is a great deal of attention being paid to gang violence. Politicians are making frenzied pronouncements as to how they will stop this violence. I think there is one basic premise which they are ignoring.
Gangs are presumably profitable, whether through drug dealing, weapons sales, illegal sale of alcohol or tobacco products, extortion, or whatever else they may do. It seems to me that it is essential for these profits to be "laundered". If this money laundering could be stopped, gang activity would dwindle because the profits could not be used. I expect that this will never happen because the practices used by gangs to launder their money are also widely used in supposedly legal business activity and in government financing. Businesses and government want these practices (often a matter of "creative accounting") to continue, as they find them useful.
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